This month, TrendyMinds is excited to kick off its technical support of six community colleges who recently won grants from Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation. We’re embarking on a relationship with these colleges that will last through October of 2024, aiming to improve and expand their digital presence and mobile outreach capabilities to better connect with potential students. A major challenge for colleges and universities is that attracting new students is a never-ending task. Unlike a company that sells a product or service, an educational institution exists to move their “customer” through a finite experience and then wish them well. It’s not getting any easier. According to the Institute of Education Sciences, undergraduate enrollment dropped 15% from 2010 to 2021, which means about 2.6 million fewer students entered college. Community colleges, in particular, saw a big dip during the pandemic, and enrollment remains well below pre-pandemic levels. Lumina Foundation’s mission is to make learning opportunities beyond high school available to anyone who wants to pursue them. As their Agency of Preference, it’s our mission to equip them to succeed. Engaging students through digital marketing In July, Lumina Foundation announced they were awarding six grants, of $150,000 each, to six community colleges. The grants will improve and expand these schools’ digital presence and mobile outreach capabilities to better connect with potential students. According to Lumina, “Each selected college demonstrated a clear vision for how they will use grant funds and a commitment to activate that vision. All grant activities support the engagement and enrollment and/or re-enrollment of students, emphasizing adult learners, students of color, working students, and parenting students.” As their partner, we will provide valuable guidance in digital marketing and the use of data. We will offer each college: a performance audit of their website and recommended roadmap for the futureoptimization of their Google Analytics and Google Tag Managerconsultative support for building and executing a marketing plan alignment on data and reporting, including a custom dashboard they can use to track progress “We’re honored that Lumina tapped us to be part of this amazing journey, and thrilled that our expertise in digital marketing tactics — as well as data and analytics — can benefit colleges, potentially helping more students to achieve their goals,” said Brian Walker, Campaign Studio Lead. The selected colleges are Iowa Lakes Community College, Bismarck State College, Blackhawk Technical College, South Piedmont Community College, Central Wyoming College, and Guam Community College. Learn more about the Services we offer to educational institutions as well as clients in other industries.