Featuring from The PIE Live Boston, we're exploring a transformative journey fusing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. As a speaker, at the event, Alejandra engaged with the audience by guiding them through the following question: How can institutions future-proof their strategies by harnessing AI and CRM to elevate both student and staff experiences?

In the ever-evolving landscape of knowledge and expertise, the dynamic force of collaboration and shared experiences emerges as a priceless asset. Within the geNEOus team, the art of exchanging ideas, tools, and resources is a passion that drives us. Today, we extend our arms to our wider community, eager to illuminate a path strewn with the gems of our collective wisdom.

We are excited to share a collection of our team members' favorite resources. These span a wide spectrum, from books, blogs that have sparked transformative shifts in thinking, to online tools and apps that have streamlined our workflows and productivity.

Whether you're seeking to expand your horizons, enhance your skills, or simply find a new source of joy, we are confident that you will stumble upon an array of treasures resonating with your aspirations.

As the summer sun starts to shine brighter, it's the perfect time to revamp our marketing playbook, especially for us in the education sector. Let's face it, the hot spot to catch potential students and their families right now is social media. But what if we added a twist to the old story and brought sustainability into the mix? Let's delve into how we can merge Paid Media and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into a turbocharged strategy.

Creating a well-structured paid media strategy during the summer can give your educational institution a competitive edge, specially for those students and parents who haven't still made a final decision for the upcoming intake. It is key that your institution has strong visibility during this period, and an effective paid media campaign can shed a spotlight on your institution, making it a top choice.

As we continue on a digital transformation path of international education, community building platforms are proving to be an unstoppable force, revolutionizing the way international students experience learning. The paradigm has shifted from the traditional classroom-centric approach to a more holistic strategy that nurtures an environment of inclusivity, connectedness, and consistent support. Trust and genuine connections are not merely buzzwords but pillars of these thriving communities.

These spaces are a treasure trove of resources not just for future learners, but also act as engagement hubs for current students and evangelization platforms for alumni.

Last week was definitely one to remember! Yes, this was the week of the NAFSA: Association of International Educators 2023 Conference in Washington D.C.

Our Founder & CEO Alejandra Otero had the pleasure to be a panelist alongside Piet Van Hove, Nannette Ripmeester and Daniel Ponce-Taylor as they explored an emerging topic which is becoming a hot-button issue in intled: SDGs in Higher Education Marketing: Essential or Just Another Ingredient?

Way back in 2005 the United Nations mobilized the forces of education with a powerful call to action. The “Decade of ESD” (Education for Sustainable Development) triggered lots of activity on a global scale, to ensure that education could play a more conscious role in developing the mindsets, skills, attitudes, and behaviors of a sustainable society beyond 2030. 

Are you in education marketing or student recruitment? Despite the handy “M&R” phrase, we meet so many colleagues who talk of each component as two entirely separate planets.

Given how competitive things are in education, we think it's vital for education institutions to understand the link between marketing and recruitment and to make sure they are working and communicating hand in hand.

If we go back to basics and define the terms, marketing in education refers to the strategies and tactics that educational institutions use to promote themselves to prospective students, parents, and other stakeholders. Recruitment, on the other hand, refers to the process of attracting and enrolling new students to the institution. 

Even stripping them back to their elemental forms, they completely overlap. While to some, marketing and recruitment may seem like two different things, they are both part of the same process: catching new students' attention and enrolling them.

Marketing and recruitment have more in common than we might think. Both require a deep understanding of the target audience and the ability to connect with them on a personal level. In both cases, it's all about building relationships and creating a sense of community. Both also require a keen eye for detail, whether it's analyzing data or reviewing applications.

So, are their differences really so significant in reality?

We returned recently to the UNICA report, entitled New strategies of marketing and recruitment of international students, for a second look. There are often things we miss, or gloss over, on the first readings of these reports, and we are glad that we revisited this one.

There is a piece by Aswin Lutchanah, Social Media Manager at the University of Luxembourg, which caught our eye, because we loved the simplicity of it. The topic was Empathy Marketing; something we have seen a lot more attention being paid to as new generations arrive at our institutions, accentuated by the drivers of the post-pandemic educational landscape.

Empathy is complex, but fundamentally it is the glue to social cohesion and often overlooked as a unique force in the way we communicate with and engage new students.

By 2025, Millennials will make up nearly 75% of the global workforce. Gen Z-ers born in the mid-1990s are already graduating from higher education and reshaping the world of business. (The cool) universities are now turning their attention to the next generation: Generation Alpha. With the rise of a more tech-focused world, as well as changing social and cultural values, who is now knocking at our doors and what do they want? 

Millennials are just so 1995, but they are the ones who have driven the major recent changes to workplace culture, spearheading the so-called “Great Resignation” and demands for a different way of doing things post-pandemic. 

Before we have even really adapted to this and internalized what it all means, along come Gen Z, who are determined to outshine the Z’s by bringing their personal values into their work. Gone is the “work persona” with the Z’s, who want to be themselves wherever they are. Already there is a brewing clash with top-down formal, hierarchical and high power-distance organizations. 

With both these generations fully embedded in the workplace and Gen Alpha not too far behind, education institutions need to take action now to attract and retain them as workers and, of course, as potential students.