Every week, a higher education institution announces a new research breakthrough, enrolment stats, or a partnership with industry. Press releases go out, social posts are scheduled, and journalists are pinged with the updates. However, more often than not, the story disappears into the noise of a very crowded higher education news cycle.
This is the unfortunate truth facing comms and marketing teams across the sector, visibility may seem easy to achieve but memorability is often the issue. Getting coverage isn’t the same as being remembered.
So, what separates visibility that fades from visibility that sticks? Here’s how you ensure that your institution will be remembered.
It’s tempting to measure success by the amount of coverage you secure, but you want your audience to actually absorb and retain the messages.
Memorable visibility often starts with a point of view, not a fact. A university announcing a new AI research centre is one step. A university explaining why its particular approach to AI ethics challenges the current norm is the next step that gives journalists, and prospective students, something to really hold onto. The difference here is the presence of a distinct argument rather than simply a neutral update.
Before any story goes out, comms and PR teams should be able to answer one question clearly: what is the one thing we want someone to remember about this? If the answer is vague, the story needs sharpening before it reaches distribution.
It’s natural to chase the big hits: the national feature, a viral LinkedIn post, or an important sector award, and whilst we agree these moments are important to your strategy, they rarely build memorability on their own. What works over time is consistency. Having the same voices and key themes showing up again and again will ensure that your audience will associate those topics with your institution.
Building a recognisable point of view on three or four themes that aligns with your strategy, does more for long-term recall than sporadic bursts of unconnected news.
Higher education comms has a tendency to default to the ‘institutional voice.’ Achievements are sometimes framed around the university as an entity rather than the people within it. But people often remember people, not organisations.
This doesn’t mean abandoning institutional messaging, it just means using individuals as the entry point into it. Journalists are more likely to run a story with a compelling individual, and audiences are far more likely to remember a name and a face rather than an institution. Your Dean, faculty, students and alumni, are all excellent ways to share your message with the media, without sounding like everyone else.
Even a well-crafted story can vanish if it is released at the wrong moment. Comms professionals need to think beyond their own institutional calendar and consider the broader media and cultural context. Is this news landing in a week dominated by a national story that will bury it? Is there a relevant public conversation, for instance a policy debate, or sector wide trend, that this story could plug into rather than compete against?
Memorable visibility regularly comes from being part of a larger conversation. Monitoring what is already capturing attention, and finding an authentic angle for your institution within it, significantly increases the odds that a story is retained rather than skimmed past.
If memorability is the goal, how can it be measured? Analysing reach is, of course, important, but consider supplementing that with further analysis… Are stakeholders repeating your key messages back to you unprompted? Are journalists returning to your institution as a source without being pitched? Is your Dean being invited to comment because they are recognised as a leading voice? Are applicants citing your messages as reasons for applying?
These are harder to quantify, but they are real evidence that your media visibility has been converted into something durable.
Getting noticed is no longer the challenge for higher education comms teams, staying remembered is. That requires a clear point of view, consistency over time, human-centred storytelling, and sharp timing. Institutions that master this won’t just be seen; they will be the ones people think of first when the conversation turns to their field.
For more support with ensuring your institution remains memorable, contact BlueSky Education today.
Katie is an education communications specialist with journalistic flair thanks to a degree in Multimedia Journalism and a stint as a reporter at the Financial Times, bringing her solid background in the media to her senior role at BlueSky Education.