Higher education institutions have never had more stories worth telling. Faculty members are conducting groundbreaking research, students are launching innovative programs, alumni are making an impact around the world, and campuses are finding new ways to serve their communities.
The challenge isn’t finding compelling stories. It’s ensuring the right people hear them.
A strong media relations strategy helps colleges and universities build credibility, strengthen their reputation, and reach prospective students, families, alumni, donors, and community partners through trusted third-party coverage. While press releases still have their place, today’s most successful institutions take a more proactive, strategic approach to earning media attention.
Through media relations, thought leadership and effective storytelling to keymedia outlets, colleges and universities can increase brand awareness and visibility in the public arena, ultimately helping them achieve their institutional missions.
Here are seven ways colleges and universities can build a media relations strategy that drives meaningful results.
1. Build Your Strategy Around Institutional Goals
Media coverage should support broader institutional priorities rather than exist as a standalone marketing effort.
Whether your institution is focused on increasing enrollment, strengthening its academic reputation, attracting research funding, or improving alumni engagement, your communications strategy should reinforce those objectives. Every story you pitch should answer an important question:
How does this support the university’s long-term goals?
When communications teams align with leadership priorities, media relations becomes a strategic function rather than a reactive one.
2. Develop a Year-Round Story Pipeline
Many institutions only think about media outreach when there’s a major announcement. The strongest programs, however, consistently develop stories throughout the year.
Create an editorial calendar that includes opportunities such as:
- Faculty research and published studies
- Student achievements
- New academic programs
- Community partnerships
- Grant awards
- Campus initiatives
- Alumni success stories
- Seasonal or timely expert commentary
Planning ahead allows communications teams to pitch stronger stories while avoiding periods where news becomes difficult to generate.
3. Turn Faculty Into Trusted Media Sources
Faculty expertise is often a university’s greatest public relations asset.
Journalists are constantly looking for credible experts who can explain complex issues, provide context around breaking news, or offer informed commentary on emerging trends. Institutions that proactively identify media-ready faculty members are often able to secure coverage far beyond traditional campus news.
Providing media training and maintaining updated faculty expert lists allows communications teams to respond quickly when opportunities arise.
4. Focus on Relationships, Not Just Press Releases
Successful media relations is built on relationships. Instead of sending the same announcement to hundreds of reporters, invest time in understanding which journalists cover your institution’s areas of expertise. Learn what types of stories they write, how they prefer to receive pitches, and what information helps them work more efficiently.
Thoughtful, personalized outreach consistently produces better results than mass distribution. Over time, these relationships can position your institution as a trusted source that reporters return to again and again.
5. Look Beyond Major Announcements
Not every worthwhile story needs to involve a new building, a major donation, or a leadership announcement.
Some of the most compelling media opportunities come from the people behind the institution.
Faculty research with real-world applications, student entrepreneurship, community partnerships, innovative teaching methods, and alumni making an impact often resonate more strongly than institutional announcements because they tell a human story.
Looking beyond traditional press releases creates a richer pipeline of earned media opportunities.
6. Measure Impact, Not Just Coverage
The number of media placements is only one measure of success.
A more meaningful evaluation considers questions such as:
- Did coverage reach the audiences we wanted to influence?
- Did the institution become associated with key areas of expertise?
- Were faculty members quoted as credible thought leaders?
- Did earned media support enrollment, fundraising, or reputation goals?
- Did journalists continue reaching out for future stories?
These indicators provide a clearer picture of how communications efforts contribute to long-term institutional success.
7. Prepare Before Opportunities Arise
The best media opportunities often happen with little notice.
Whether responding to breaking news, managing a sensitive issue, or providing expert commentary, institutions that already have clear messaging, trained spokespeople, and established media relationships are better positioned to respond quickly and confidently.
Preparation allows communications teams to shift from reacting to leading conversations.
What Are the Benefits of PR for Universities, Colleges & Online Higher Education Programs?
Media relations can help to promote your higher education institution, enhance its credibility, build trust and support admissions and student enrollment. Storytelling is an important element of media relations as it allows you to inform the public about key initiatives and successes achieved by your college, university, and exceptional students and faculty.
Below are the top benefits of incorporating a PR strategy into your ongoing marketing efforts:
1. Boost Student Enrollment
Perhaps one of the most important benefits of PR for higher education is that it can help support efforts to boost student enrollment. By engaging in strategic media relations and storytelling, colleges and universities can increase awareness of their institution, which can support overall strategies to attract more qualified applicants. Here are a few ways that PR can help efforts to boost the number of students enrolling:
- Geo-Specific Targets – Through our media relations efforts, we’re able to target specific regions and areas where your ideal student demographic resides.
- Virtual Presence & High Potential Reach – We are able to tell stories to your target audiences without the need of physical interaction. This allows for your key messages and stories to have the potential to reach large and even global audiences. As the potential audience of any given PR effort expands, a college or university has the opportunity to reach more prospective students and further encourage them to apply, which is particularly important for international student applicants.
- Curated Content – By crafting press releases and other content related to topics that are relevant to your institution, we’re able to grab the attention of potential students and increase awareness of your school, which can lead to more visits on your website and a greater number of users signing up for more information about your programs and academic offerings.
2. Improve Brand Awareness
Media coverage increases brand visibility and provides a platform for colleges and universities to showcase their students, faculty, programs, research and achievements. This enhances their reputation and credibility in the crowded higher education marketplace.
3. Generate Positive Emotions
PR for higher education can also be used to create a positive emotional connection with potential students and other stakeholders, such as alumni or donors. Purposeful storytelling allows colleges and universities to showcase the values of their institution, which helps to foster loyalty and a long-term relationship.
4. Enhance Reputation & Credibility
Media coverage also helps to build trust and enhance the reputation of an institution or school, as potential students and faculty may be more attracted to higher education institutions with positive media coverage.
This boost in credibility doesn’t pertain to the brand alone, but to the faculty that supply an abundance of education thought leaders to colleges and universities. By positioning faculty members as thought leaders in their respective fields in the media, students may naturally want to learn more about the institution itself, knowing that they have a unique opportunity to learn and grow from those professors, researchers and educators.
In addition, faculty members may be able to leverage their media coverage for their own research and academic opportunities, which can lead to increased recognition in their field. Oftentimes, faculty members will need spokesperson and media training as part of their higher ed PR efforts. AKCG can provide spokesperson media training and help prepare them for live TV interviews and speaking engagements.
What Are the Best Tactics to Use in Higher Ed PR Strategies?
When done correctly, media relations can be an effective tool in creating awareness and visibility for higher education institutions. Here are our top five tactics to effectively use media relations to promote your college or university:
1. Know Your Target Audience
Of course, you’ll want to identify your target media outlet and connect with the right journalists, editors, bloggers and influencers relevant to the story you are pitching. However, you don’t want to limit your thinking to just the media outlet that you want to focus on; you’ll also want to know the audience that you’re targeting specifically.
For example, you want to know what Gen Z and millennial students are looking for in terms of education and what their expectations are. You’ll need to understand what they are reading and viewing on a regular basis. Understanding your target audience better will help you to find the right channels to reach them and craft the right storytelling for them.
At AKCG, we don’t deploy a one-size-fits all approach. We work with our higher education clients to identify the most appropriate media target for any given pitch, press release or project.
2. Employ a Multi-Channel Approach
To maximize visibility, you’ll want to use multiple channels of communication to get your message out there. This includes traditional media such as newspapers and magazines, broadcast outlets such as radio and television, as well as digital channels including blogs and online news sites.
3. Develop Impactful Storytelling Strategies
Crafting compelling stories is one of the most important elements of a successful PR strategy for higher education institutions. To create engaging content that resonates with your target audience, you’ll need to understand their needs and interests and craft stories that will resonate.
At AKCG, we develop stories that are creative and engaging while also conveying a sense of credibility. Our team has extensive experience in crafting impactful stories that can help to position our clients as thought leaders in their field.
4. Build Relationships with Media Contacts
Building relationships with reporters, editors and journalists is an important part of any successful PR strategy. By engaging with media personnel on a regular basis, you can form connections that build trust. Having a mutually beneficial relationship with a reporter can support your efforts to share your institution’s message in relevant outlets, so it will be heard by the target audiences.
Our team works to develop long-term relationships with key media contacts in order to support our higher education clients’ goals or securing meaningful media coverage. We also provide counsel on how to effectively communicate with the press and foster positive relations.
5. Monitor & Analyze Results
This is the case with any new strategy, but it’s imperative to ensure you are tracking, measuring and analyzing the results of your media relations and PR strategy. Know what your KPIs are, what metrics are most important to your team and analyze the data to ensure that your efforts are moving the needle on your bottom line.
In Conclusion
Higher education PR and media relations is an effective tool for creating visibility and awareness for colleges and universities. Developing a strategy that includes the tactics outlined above can help to ensure your message resonates with target audiences and has a lasting impact on your school.
At AKCG, we understand that no two higher education institutions are alike and work closely with our clients to develop customized thought leadership and media relations strategies tailored to their needs. To learn more about how we can help, please get in touch with us today.
