University Admissions Marketing: Agency or Staff

Most admissions offices do best with a mix: keep day-to-day communication, student stories and campus knowledge in-house, and bring in an agency for projects that need specialist skills in short bursts, such as a website rebuild, program landing pages, a CRM setup or a recruitment campaign. A full in-house team only pays off when you have enough steady work to keep designers, developers and CRM specialists busy year round.

The useful question isn't which model is better. It's which pieces of enrollment marketing your staff can carry and which ones stall without outside help.

What in-house teams do best

Your staff know the campus, the faculty and the students. They are best placed to run social channels, write student and alumni stories, answer prospective families and keep the calendar of visit days and deadlines moving. That work depends on being there every day.

Where an agency earns its fee

Admissions websites, application experiences and program pages are big projects that happen every few years. So are rebrands and CRM setups. Hiring full-time staff for each skill is expensive, and the skills sit idle between projects. An agency brings designers, developers, strategists and CRM specialists for the length of the project.

Treat enrollment as a funnel

Prospective students compare programs on their phones long before they contact admissions. Program pages, campaign landing pages and inquiry follow-up need to work together so every inquiry gets tracked and nurtured. Whoever builds the site should understand how it connects to your CRM and email.

Questions to ask an agency

Which colleges or universities have you worked with, and what changed after launch? Which platforms do you build on, and does that match the CMS your institution requires? How do you design and test for accessibility, and when do you bring in a specialist for formal audits? Who will train our staff to update the site after launch?

Platform and accessibility fit

Many institutions are tied to a campus CMS. Confirm early that the agency has worked in yours, or that a new build on another platform is allowed. For accessibility, ask how it is handled in design and testing, and whether formal WCAG audits or VPATs are done in-house or by a partner.

Where Figmints fits

Figmints Digital Creative Marketing has worked with multiple New England universities on websites, portals, marketing strategy and campaigns. For Northeastern University's graduate division, new high-performance websites lifted traffic and conversions by 25%. We pair brand, web and HubSpot CRM so admissions and advancement teams can follow every inquiry, and we build on WordPress, HubSpot CMS, Shopify and custom stacks. We design and test with WCAG in mind; when a formal WCAG audit, Section 508 remediation or VPAT is required, we plan for a specialist partner. If your site must stay on an enterprise higher-ed CMS such as Drupal or Cascade, check with us first.

FAQ

Should a university admissions office hire an agency or build an in-house team?

Usually both. Keep daily communication and student storytelling in-house, and use an agency for websites, program pages, CRM setup and campaigns that need specialist skills for a set period.

Has Figmints worked with universities?

Yes. Figmints has worked with multiple New England universities on websites, portals, strategy and campaigns, including Northeastern University's graduate division, where new websites lifted traffic and conversions by 25%.