Workforce-aligned education is more in demand than ever—yet many professional continuing education (PCE) programs are struggling to capture their share. According to the State of Continuing Education 2024 report, enrollments in online and PCE programs have dropped to their lowest levels in recent years, even as institutions expand offerings to new audiences like healthcare, government, and alumni learners.
So where’s the disconnect?
The value of continuing education is clear, both for learners and institutions. But building a great program isn’t enough. To grow, PCE programs need strategic marketing that speaks to diverse learners, navigates internal complexity, and proves clear value.
Why Continuing Education Matters to Institutions
Continuing education and workforce development aren’t just good for learners—they’re critical to institutional sustainability and impact. Here’s how:
- Enrollment Gap: Adult learners help offset undergrad declines due to demographic shifts and can act as on- and off-ramps for degree programs.
- Relevance Gap: Rapid tech and industry changes demand fresh, responsive content for reskilling and upskilling.
- Partnership Gap: Collaboration with employers boosts job placement, builds a skilled employee funnel, and ensures content is aligned with industry needs
- Resource Gap: Many CE programs build on capacity from existing faculty and curricula, making them cost-effective and scalable.
Accessibility Gap: Modular, flexible programs reach new learner segments due to greater affordability and convenience.
In short, continuing education delivers value across the board. But institutions still face a critical question: How do we market these programs effectively?
What Holds PCE Marketing Back?
Through our work with institutions nationwide, we’ve seen several common challenges that limit program growth:
Fragmented Audiences
CE learners include career-switchers, upskillers, and lifelong learners—each with different goals. Messaging must be targeted, not one-size-fits-all.
Siloed Resources
When CE is decentralized, marketing efforts become inconsistent or duplicated. Tapping into shared resources and aligning messaging is key.
Limited Personalization
Today’s learners expect personalized communications, but privacy constraints and lean staffing can make this difficult to deliver at scale.
Adult Learner Visibility
Most institutional marketing still centers on traditional students. Adult learners often don’t see themselves reflected in the messaging.
Unclear ROI
Learners are pragmatic. They want to know what skills they’ll gain, what outcomes to expect, and how quickly it pays off. Institutions must strike the right balance: communicate impact without overpromising.
Local Relevance
While global skills matter, so do regional needs. PCE programs that reflect local labor trends can be especially powerful when paired with the right outreach.
What’s Working: Five Takeaways for Smarter CE Marketing
Drawing from Noodle’s partnerships across a wide range of institutions, we see five consistent strategies that help continuing education programs gain traction:
1. Invest in Data Infrastructure to Get a Holistic Picture
Use tools that provide real-time insights into engagement, conversion, and learner behavior. Investing in a data lake that sources information across the student journey enables agile, evidence-based marketing and a clear understanding of where to invest marketing dollars to drive enrollment.
2. Modernize Your Marketing Stack to Enable Personalization
SEO, lifecycle email campaigns, and A/B testing aren’t just for traditional programs. They’re essential for building awareness and driving sustained interest. Leverage AI to supercharge your outreach – offering personalized marketing messages, adapting to real-time interactions, or improving targeting.
3. Be Proactive with Predictive Analytics
AI and analytics can personalize outreach, flag at-risk learners, and help forecast program demand—especially important for modular, just-in-time offerings. Deeply understanding someone’s learning journey allows you to be proactive in outreach – send nudges to promote course completion or reminders to update credentials with your latest offering.
4. Expand Industry and Alumni Partnerships
Collaborate with local employers, industry associations, and alumni to amplify reach, enhance relevance, and co-design programming. Modular development of course content can help institutions develop more customized or co-branded offerings, with moderate incremental effort.
5. Understand the Lifetime Value of a Learner
Beyond enrollment numbers, measure learner satisfaction, career advancement, and repeat engagement to build lasting credibility and improvement. By evolving with the learner, institutions can become a trusted destination for learning throughout a student’s learning journey.
Continuing education is a critical lever for institutions seeking growth, relevance, and impact. But growth requires more than building the right programs. It takes marketing strategies that connect with learners where they are, speak to what they value, and evolve alongside the marketplace.
Let’s Noodle on Continuing Education Together
Engagement with a reliable, experienced partner like Noodle can quickly unlock opportunities to scale continuing education. With Noodle Learning Platform (NLP), you have the opportunity to draw on courses from across your university’s campus and partner institutions to offer learners a curated content experience, and our AI tools can also help you recommend the best learning pathways for each student. Our Learning Platform is LMS-agnostic and facilitates financial processes, including checkout, custom invoices, refunds, discount codes, and financial hygiene across all customers. The platform also provides affiliate channels to promote your content to new industries and geographies, expanding your reach.
Let’s Talk.
