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Higher Ed Doesn’t Buy Like Everyone Else—Start Here

  • March 27, 2025
Gil Rogers

Why your pipeline might be stalling (and what to do instead)

If you’re leading an edtech startup trying to break into colleges and universities, chances are your sales strategy feels stuck. You’ve got a great product. You know you can help. But the response rate? Crickets.

Here’s the core issue:
You’re selling into higher ed like it’s any other vertical. It’s not.

Most enrollment leaders don’t want to be sold to. They want to be helped, and they want to work with partners they trust. Cold emails, SaaS-style sequences, and “just following up” messages aren’t building trust—they’re burning it.

At the same time, higher ed institutions are under pressure like never before:

  • Yield and melt are top of mind.
  • Budget cycles are rigid (and slow).
  • The US Department of Education mess has added even more chaos (real or perceived) to the spring.

If your outreach doesn’t reflect a deep understanding of that reality, you’ll be ignored. Not because they don’t need your product. Because they don’t believe you get them.

Start there. Speak their language. And earn your place in their inbox.

 
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