Strategic Higher Ed Branded Merch Expertise, Built for the Admissions Funnel

Admissions isn’t a series of isolated campaigns. It’s a connected journey, and every touchpoint shapes how students experience your institution.
 
For more than 20 years, Magellan has partnered with colleges and universities to create strategic branded merch campaigns that strengthen connection, build excitement, and reinforce belonging from first inquiry through move-in day. Whether you’re focused on connecting with prospective students, celebrating admitted students, reducing melt, or strengthening the entire enrollment journey, we bring the experience, ideas, and higher ed expertise to help every campaign work harder.

Why Branded Merch Matters

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Nearly half of students we surveyed said branded merch had some influence on where they chose to attend school. And the #1 emotion branded merch creates? Excitement.

From First Touch to Move-In Day, We’ve Got You

Every institution’s admissions strategy looks a little different. We’ve executed campaigns and multi-touch programs across the country, and we know what works at every stage. Get inspired by some of our real-life project stories.

Browse Merch to Match Every Recruitment Touchpoint

Browse curated collections of branded merch and campaign concepts created with higher ed audiences in mind. Discover ideas for recruitment, engagement, and student connection.

College Recruitment

A collection of product solutions that span the entire enrollment funnel.

Popular Items

See what's hot right now!

Interactive Mailings

Create memorable physical touchpoints using mailable items and custom packaging.

More Ideas for the Journey Ahead

Explore thought leadership, inspiration, and practical ideas for using branded merch to connect with students throughout the enrollment experience.

Support for Every Step Along the Way

From early planning to final delivery, the right support helps turn ideas into seamless student engagement experiences. Explore the services that can help bring your campaigns to life. 

Simplify fulfillment and mailing projects with support that ensures materials arrive accurately and on time.

Navigate higher ed licensing requirements with guidance from a team experienced in working with campuses nationwide.

Connect merch with Slate or your CRM to create more timely, personalized student touchpoints.

Create flexible online choice stores that give recipients a streamlined way to select items that fit their preferences and needs.

Partner with higher education experts who can help with brainstorming, strategy, and finding the right approach for your goals.

Don’t Miss the Next Idea

If you enjoyed these admissions examples, you’ll love Compass. Every other week, we share new project stories, research, campaign ideas, and enrollment strategies to help higher ed marketers create meaningful moments throughout the student journey.

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list: