A friend once described the college choice process as a drama in two acts. In Act 1, the student looks at hard facts such as: 1) Do they have my major? 2) Can I afford it? 3) Do graduates get good jobs? 4) Can I get into med school from here?

In Act 2, they begin to rank their top choices. Interestingly, this ranking is often based on intangibles such as: 

• Did the campus feel vibrant?
• Can I picture myself here?
• Are the people welcoming and friendly?
• Does someone on campus look like me?
• Was I treated like I was special?

Central to Act 2 is the campus visit. Study after study, including many conducted for our clients, affirm that the campus visit remains one of the pivotal moments in the college choice process. We know that students are unlikely to attend a college they have not visited and that a visit, especially an in-person visit, is a powerful declaration of interest. 

Historically, students visited campus, stayed overnight in an apartment or residence hall, and spent one or more days shadowing students and talking to faculty. Today, students and parents can explore the campus through virtual experiences. And in-person visits are shorter and seldom involve an overnight stay, so a student and their family can visit multiple colleges in a one- or two-day period. 

In any form, the visit remains a critical step in the college choice process. With that in mind, we wanted to offer nine ideas for enhancing your campus visit strategy. 

9 Ways to Make Your Campus Visits Better

1. Mystery Shop Your Competitors

Go online and visit them virtually. If possible, give yourself a self-guided tour of their campus. Get the clearest possible understanding of who you are selling against. This information will help you differentiate your visit.

2. Make Visits Memorable

One client used the term “edutainment” to describe the visit. “Half education,” she said, “and half entertainment.” As you think about the visit experience, remember that it must not only be memorable, but it must differentiate your campus from other colleges on the student’s short list. In general, students are most interested in talking to other students and meeting with faculty. They really don’t want to hear from the president or learn when you were founded. They want to connect.

3. Make Visits Audience Centric

Every aspect of the visit must be designed from her or his perspective. Understand that it is always more about them (students) and less about you (the college).

4. Customize Every Visit

Women who want to study engineering will have different visit expectations than men who want to study nursing. Resist the temptation to treat all visiting students the same. Anything you can learn about the student before the visit should be used to customize the visit.

5. Be Personal and Personable

Whether in person or online, people connect emotionally, demonstrate empathy, are welcoming and hospitable, and can probe and respond. Prospective students, like all people, want to (even demand) to be understood, valued, and comfortable.

6. Offer Parents a Separate Visit Experience

Parents tend to have different yet overlapping information needs than their sons and daughters. They are concerned about cost, academic experience (who is teaching what), and safety.

7. Feed Them 😊

Make sure to have a variety of snacks for all types of diets. Snacks are for students AND parents.

8. Conduct a Post-Visit Survey

Ask both students and parents “How’d we do?” and “How can we do better?” Any changes to the visit should be based on good data. In addition, asking for the input of prospects and parents communicates that you care about their experiences.

9. Follow Up on Their Experience

Remember, by visiting, these students demonstrated a keen interest in your school. Make sure you have a next step in the queue. Keep the momentum. One client described the follow up as part of their “keep sold” strategy.

Read More: How to Increase Application Yield

Make It a Campus Wide Event

Everyone on campus must understand their role in providing a great visit experience. Too often, faculty and staff view the campus visit as a vast inconvenience and their goal is just to get the thing over with. People with this attitude should never have any interaction with visitors.

Train and Continually Monitor Your Tour Leaders

Guides should be trained to listen carefully. Further, they must be able to personalize the campus—and their own experiences—in meaningful, relatable ways.  

Every morning, before the start of the school day, take a stroll on the money walk. The money walk is the path that most tours follow. Make sure that everything your prospective students will encounter on the money walk makes a positive impression. 

Break your overall visit strategy into three parts: 

• Before the visit: How are you prepping prospective students for the visit? What can you learn from them before the visit that will allow you to further customize the visit? 
• During the visit: How have you demonstrated what you have learned about the prospect during the visit? 
• After the visit: What does your post-visit follow-up look like? Remember to follow up on their experience. 

Track Outcomes Data

Track your college visit outcomes data. Organize these data by tour guide and, when possible, by faculty. This will allow you to isolate potential problems and take corrective action.

Conduct a Mystery Shop

Do a secret shop on your own visit program. There’s nothing like a boots-on-the-ground perspective to give you a sense of how things work.

Read More: Enroll More Now: 3 Steps You Can Take Today

Improving Your Virtual Visit Experience

The Virtual Campus Experience provides students who can’t easily visit in person with a way to experience your campus through a welcoming, personalized digital experience. Stamats has created Virtual Campus Experiences for community colleges, universities, and academic medical centers to help prospective students picture themselves on campus. A virtual visit strategy can include:

• Hero video: This is the welcome and shares what to know about the campus. It feels approachable and helps your visitors know you really want them there. 
• Campus and student highlights: Showcase your various campuses and what each one offers. Share a variety of stories, told from the viewpoints of different student perspectives. Show visitors why your college is a fun and exciting place to learn. 
• “Day in the life” student stories: Shadow a student throughout their day, juggling activities and studies—and how they thrive with your support services.  
• “Meet the faculty” videos: Introduce instructors and directors in areas of interest. 
• “Take a tour” video: Show prospective students your facilities, technology, and fun activities.

Virtual visits are a complement to, not a replacement for, enrollment marketing materials. The goal is to expand on the selling points of your campus, culture, and student life.

Whether your prospective students and their parents visit in person or online, you have an opportunity to provide them with an immersive, positive experience that showcases your college and why they could choose you. Doing this gets them one step closer to enrollment.

Your institution or department has tasked you with finding new programs to increase enrollment and boost the visibility of your college, university, or department. This is a high-risk situation as success rates of new programs are estimated to be just 30% in 2021.

For most institutions, it takes up to two years to get a new program launched. That’s a lot of time and resources that could be directed to supporting other program enrollment goals.

Over the years, I have developed the following essential questions to guide the new program development process.

Essential Questions

1. What is the employment opportunity for students in this program? Students are seriously considering their career outcomes when searching for a college to attend. What does this program offer in terms of jobs, employers, work settings, and skills to meet employer demand in your area? Make sure your program leads to positive outcomes and use data to tell that story.
2. What type of student will this program serve? There are myriads of student types today—first-time undergrads, transfers, adult students, degree completers, grad students, international students, etc. Defining your audiences by type and geography (e.g., student personas) will help you position and market the program more effectively.
3. What is the target enrollment figure for considering this program a success? In one year? Two years? Five years? Getting a hard figure from leadership at the outset will go a long way before more resources are committed.
4. Can we offer this program at an attractive price point? In an attractive format? Price and place must meet student requirements and expectations. Online programs often achieve a higher success rate than those only offered in person.
5. Who else offers this program in our target market? What is their market share? Will our program be sufficiently different and compelling to achieve our target enrollment figure?
6. Who will be the main faculty champion of this program? This person must have a vested interest in the new program and the time and support to champion a new program through internal reviews and the accrediting approval process.
7. What other programs can be co-marketed with this program to support our wider academic portfolio? Often students have multiple interests so co-marketing-related programs, certificates, or offering 4+1 programs can meet that need. While some may find this new program more attractive than existing programs at your institution, the goal is to keep them at YOUR institution and not go elsewhere. Program marketing is essential in enrollment marketing today.
8. What cooperations, synergies, and partnerships will this program create? Who can join you—employers, institutes, other institutions, or well-known entities? These relationships could help drive enrollment, reduce costs, or increase visibility or knowledge bases.
9. How will the program be named? Faculty champions, often not knowing how prospective students search for programs, choose names they believe set the offering apart from others. SEO is important so appropriate naming is critical to being understood by students and being found by search engines. Key word metrics should be included in your evaluation before a program name is approved.
10. Who will be responsible for ensuring the success of the program? Is there a dedicated marketing plan? Is there a dedicated marketing content writer? We often encounter institutions where faculty are responsible for—and generally not successful at—creating program page content. It’s part of the marketing plan to assign metrics and measures to hold different entities accountable for success. Asking faculty to become student marketing experts is not a sound strategy. Asking faculty to be part of online information sessions with prospects or starring in short videos to highlight program advantages is a better use of their talents.

Enjoying Success

When faculty and marketing work together to identify, shape, and launch new academic programs you’ll achieve greater success with your program launches.

I’m here to help! Contact me at [email protected]

Read Next: How to Know When a Program Has Run Its Course: Using Academic Program Assessments

So, you want to write a recruitment piece—something flashy but with substance that will really draw in prospective students. The best-balanced recruitment pieces have great visuals, useful information, and a clear path to next steps. They contain value, both for parents or family members helping their students to select a great fitting college, while also serving the teenage skimmer who is multi-tasking with a cell phone in one hand and your recruitment publication in the other.

One mistake we often see for recruitment pieces is the lack of an exact target—trying to serve all prospective students. This will lead to publications that feel formidable, and full of information that overwhelms the reader while failing on design principles and brand continuity.

If you’re unclear about where to start, here are some key points to consider when reviewing last year’s publication or designing a refresh. Start with audience and budget. Imagine the information you have to offer is like the ingredients to cook your favorite dish. The final dish will vary depending on the chef’s intended audience. In other words, you have a grocery list of information to use; how you choose to deploy it depends on the audience you’ve decided to target.

The 4 Pillars of Any Recruitment Piece

Every recruitment piece should address four categories of crucial information every potential student seeks to answer when shopping for a college. These are the four pillars of recruitment.

1. Do You Have My Program?

Often institutions include large program lists at the back of their catalog with every program available. While this is one strategy, it can also exhaust the reader to pore through every degree, certification, endorsement, and everything in between. Additionally, the complex titles of the programs are missing transparency and can be difficult to decipher for a high school senior.

Additionally, there is an opportunity for an institution to strategically design its program list to fill seats. Institutions mindful of programs to highlight and feature in publications can help push the needle on enrollment for those programs. Identifying institutional goals and KPIs for program enrollment helps the same programs that may get lost on a large shopping list in a recruitment publication.

How does one find the programs that may need additional attention? Collaborate with your Institutional Research team or the Strategic Enrollment Management team to pull institutional data. The data will help you find which programs to spotlight.

If your institution has chosen to go with a simpler list, then one must provide a channel for accessing the full list. This is where part of the marketing strategy includes a keen website.

Add a link or QR code with a call-to-action to access a full list of programs. On the website, provide a program finder that is dynamic and helps inquiring students look through program options to help tailor their career and educational goals.

Concerned about feedback regarding which program is listed in the publication? Let the decision for your publication come from a governing body or group such as the Strategic Enrollment Management team. Then the decision is not from a single person or department but rather a governing body that represents the facets of the institution.

Pro tip: Use vanity URLs and QR codes. Long URLs can dissuade people from visiting your website. Your vanity URL should be as simple as institution.com/programs.

2. Can I Afford It?

Financial transparency is an important topic for a recruitment piece. This can include:

• Tuition
• Student fees
• Meal plans
• On-campus housing, and more

The Cost Of Attendance (COA) is a great place to highlight any funding options for students. Share the information with large infographics and other visuals to tell the story. Keep tables with a bunch of numbers to a minimum – even better if they can be eliminated. Does your institution participate in SARA for States? Include a map and basic information about students from outside the institution’s residing state and the reduced tuition rate.

3. How Do I Get In?

This one is simple. Students want to know how they can apply, and general qualifications for admission. Provide an easily accessible link or QR code to complete an admission application. Include the basic information on how to apply along with contact information for assistance.

Is there an application fee? Make sure to include this to help applicants prepare before they sit down to complete the application. Or if your application is free, make sure you highlight this feature and benefit for applying. Often, institutions can overlook the obvious features that can be highlighted as a benefit to the applicant.

4. What Is the Fit?

Cultural fit is one of the most important yet intangible pillars of recruitment. When structuring the recruitment piece, take inspiration from a Denny’s menu. Yes, I’m serious. Denny’s menus are highly image-based, with small descriptions. Similarly, focus on images and testimonials with easily digestible accompanying text. This will help students absorb the culture of the college to understand what makes the institution unique—the things that are sometimes difficult to convey with the written word.

Pro tip: When designing recruitment pieces, first focus on making a larger print piece or viewbook. Afterward, it’ll be much easier to use pieces from this larger piece for social media posts, emails, and other tactics.

The Key Audience Buckets

The approach is slightly different depending on your target audience or personas. The stage of a lead or inquiry influences what content is included.

1. High school seniors: Seniors are actively choosing plans after high school. It’s important to describe the next steps with transparency. Both high school seniors and juniors are interested in campus culture and how they perceive themselves fitting—highlight clubs, athletics, campus events, and extracurricular activities to help inquiries find a niche or group they can see themselves belonging.
2. High school juniors: Some high school juniors are proactive about finding the right college. On the other end of the spectrum are juniors waiting until the following year to start shopping. Most juniors fall somewhere in between. Regardless, while it’s still important to highlight next steps, it’s more of the focus to help them find programs of interest and encourage them to visit campus. Like car sales, the opportunity to yield another applicant lies in the proverbial test drive through a campus visit to help them visualize themselves as a college student at your college after graduation. Ongoing recruitment and marketing for this group payout in net gains when it’s time to apply.
3. Adult learners: Adult learners are focused on how college can fit the adult learner’s established life. This segment is raising families, working, married, helping family members, and more. In addition to wanting information about the first three pillars, they want to know how college will fit into their lives. Not interested in marketing fluff, adult learners want to get to the heart of what it takes to attend and the steps to get started. They look for how previous credits will be accepted. They may want to know about schedule flexibility and online options. Include topics like these and who they can speak to today for topics about credits that will transfer and how fast one can complete their degree.
4. Dual enrollment students: Consider dual-enrolled or concurrent enrollment students as a significantly untapped source of potential enrollment for colleges. This audience is a brilliant marketing opportunity. Taking advantage of the pre-existing tenure with your college is an excellent strategy. For example, strategically distribute tchotchke and dual enrollment information to students while they’re in class. Why not host a special VIP event for this group, who tend to be high achievers and college-focused?

Related reading: Recruitment Strategies That Nurture Dual Enrollment

Design With Confidence

When designing recruitment publications, start with your audience to drive content and strategy. Follow the structure of the four pillars for recruitment and marketing with higher ed to ensure the pieces address key topics for every potential student. Utilize strategic teams internally to provide a customized focus for the institution’s enrollment goals. In addition, find opportunities to target specific segments such as adult learners and dual enrollment to elevate tactics that will result in meeting enrollment goals.

Ready to talk about quality recruitment materials? Contact us at [email protected] to discover how we can work together to create recruitment pieces that drive enrollment and promote your brand.

Related reading: Enroll More Now: 3 Steps You Can Take Today

Struggling with enrollment? You’re not alone. As high school graduation rates decline, enrollment in higher ed is becoming more competitive. This drop in numbers is called the enrollment cliff. You’ll need to fend off more competitors to see numbers you’ve reached in years before.

But all is not lost. You can do things today to boost your enrollment numbers for years to come. You can boost enrollment for this and future cycles with some key steps.

It all comes down to keeping organized, understanding your data, and finding the chinks in your enrollment armor. Sound like a lot? We’ll dive into specifics to make the whole process easier to understand. You might not be able to finish all these processes today, but you can take a first step toward better enrollment before the clock strikes 5 PM.

Step One: Mystery Shop Your Recruitment Experience

It’s time to break out your best secret agent disguise. Mystery shopping is a technique used in market research to determine any gaps in the customer’s (or in your case, the prospective student’s) experience. It involves evaluating various parts of the customer interaction through the eyes of an undercover shopper. You’ll be taking on a persona, either a high school junior or senior, a parent, or an adult-learner student. You’ll then audit portions of the customer experience, such as contacting your customer service desk through phone or email, completing the application process, and following the links from your marketing collateral to your application.

Here are some questions you should ask as part of mystery shopping:

1. Is the inquiry form on your website easy to access and submit?
2. Did you get a request, a response, or a thank you?
3. Is there a next step woven into the confirmation message?
4. Was the form succinct and only asked for necessary information?
5. Was the form easily parsable on your mobile device as well as your desktop?
6. When you call the listed numbers, do you get a response or a callback?
7. How long between your inquiry and an answer to your question?

After you’ve answered these questions, take note of the communication that did or didn’t happen. Now it’s time to get into investigative mode. Where did the experience break down, and how can you improve it?

Often, bottlenecks can be explained by broken links, outdated emails, and missing timely communications. It’s difficult to keep every aspect of your website, digital communications, and marketing collateral updated. That’s where Stamats comes in. We continually keep your assets up to date, so you don’t experience easily avoidable bottlenecks.

Step Two: Clean Your Recruitment Data Sets

Does analyzing your recruitment data fill you with dread? Do you have images of digital cobwebs and disorganized files? That means it’s time to clean things up.

When your data isn’t organized, your marketing isn’t either. That’s because disorganized data leads to inefficient targeting and a lack of insight into your audience’s performance. For example, imagine sending out recruitment emails to students interested in engineering when they’re passionate about art. Or sending a high school junior communications meant for adult students. Clean data helps you properly segment and tailor your communications.

So how exactly do you clean your data? Unfortunately, it can take some time. If you have more than 250-500 records to update, check with campus IT to see if any tools are available to help you align your data.

The best enrollment data is free of typos and grammar mistakes and contains important fields such as:

1. Name
2. Address
3. EmailPh
4. Phone
5. Permission to text
6. Date permission to text is granted
7. Anticipated start term/semester
8. Anticipated start year
9. program interest
10. Source
11. Original source date –how long the record has been in your marketing timeline

Pro Tip: For additional information you should consider gathering, check out the “Recruitment and Applicant Data Sets” chapter of Enroll More Now, available on Amazon.

While cleaning your data might take some time, there are questions you can ask today to jumpstart the process.

1. Can you pull a report that provides the full headcount of your recruitment list?
2. Can you get a headcount of each segmented audience, such as adult learners and high school seniors?
3. Do you know how many should be on these lists, and if there are large discrepancies?
4. How often are your contact records cleaned?

By asking yourself these questions you can set goals for you and your team to gradually improve the integrity of your recruitment data.

Remember, investing time and resources into cleaning your recruitment data pays off in dividends by enabling more effective targeting, personalized communication, and ultimately, better recruitment outcomes for your institution.

Step Three: Get a Master Schedule

Wait, that event happens when? Tomorrow? Oh no. That’s a whole month of communication you’ve missed out on sending.

Getting your calendar sorted is one of the easiest ways to boost enrollment. Include the events or deadlines that are assumed internally, and everyone is already marching to the same drumbeat. These events are easily looked over as important to share externally.

These include:

1. High school visitation days—when recruiters will be at a certain high school
2. Various events, such as financial aid assistance days
3. When it’s time to apply for the FAFSA
4. Deadlines for applications
5. Deadlines for final supporting documents
6. Days when applications / financial aid applications become open to apply

Focusing just on enrollment deadlines is a missed opportunity to engage with students on multiple levels. What else can you include to help coach students and families along the timeline to starting class? Are there ways to spice it up and apply some guerrilla marketing tactics? Have fun with it, like offering a raffle for free donuts on National Donut Day or partnering with an animal shelter for National Pet Adoption Week. Just make sure that you have all these initiatives solidified in your calendar well in advance.

Once your communications plan is firmed up with events and messages that correspond, it is time to put dates and deadlines for messaging. We suggest timing your communication so prospective students and their families have time to learn and then react to the messaging. For example, if the message is about registering and attending an event, time the message approximately 60-90 days (about 3 months) out.

Pro Tip: Update your websites with your events as soon as possible. While your emails and print communication should be timed closer to the day of, all your events should live on your website as soon as they are confirmed. This is because your website serves as a central hub for information for your audience.

Go Where the Students Are

The enrollment cliff is forcing higher ed institutions to be more strategic in their communication and strategy. We can no longer be sure that the students will come to us: we must go where they are and compel them that we are the right fit. Here are three steps you can take today to enroll more now.

1. Mystery shop your recruitment experience to gain a better understanding of what your website and communications are like to prospective students and parents. Make changes on your findings.
2. Clean your recruitment data sets to ensure you have properly segmented data to base communications on.
3. Set up a robust communication plan that includes events and dates that may have been overlooked before. Make smart decisions about when to advertise events, and ensure they live on the website as soon as possible.

For a conversation about what you can do to transform your enrollment process, email Stamats and take your numbers to the next level.

Related reading: How to Increase Application Yield

As we witness college leaders scaling down commencement ceremonies and calling in law enforcement due to violent activity and safety concerns, we are reminded of the turbulent challenges we face. 

As of this writing, more than 1,000 arrests have been made since April 18 on American college campuses as protestors call for schools of higher education to divest from Israeli companies and from Israel altogether. College campuses have become the location for encampments and demonstrations, the likes of which we have not seen since the Vietnam War era. 

As campuses consider their students’ safety and well-being, consider these proactive steps that can be taken as we navigate current challenges: 

1. Provide a safe place for voices to be heard.

As college leaders, it’s imperative not to make decisions in isolation. Campuses should serve as vibrant hubs of dialogue and inclusivity, where students are encouraged to express themselves respectfully and constructively. Rather than operating in a vacuum, create intentional spaces for dialogue and meaningful conversation. 

Engage with student leaders representing diverse perspectives within the college community. Empower them to actively participate in shaping a collective future. By fostering an environment where every voice is heard and valued, you also uphold the institution’s core mission and values. 

Root your decisions in the foundational principles outlined in the school’s mission and values. These statements guide expectations for student and faculty conduct, inform strategic investments, and shape the programs offered. Ensure that every decision reflects the school’s commitment to fostering understanding and inclusivity on campus. 

2. Manage on-campus protests and demonstrations with integrity by promoting education and understanding.

The point above is ideal, but potential unrest can still occur, especially as movements gain momentum nationally and globally. In anticipation of on-campus protests or potential unrest, it’s essential to establish clear protocols and guidelines. Communicate openly with the campus community. Outline expectations for peaceful demonstrations while prioritizing the safety and well-being of all individuals involved. 

Identify your subject matter experts on campus and offer interactive learning opportunities such as webinars and panel discussions. Include your own professors, general counsel, and board members who have expertise in areas of interest to your stakeholders. They can help stakeholders get the facts and not just the rhetoric posted by pundits. 

Rather than taking a heavy-handed approach, be forthright and transparent in your communication. Create opportunities for education and fact-finding, especially during times of heightened sensitivity such as the current war in Gaza. 

It’s crucial to recognize that complex global issues can elicit diverse opinions within the community. Instead of fostering polarization, promote informed dialogue and understanding. Provide safe spaces for students to hear differing perspectives and offer educational resources that present information free from political bias. 

By facilitating respectful discourse and providing learning opportunities, you can empower your community to engage thoughtfully with complex issues while upholding the values of inclusivity and intellectual curiosity. One may argue that this is the epitome of higher education. 

3. Stay informed and be aware.

In today’s dynamic environment, staying informed about current events and potential campus risks is paramount for effective leadership. Develop robust contingency plans and foster close collaboration with local law enforcement and security teams to swiftly address any emerging threats. 

Effective campus leadership requires continuous learning and adaptation. Take inspiration from other institutions, seek diverse perspectives, and stay informed about best practices. Remain agile and ready to pivot when faced with evolving situations or potential risks. 

Every campus should have a comprehensive crisis management plan and a well-defined communications strategy for handling emergencies. These essential tools empower swift response and decisiveness in times of crisis, ensuring the safety and well-being of the students and community. 

By prioritizing preparedness, continuous learning, and effective communication strategies, you fortify your ability to navigate challenges with resilience and confidence. 

4. Practice scenario planning.

In times of crisis or heightened tension, scenario planning means practicing the “what ifs” and understanding what might unfold in any situation outside of your control. It helps you be proactive in addressing concerns raised by stakeholders and have a plan in place. 

Leaders and stewards of higher education have a responsibility to uphold the values of academic freedom, inclusivity, and safety. At Stamats, it’s our job and our pleasure to help schools thrive, especially in the face of adversity. Concerned about your current plan or lack of one? Connect with Michele Szczypka to begin a conversation.

Increasing application yield is on everyone’s mind who works in higher education. This is a tough goal that is increasingly looking more like a riddle. If the riddle is solved, one can proceed to the next step and potentially collect an ROI from matriculation. But what is the solution to increasing application yield?

In short, it ensures the student has a five-star experience as they move through the recruitment funnel. What does a five-star experience look like? The following are five areas to focus on:

1. Spoon-feed steps in communications.

Break down everything a student needs to know to start class on time into small, bite-size messaging. Use data to send relevant communication to each stage. If a student is at the inquiry level, they are most likely interested in learning about the programs you offer, the admission process, and how much it costs to attend your institution. To help them connect dots, weave in images and information about how your institution is a great fit for them as a student.

Layer messaging.

Duplicate messaging and layer it into multiple modes. For example, if the institution sends information in an email about how to apply for fall, layer it with a postcard, a social media post, and a handout given when they visit campus for a tour. If they have provided a cell number and approved you communicating in this format, a quick text message driving them to a carefully curated landing page explaining how to apply can also be a layer. Get creative and develop layers of communication that reach students in different modes of communication.

Provide updates and confirmation communications.

Equally important as sending messages about what a student may need to complete is sending messages confirming steps completed. These small messages saying, “We received your information or application or transcripts,” are a great way to continue to engage with students while also building trust. Providing spoon-fed confirmation messages keeps the interest piqued and brings them along the path to starting at your college. For instance, messaging around recruitment events is an opportunity to build trust and relationships with potential students. Include a message flow like the following to prompt the family and students who are visiting campus. Help families make their way toward your campus when they are navigating a new town, a new campus, and just about new everything.

• Event landing page that includes maps, instructions, lodging recommendations, a link to forecasted weather, and where to eat
• Event invite email
• Event confirmation email message, which includes a summary of the day and time, and how many in the student’s party are registered to attend
• Event confirmation text message with a link to the event landing page for details
• Reminder email with information about the event, what to expect, link to the event landing page—include parking information and other details about the day specific to the event
• Reminder text with a link to the event landing page
• Phone call reminder to help connect and answer any questions before the event
• Thank you card post-event

2. Engage with your inquiries and applicants at a personal level.

Make sure recruitment is texting or calling students to engage in a conversation and help potential students figure out plans to attend college. Learning about their goals and providing assistance learning about your institution builds trust and strengthens your brand.

Find a creative way to engage with your applicants. Host virtual events to help with applications and other admission questions. Design VIP events for students who are dual credit at your institution and are seniors. Roll out the red carpet and provide services and bonuses for being a dual credit who is matriculating to your institution. Provide one-on-one special sessions to create academic plans that include their dual credit. Walking the student through the credits they are either currently completing or have already completed draws direct conclusions of the advantage for attending post-high school. During your time together, put a package together to help them financially budget for attending your institution.

3. Confirm EARLY to include family in the process.

Family communication is an important part of the recruitment puzzle. When I was working in admissions, we would undoubtedly receive phone calls from frustrated parents concerned about pending due dates. It was clear they hadn’t been added to the parent communication flow, nor were their students keeping them up to speed on the steps to applying to the institution. This leads to a great point about making sure you have a communication flow and a means for students to be added when they call into the office. Providing this solution is a great way to build relationships by providing them a solution to keep them in the loop. Include a communication that asks the student for the parent information. By the time they get to the application stage, parent information is usually collected. However, asking for the information at the inquiry stage is a proactive approach to build cheerleaders for your institution.

4. Pay careful attention to the footsteps of an applicant.

Applicants have three basic buckets they exist in through the process:

1. Application started but not submitted
2. Application is submitted but admission file is incomplete
3. Decision is made but student has not registered

Within each phase, there are other gaps or spaces created by technology and human processing. Find these gaps and address them! What does this look like? Start with the first phase: application started but not submitted. Presuming your institution has a digital application portal, there is a very dark hole that can occur at this stage. Ask yourself, “If an applicant starts an application but doesn’t submit, where does this data reside?” Sometimes there are two places for gaps to occur—at the first screen where authentication is set up and after authentication is established. Are these two lists receiving communications? What kind of follow-up is offered to these two lists or groups? Find these lists and strategize how the institution can connect with these students.

Related reading: Changing the Game: How Modern Enrollment Operations Use Data to Engage Students

5. Have an awesome website that is easy to navigate and fits the student’s path toward matriculation.

Messy websites are one of the quickest ways to lose a prospective student. If a student or family member can’t find the topic they need to help make a decision of where to attend, they will move on. Higher ed is a competitive market with lots of choices. It is easy to move on with a single click of a mouse.

Ask yourself if these items are within one click of the home page. Can a potential student or family member:

• Submit an inquiry form to be added to an email list?
• Submit an application to your institution?
• Find a list of programs offered at your institution?
• Find general numbers for the cost to attend?

The next layer of information is for students who have applied and are admitted. Information on these steps and the departments the student will connect to must be easy to find. The page(s) should have clear instructions of next steps with corresponding links to take action. Give a brief explanation of what must be done and a way to finish the step.

The five-star experience is about anticipating what the prospective student needs. Use tools like secret shopping to see what the experience is like for a new inquiry and a new applicant. What did you expect, and what is the shortfall from the expectation? Here is where to start. Here is where to fine-tune the experience and bring it from good or okay to great.

Want to learn more? Pick up the book Enroll More Now. We have power-packed tactics and strategies that are easy to read and implement at your institution, leading to better applicant yields.

Ready to take the next step and add expertise to your team? Send me a quick email and we can set up a meeting to talk through your questions.

Related Reading: The Cost of Student Recruitment

With a demographic cliff looming for the higher education sector, it’s more important than ever for enrollment and admissions offices to use all the tools at their disposal to engage prospective students.

Between the peak of college-aged students coming in 2025 and the falling percentages of students choosing to attend college, many of my clients and friends in enrollment are understandably nervous.

But Allison Turcio, AVP of Enrollment and Marketing at Siena College, and her team are up to the challenge.  She and her colleagues collaborate to support enrollment goals. They leverage data to build real relationships with prospective students, steering their institution away from the enrollment cliff and toward matriculation greatness.

Allison has been with Siena since 2006 in roles including Associate Director of E-Communications and Director of Digital Strategy. She is a lecturer in marketing and host of the podcast The Application with Allison Turcio. She holds an EdD from Northeastern University.

She kindly joined us for a Zoom conversation about how data done right drives enrollment marketing success. Here are some highlights (our conversation has been edited for clarity).

The Good Stuff: Collect Qualitative Data

Stamats: What does key data mean in the modern enrollment context, and what are some of the data points colleges miss when they’re starting to gather data about prospective students and families?

Allison Turcio:  We’re very good at collecting and tracking quantitative data in general, or demographic data. We know their address. We know their high school, we know their GPA. We know the major they’re interested in. The thing that colleges often miss is the qualitative data.

We should be asking questions to understand what matters most to that family. What are their top decision-makers, and what’s most important to them in the college experience? I think that’s the piece that we often miss.

Stamats:  How do you introduce those types of questions, and when is a good time to do that?

Allison:  I think the point of application is a great moment to leverage because now you’re going to introduce the admissions counselor who’s going to review that student’s application. You can say to them, “I know that what you wrote on the application and the information I have is sort of one-dimensional. I’d like to know more about you before I read your application. So, can you tell me about what you’re looking for in your college experience? And what’s important to you?”

I think that there’s some real power in asking that. The counselor is then able to have a robust conversation with the student. Depending on how they answer, you know the right professor to connect them with, or you know the right student to connect them with, or you know we should have a chat about what to look for in pre-med programs.

I’d like to know more about you before I read your application. So can you tell me about what you’re looking for in your college experience? ~Allison Turcio

Stamats: What are some data points that colleges often collect but don’t use to their full extent?

Allison: About 70% of what we ask for is on a Request for Information Form. When you have all these RFI form fields, there’s an expectation that you’re going to have personalized information about each student based on that form. And that type of personalization doesn’t usually get delivered. Colleges need to ask themselves, “What do we really need to start a relationship and keep it simple?”

There are also things on a student’s application that can be important. An admissions counselor might review the activities a student was involved in in high school. That could be leveraged for marketing. The student rides horses and is passionate about equestrian? We need to get information about the equestrian team in front of that student.

What students talk about in their essay is often a missed opportunity also. That’s a connection point to the student. You can say, “I’m so impressed with your resiliency or with the leadership skills you’ve developed,” or whatever it is. Why aren’t we talking to them?

The other thing is where they came from, their inquiry source. We know that. Why do we talk to everybody the same way? Why do we talk to people who came from a search purchase the same way as people emailed proactively and the same way as people whose first touch was to sign up for a visit? They come with different levels of engagement, but often we’re responding to them all in the same manner.

Related reading: Doing Enrollment Marketing Differently with Audience Data

Get Personal with Data-Driven Enrollment

Stamats:  So, how do successful colleges use that data, beyond delivering targeted content, to drive enrollment?

Allison: The way to stand out in trying to be personal and make a real connection is to ask real questions. If you’re asking a personal question, that’s different from “Fill out this form to tell me more about you.”

From there, you’re not necessarily serving up content that is a set process. You’re going to now talk to that student individually, one-to-one. That is now your relationship. If you try to flip it back to sort of formulaic content, it will feel like your initial outreach, that personal touch, was inauthentic.

The challenge is to be able to scale that, but it works. We know it works. Students who have one-to-one communication with our admissions counselors at Siena enroll at more than twice the rate of the students who don’t.

This is a cultural shift from “What do we want to say?” to “What do they need from us in the moment?”

Related reading: Recruitment Strategies That Nurture Dual Enrollment

Get Together & Get Buy-In

Stamats:  When you share these insights with your colleagues in enrollment and marketing, what are some of the types of pushback you get?

Allison: What I’m talking about is hard to scale. It’s a lot of one-to-one communication. One of the things I hear is, “We’re already at max capacity; how do we add that on?” I don’t think you should add it on. I think it’s about reforming or reengineering the work.

You’ve got to find technology, systems, and processes that can help with efficiency so your team is freed up to do this. Because this relationship building is where you’re going to have the ROI. That’s where you’re going to really meet your enrollment goals.  It’s not extra work; this is the work.

Stamats:  What are some strategies you and your team use to improve efficiency and optimize your time?

Allison: The way we find efficiencies and the way we get people working around these ideas is that we create them together. We almost never have an activity or an initiative that comes top-down. We just completely reengineered our marketing strategy last year, and we had 12 or 13 people around the table working on it. We had admissions, communications, financial aid, and enrollment managers. We had a couple of students.

As everyone becomes aware of the opportunity, they begin to find a way. They say, “Well, I don’t need to be doing this, but I do need to be doing this.” It changes the individual work when you bring everyone to the table in that way. That’s the number one way we found efficiencies and started to do our work differently. There’s a buy-in across the board because we’ve built it together.

That’s the number one way we found efficiencies and started to do our work differently. There’s buy-in across the board because we’ve built it together. ~Allison Turcio

Related reading: Drinking from a Fire Hose? 5 Tips to Manage Higher Ed Marketing with a Lean Team

Opportunity to Change Perception

Stamats:  Looking to the future, what drives your passion for this work?

Allison:  We have a responsibility as marketers to get this right and get this right collectively. We can help with the perception issue in higher ed. If we’re rethinking our work and rethinking how we serve families instead of talking at them, we can make a difference in what’s happening.

If we can help change the perception, then that can increase college-going, especially among students who are currently underrepresented in the college-going population. It matters, and it’s bigger than just what you’re doing at your desk each day.

I really believe that collectively we can do this better. That’s why I do my podcast. That’s why I do my newsletter: Because if we can do this better, we can impact the perception issues. And if we can impact the perception issues, we can impact college-going.

Want to help your enrollment team level up before the cliff arrives? We can help. Schedule a time to talk with Stamats experts today.