In most cases, juniors cannot apply for college. However, they can engage with your institution in a meaningful way by visiting campus. They can meet and develop contacts on campus who can answer questions.

Junior year is the year to start answering specific questions, such as:

1. Do you have my program?
2. Can I afford it?
3. How do I get in?
4. Will I fit in?

The last bullet is the hardest to communicate to students and their family members who support them on this path.

This is where you come in, enrollment marketer! Your role is to provide information and connect juniors to resources that will help pave their path to considering your institution as the next step in their education. And you’ll earn that spot in their hearts and minds by answering the questions that lay before them—even if they don’t yet know what questions to ask.

Here’s a quick punch list of ideas to start speaking their language and staking your claim as the higher ed institution they choose in the coming year.

Get them on campus

In the digital world, images and pictures on campus and testimonials are some of the most common enrollment marketing methods. But nothing compares to a real-time visit on campus. If there is one thing the pandemic has helped accentuate, it is the importance of face-to-face communications and the relationship established through this exchange.

Make sure you are sending emails and postcards to get students on campus. Recommend that recruiters visiting high schools help students plan a campus visit. I know my daughter came home from one of these high school visit presentations with the objective of visiting campus. The recruiter did a great job of building excitement about the school while answering the aforementioned questions. She was ready to visit—and, yes, it made a huge difference in her decision process.

Find out what program they are aiming for

Depending on where the junior entered your CRM, you may not know their program of interest. They may not know either, and that is okay. There are two notes I want to point out here:

1. Don’t spray the student with messaging about programs if you do not know their program of interest.
2. Develop a tactic of how to communicate your programs that fits with this segment of your audience.

When possible, if your data is missing the value of the program of interest in your CRM or tracking system, create a value of “Unknown.” This will now become a strategic campaign to learn more about the student. Develop messaging that requests they share their program of interest. This strategy will help update the field to fire off a crafted message sharing more about a specific program. If they are better left as an unknown status, strategize around this audience and provide communications that speak to a student who is still figuring it out.

In contrast, sending with the spray-and-pray approach will lose the student’s interest and you’ll risk losing the student from your list.

There will always be “unknowns” in your audience. No matter how many ways you ask, an anticipated program will never populate into the system. Never fret; there are other ways to share options at your institution and hopefully get closer to answering the question. Maybe the answer will be undeclared in the first year as they shop around.

Rather than a “try these programs” approach, organize your messaging into student interests, such as:

• Helping others
• Technology
• Arts: applied and music
• Leadership
• And more…

You may need to create landing pages for this campaign to learn about students and create customized messaging. Provide options in an email, send, and then watch what they click on. This piece of data can help schedule the next message to the student, and you are that much closer to providing relevant information.

How to afford college

Cost-of-attendance messaging rises high on the list of topics to communicate. It is important to include this in your flow and provide a landing page that breaks down the information into tangible topics: tuition and fees, room and board, and books.

Do not use the tuition and fees table usually found on the financial aid page. Those tables exist for an entirely different purpose than marketing to students and their families. If you want to learn why, drop in on your financial aid office sometime and ask the director this question. In the meantime, your job is to market the cost of attending your school.

Provide information about available scholarships and when the application opens to apply. Include other resources available for students who are not eligible for FAFSA. Some states have programs for undocumented students—do the homework and share this in your messaging.

The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement is another topic to include. Learn about compacts within regions and include information for out-of-state students and how they can afford to attend your school. All these factor into whether a student can afford to attend. Spelling it out in digestible formats will help build the case of why your institution is the best fit come summer when the application opens for the new recruitment year.

How to get in

This is a tricky conversation, as you can share everything about admissions and the application process but they cannot access the steps to proceed. It is best to frame your communications around timely and relevant information within this topic—and stick to it.

Messages about the GPA needed are a great place to start. For community colleges that have a lower GPA requirement or none, it is important to communicate that too! In fact, this can be a great selling point for our community college family.

Does your institution require standardized testing? No? Great—make sure to share that piece of information. This is the year they are taking tests, and it is helpful for them to prioritize this step.

What about further into the admission funnel?

Even though the trend continues to grow for not requiring ACTs or SATs for admissions, you may be doing a disservice to your admits by not communicating how your institution does or doesn’t use these tests. I have seen that the admissions office may not require it, but the financial assistance office is still using it internally for use in awarding fee waivers.

The example I distinctly remember was about a student who had already moved in but realized that they had a large funding gap and would not be able to stay. The gap was in housing. The student had met with the financial aid director who tried to pull every trick she had to help keep the student. The biggest downfall for the student was that they hadn’t taken the SAT or ACT, and the rubric the office used for awarding fee waivers included an ACT or SAT score. The score didn’t even have to be good, but they needed something to check off and follow the structure set by the institution. Ultimately, the student was turned away because they could not pay for housing.

Another step to consider with the process is the use of scores to help place students in the correct writing or math class. This helps streamline processes for the students and their advisors when developing schedules. Institutions most likely offer Accuplacer, which is a nice alternative for those who do not sit for the SAT or ACT.

These examples illustrate the importance of understanding the processes at your institution and then help communicate this to your high school juniors. Sharing this kind of information in small, digestible content helps position you as the expert, building trust and a relationship. Through this process, the institution becomes a go-to that can lead to an application in the following year.

Include family

As we already know, students will not open and digest every email from your institution. Including family helps create an advocate who is more likely to open emails and read through the mail. Send communications to parents and guardians asking if they would like to be included. This can be done through email, mailers, and inquiry forms online.

Family members helping their student may be thinking about budget and how to afford college someday. A great selling point? Email parents tips on how to budget for college through dual credit and early college credit. Sharing the same messages with family as well as the student positions you better to increase your application pool.

Related reading: Recruitment Strategies That Nurture Dual Enrollment

Don’t rely on just one tactic

We have covered what to share but how does one share the information? Do you send it by email? Or maybe a beautiful print piece mailed to their home is a better option? The options are endless for how to mold your communication flow and can flex with your budget.

Email is fairly inexpensive whereas the cost can escalate in paying for the system and the labor to build and maintain messages. This is an excellent start toward communications. Social media is another fairly inexpensive option. Remember the audience is anyone who subscribes to or follows your institution. Choose your messages accordingly when deciding to post.

Print is the more expensive option. The cost associated with production is the highest but it can be the most effective. Be strategic about the pieces you mail. Make sure there is a key date or piece of information. Another strategy is to only send to the inquiry stage and omit the leads. Simply sending mail to send mail is costly.

No single tactic will address the overarching goal of building a relationship with juniors in high school. It is the strategic combination of adding a little of each tactic that is the winning combination. If your institution is relying solely on email, then you are shorting the potential of who your institution can attract for the new cohort.

If the budget is tight, modify your process; for example, strategically sending postcards to recipients within a key radius of your school. Tours are tough to schedule? Look for other means, such as hosting a school to visit for a half day and attend some classes. There is a theme—be creative, find a way to attract and engage so students have your institution at the forefront when applications open.

Need to put a strategy together? Or do you need another set of eyes on your plan? We’ve got your back. Email Stamats to get started.

Related reading: The Cost of Student Recruitment

Historically, marketing was not part of the higher ed model, and some schools still struggle to understand its function and how it benefits the institution. Likewise, the culture tends to lean toward the conversation that “recruitment needs to do more” as the enrollment numbers continue to take a downward trend—and as budgets tighten.

The key is to make smart, right-sized marketing and communication investments to attract and retain students.

Start by evaluating and collecting numbers assigned to time and expenditures. Investing a certain amount of time, money, and effort results in a measurable number — the Lifetime Value of a Student (LVS). This is the cost to acquire a student minus what it costs to educate them, at its most basic definition.

Use the following information to explore what it costs to bring in a new student, and a little on what it takes to retain them.

What counts as investment costs?

Student acquisition and education costs can vary significantly by student type. It may cost more to recruit a student from a rural area in the U.S. than a student who lives in close proximity to the campus. Different programs have varying operational costs. It will cost more to educate an engineering student than a student studying business.

Potential student acquisition and education costs include:

• Recruiting including brand expenditures allocated to recruiting
• Institutional financial aid
• The cost of room and board
• The cost of education (teaching, facilities, labs, power, maintenance, salaries, etc.)
• Cost of advising
• Cost of extra-curricular activities (sports, clubs, trips, etc.)
• Debt service
• Mental and healthcare

The Cost to Recruit a First-Year Student

Variables for calculating cost typically include:

• Recruiting communication (including development, testing, execution, and evaluation)
• Digital including Pay-Per-Clicks costs
• Social media
• Web including content creation
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Print and design
• Postage
• Advertising
• Special events
• Telemarketing/telecounseling
• Tchotchkes
• Supplies consumed during the recruiting cycle
• Recruiting travel including event travel as well as travel for professional development
• Vendor/outsourced services including consulting
• Recruiting activities targeted at special populations such as women, rural, talent and gifted, STEAM, etc.

Higher ed administration and roles like institutional research are evenly split on whether to include salaries and benefits for recruiting, financial aid, and student workers in this calculation. While doing so will dramatically increase the cost per student, it also provides a more accurate understanding of total investment.

Most institutions do not include financial aid or general institutional marketing and branding costs when evaluating costs to attract and retain a student. One could argue the afore-mentioned list is all recruiting, as the work from the marketing and communications team is a holistic service. The work they do for other departments has a direct reflection on brand and institutional appearance. Regardless of where your institution will land in measuring recruitment and retention costs, make sure it is consistent year after year.

Related reading: Doing Enrollment Marketing Differently with Audience Data

What counts as dollars generated?

Potential dollars generated by a student can fluctuate. Students who pay out-of-pocket for tuition generate more tuition dollars than students receiving institutional aid. Furthermore, graduates with greater earning potential may give more.

Potential dollars generated include:

• Net tuition
• Alumni giving (annual fund)
• Donor giving (capital campaigns, planned giving, etc.)

Hopefully, revenue over costs will continue to grow after students graduate. While you will no longer be generating tuition revenue, you should be receiving annual gifts and even larger donations. If an institution is including the calculations of an alumni, then include the cost of gift acquisition in the calculation.

You do you.

The paradigm of how institutions view marketing, communications, and recruitment is shifting. Doing the work and learning more about the institutional numbers will better position marketing and admission directors. Keep track of costs year over year (or cycle over cycle) to make fiscally minded decisions. Much of marketing and the heart of measuring ROI is increasing efficiencies and rooting out waste. Helping the rest of the institution understand how both departments play into the bigger picture of attracting and retaining students will undoubtedly generate cheerleaders and advocates.

We want to help you with your enrollment marketing needs. Learn more or schedule a consultation with Stamats.

Related reading: Recruitment Strategies That Nurture Dual Enrollment

The project? Our marketing and communications team was given the task of creating the upcoming foundation magazine. Had I ever created one before? Not one bit.

However, I had experience with project management of other publications for recruitment. And I had fairly extensive experience working with data and translating it into meaningful plans for communications.

With Whom Are We Communicating?

During our development meetings, we discussed the schedule, the content, timing, and more. One gleaming topic that kept coming up was “Who is our audience?” We assumed that it was all older people in the community. But we had nothing to back that up, other than the cursory visitor to the advancement office.

It appeared, in all the years this publication had been in circulation, a data-pull on the audience was never performed. And yet, we had an existing list in a system that provided valuable insight to who we were mailing the publication.

I remember the look on my team’s faces when I called for a data pull. I was new to overseeing this project. There were plenty of team members sitting in the room who had been part of the project and had access to the data. I can’t say for certain what was going through their heads at that time. But I theorized they may have thought I was off my rocker. Maybe they were thinking, “This is not how we do things.”

Fortunately, within two days we had some decent data to review.

Related reading: Send Students the Right Recruitment Message at the Right Time

What Did Pulling Data Do for Us?

Immediately, the team realized they had holes in their data and they should create a plan to either fix or come up with a plan to acquire. Through this realization, the team started conceptualizing how to improve the data collection system. We were working toward improved systems! Already, we had a win.

We learned that our audience was younger than expected. The ages and DOBs found from pulling the list reversed our audience age hypothesis. We also learned that there were more women than men on the list. These data points made an immediate difference in selecting topics to include in the publication.

We were able to share this information at the cabinet level. Our writer took the data and created some robust visuals and pie charts to share in meetings and presentations at the cabinet level.

The data created a persona of sorts that we used to choose topics. For instance, we created a publication that highlighted women ‘killing it’ in their profession on campus, in the community, and as alumni at large.

What Did We Learn?

Communications, print, digital—whatever mode is being developed needs thoughtful processes and mindful decisions. Assuming who your audience is will most likely be wrong. If you create messaging that misses your audience, you lose opportunities to connect and develop a relationship.

Doing things differently can be scary. Pushing through the uncomfortable of something different can provide great insight to make better decisions and reach the right audience.

We’d love to help you develop your strategy, build a communication plan, or optimize your enrollment campaign. Connect with us to learn more about accelerating your enrollment growth.

But let’s assume your college is like most institutions and is waiting to gather contact information until the student’s senior year. Then what? Does it matter if you wait? The answer is yes, it does matter. 

Nurture means extended communication that provides timely and relevant information. The nurturing process should start earlier than their senior year. If contact information can be obtained, start nurturing high school students as freshmen. 

In general, it takes three years to convert a lead (prospect) or inquiry solely through email. When I received this advice at a digital summit years ago, I was astounded by this timeline and thought it was rather ridiculous. However, this information proved to be excellent advice. I have watched email campaigns over the years prove the three-year rule to be true more than expected. 

This wisdom is crucial to my decision-making for email campaigns. Instead of dropping leads that were not engaging with our messaging three or four emails into the campaign, our team strategized differently. Students we engaged with for three years had great results converting to applicants. So, how did we do it? 

Share Data—Partner with the Early College Credit Department 

Early college and dual credit students are crucial to recruitment. Developing a relationship with students who are receiving credits from your college can increase the probability of their converting to an applicant. This is a great resource to add to your recruitment list. Capturing student and parent contact information is the first step. With growing regulations on who we can send emails and communications to, it is also important to include parents in the communication plan. 

Create a workflow with the college’s dual enrollment and early college credit department. As soon as students populate the department’s lists for taking courses, marketing and communications should recruit them. Requests for freshman through senior year are shared and include parent contact information, too. Fewer students come in as freshmen in dual credit. I always treat contacts that come in as high school freshmen as a bonus for extended communications to nurture them through their junior year.

Send the Right Communications

Communications for dual-enrolled students are a two-pronged approach. Communications should be going out on a regular basis for the students, helping them through processes for registering for class, accessing the student portal, and more. The first prong is the communications supporting processes and spoon-feeding the key points students need to know to complete paperwork, register for class, and more.  

Doing this step well will build trust and a relationship with the student and their family. If this is done poorly, it gives the student and family a reason to look elsewhere, as they may conclude the institution has poor technology or does not prioritize the student. 

Find out if you can help your college’s early college credit department with messaging. If they are already sending timely messages, there may be an opportunity to help with branding. If your institution can hone this part of the communications, it will build trust and a relationship with the student and their family. If these are established, engagement will increase as a junior when they start the process of shopping for a college. 

The second prong is recruitment and the nurture track. Start students on their journey, nurturing them along, and share information that is timely, useful, and demonstrates how they fit in at your college. For example, sending them a link to a page on the college’s website with a complete list of dual credit classes available to them while attending high school is a great way to give them a shopping list of potential courses to further engage with your college. 

Related reading: How to Recover When Student Messaging Goes to the Wrong Audience 

Get Them on Campus

A car sales rep believes that if they can get you into a car to test drive, the opportunity to sell you a car goes up exponentially. The same rule applies to increasing the yield for applicants by getting students and their families on campus. Students who visit the campus are more likely to apply and attend. But how does one get them on campus if they are not ready and they can’t apply yet? 

Invite them to campus! Send messaging with an invite and provide options to attend a theater production or a special festival. I currently work with a client who sends family STEAM events and car show announcements to get them on campus and engaging with campus contacts. 

When working on campus, I would collaborate with our theater department and provide a discounted rate for students who were registered to attend a special event on campus. This provides a great incentive for families and students who may not be inclined to attend just for a tour. And don’t forget athletics. Collaborate with them to incentivize leads and inquiries to attend an athletic event. Examples like this help fulfill the fourth objective when recruiting: Is this place a good fit? 

Launch Marketing Strategies for Special Sub-Groups

VIP events help make students feel special and are a great way to connect and build relationships with them. Up to now, most of the dual-enrolled students may have little to nothing to do with your college or university. It is possible that the students have not developed an affinity for your college through early college credit or dual credit. Providing a VIP event for this group is a great recruitment tactic to attract high-achieving students. This is an opportunity to focus on these students and give them the VIP treatment that can lead to better enrollment numbers. All the while, we are nurturing them along the path to attending post-graduation from high school. 

Invite special sub-groups from high schools to visit the campus for a few hours or half a day. Create a special day for music and arts and invite choir and art classes to experience hands-on activities such as throwing clay or singing with the current jazz choir on campus. Create a plan to enmesh potential students and show them firsthand how they fit with your institution. 

Related reading: 3 Steps to Build a Higher Education Communication Plan for Student Recruitment

Optimize Campaigns

Be careful about giving up on the campaigns you have built, starting with freshmen or sophomores in high school. Students will never check their personal or school email as often as we would like. Open rate may be low to begin with, but don’t lose hope. Maintain a focus of nurturing and helping them along as they learn about your college or university. Juniors may not be able to apply yet, but they are starting to think about what happens after high school. High-achieving students are looking to the future and are starting to visit campuses to take inventory of where they want to apply. They are taking standardized tests and selecting schools to which they want their scores sent. 

Watch the engagement and data in campaigns, whether they are digital or mailers, and find places to pivot the communication to help them engage. If they are opening emails with messages about the average cost to attend, then they may want more on this topic as they start to pencil in financial plans. Strategize your communication flow to respond to behavior in your communications. 

By the time your juniors convert into seniors, you are ready for a new flow of communications to convert your inquiries into applicants. Don’t be afraid to weave in the aforementioned messaging, but keep your eye on the prize. ALWAYS provide a link to apply. One cannot predict when a student is ready to take the next step. This is the year to hone the messaging and continue to answer the top four items on any student’s checklist: 

1. Do you have my programs?
2. Can I afford it?
3. How do I get in?
4. Will I fit in?

Build a communication flow that nurtures the student and their family. Email us to explore ideas for achieving great enrollment numbers.