How Data-Driven Solutions For Education Marketing Can Increase Recruitment

Two out of three college recruiters don’t have the right tools to understand their markets or talent pool. With education costs soaring, it is more important than ever for those in higher education marketing to spot trends, stretch resources and gain a more targeted candidate pool for recruitment.

Higher education institutions have so much to manage that departments become compartmentalized. Often times relevant recruitment information never reaches the right people. In a nationwide poll, only 38% of respondents reported close integration between marketing, recruitment and advising teams.

Data-Driven Solutions:

When applied to higher education marketing, data driven solutions can accurately predict student behaviors such as learning outcomes, recruitment potential and enrollment retention. Data analysis can reveal patterns that would otherwise go overlooked. It can be used to help recruiters predict which applicants will be most successful throughout the student life cycle. Understanding your target audience is the key to standing out in a competitive market because prospective students respond better to more personalized marketing.

Here are some of the most useful types of data driven solutions and what they can do for you.

• Applicant Tracking Systems: sort through applications and track potential students through the enrollment process.
• Predictive Analytics: discover insights, predict trends and future outcomes.
• Enrollment Marketing: ensure enrollment teams reach out to the right students, with the right message, at the right time.
• Retention Services: powerful predictive retention modeling and success coaching to keep students enrolled.
• Outsourced Program Management: launch, grow and manage data driven solutions with blended or full-time management services.
• Content Strategy and Development: a data driven solutions approach to planning, managing and developing content that gets results.

Collecting, sorting and analyzing data is key to maintaining standards and planning a successful recruitment strategy. Data driven solutions streamline cumbersome reports and keep your information up to date and easy to navigate.

Metrics

There is an ever-growing amount of analytical information available on the internet. Many forms of data, such as web searches, domains and social media sites can be used to measure how effectively the university is reaching its audience. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) allows universities to be easily found during web searches and can be particularly useful to institutions which provide niche programs. Data mined through website visits and apps can monitor the number of visits, time of day, locations and the percentage of return visits to the site. Geo-targeting, as well as calculating email-open-rates and click-through-rates also provide insights that can be applied to the success of your future education marketing campaigns.

Getting Started

Even with all of these tools available, a recent study of recruiters showed that 68% did not know their estimated overall conversion rate from inquiry to enrollment.

We know getting started with data driven solutions can be a bit daunting in the beginning, but never fear. There are a lot of companies out there that can help. Outsourcing is an excellent way to start harnessing the power of your data for better marketing results. In a recent study, 65% of higher education institutions already have great success partnering entirely with external data analytics vendors or blending their operations between in-house and outsourced partnerships. Don’t be afraid to shop around to find out what kind of solutions are right for your institution.

We, of course, are one of those companies you can partner with for your data driven education marketing solutions. But, here are a few links to other data driven solutions companies you can access:

Helix Education

Rapid Insight Inc.

TWG Plus

Tracking Success

Having all of the facts helps you stand out and make a big impression on potential students. Recruitment strategies can range from a narrowly targeted digital campaign to the ultimate campus visit. Here are some key points to consider when tracking the success of your educational marketing campaign.

•  Qualified Applicants-Per-Requisition: Are your sourcing practices delivering the results you want?
• Recruitment Performance: How are your recruits doing? Where are your best recruits coming from? What’s working? What’s not?
• Drop-Out Rates: Are you enrolling quality recruits? Are they staying with the program? If not, why are students and the University a mismatch? What can be done to improve retention?
• Time-to-Fill: How can we make the recruitment process more efficient? Are there bottlenecks in the application process? Where are the inefficiencies? Creating a conversion funnel in your Google Analytics could show you where the problems lie.
• Top Talent Characteristics: What makes some students more successful than others? How can you identify and land these potential students?

Technology supports the whole student life cycle. What does the customer journey look like for your students? History unlocks potential and reveals valuable insight into future trends. Data driven solutions gives your higher education marketing team a detailed look at the big picture so that they can make informed decisions that increase higher education recruitment.

Michael Morin, data driven, strategically focused, performance obsessed