5 student recruitment strategies for higher education
How to make your university stand out to prospective students.
How to make your university stand out to prospective students.
Student recruitment is one of the most critical pieces of the student experience as it sets the foundation for the rest of their time at college. Creating a good first impression and supporting prospective students during this time can help foster a sense of community and belonging well before a student steps on campus. Moreover, this stage of the student lifecycle isn’t just critical for students; it’s vital for the long-term sustainability of institutions as they seek to achieve enrollment goals and reduce summer melt.
So how can universities attract potential students? What strategies should be implemented in a digitally dominated environment? One solution is to use a CRM for education (customer relationship management) to streamline communication between students, faculty, and staff while enhancing the recruitment process. In this guide, you’ll learn how your institution can create personalized recruitment experiences that nurture prospective students at every step.
The goal of higher education recruitment is to get the best-fit students admitted to your institution. There are several ways to do this. Traditionally, institutions filled their recruitment funnels with legacy tactics like purchasing lists or relying only on in-person events. Today, those tactics alone aren’t effective. Institutions must adopt a digital-first, agile approach to generate the best results.
Earning a degree is an investment that students hope will set them up for a prosperous career, making this factor a critical piece in their college selection process. According to the Third Edition of the Connected Student Report, nearly half of students reported selecting their institution based on career prospects. Students want to see how your school fits their needs, personality, and career goals to justify their investment. It’ll take a personalized and engaging college recruitment strategy to win them over.
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First, it’s essential to look at the broader state of today. Understanding these three significant factors will explain why focusing on student recruitment is more important than ever.
In addition, first-generation students are less likely to graduate compared to their counterparts. As education inequities continue to persist and widen, there’s an opportunity for institutions to bridge the gap by focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) in their recruitment efforts.
With declining enrollment rates, rising costs, shifting attitudes, and increased competition, recruitment staff must work more productively and strategically than ever before to attract and engage prospective students.
Institutions are tasked with managing costs and increasing revenues while improving staff productivity. They must do all this while appealing to prospective students in an intensely competitive higher education environment. Just as businesses need an organized plan to drive long-term success, so do colleges and universities. To create a successful campus recruitment strategy, institutions need to set clear, specific goals that are measurable and achievable. Institutions simply can’t wait six to twelve months to adjust their recruitment and admissions plans. They need dynamic solutions and flexible platforms that allow them to innovate in order to attract and enroll students effectively.
Universities today can no longer rely solely on legacy tactics or third-party sources to find the best-fit prospects for their recruitment funnel. They must seek these potential students out themselves. In a highly competitive landscape, they must shift strategies to a digital-first approach that prioritizes speed along with a personalized and engaging experience to drive prospects to the top of their funnel. Building personalized relationships from the very start of the recruitment process begins with institutions addressing these questions:
To help answer some of these questions, institutions should use key enrollment indicators (KEI). This includes defining enrollment cohorts, collecting student lifecycle data, defining metrics of success, developing an enrollment model, and using that model to benchmark progress to better understand areas for improvement. Institutions should strive to hit specific enrollment targets over a certain period of time and track that progress carefully, allowing room to adjust tactics as needed. This is critical for creating a sustainable recruitment process.
Now that you have a better understanding of who your ideal student is, it’s time to attract them with the right technology and techniques. According to the Connected Student Report, of the students surveyed who said they had a great university experience, 69% felt their experience was personalized. Today, students expect tailored communications, from applying to a university to graduation. Institutions need modern tools and intelligent data to make that happen. But an average institution uses 35 different applications to manage the student journey, according to a Nucleus Research report. This can lead to poor data integration, siloed communication, and a slower, less personalized engagement process throughout the recruitment funnel.
To create a personalized process every step of the way, universities need technology that:
A system that offers these key features provides recruitment and admission staff with valuable insights from the beginning of the engagement process and reduces friction during the application stage. This was the case for Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. After switching to a new customer relationship management (CRM) system that included these features, the university tripled the number of personalized emails sent — resulting in a 7% increase in conversion from applicant to enrolled student. Using an integrated platform can help institutions engage prospective students at scale and in a manner that drives results.
Achieving a sustainable student recruitment strategy takes creativity and a digital-first approach. Creating a personalized experience from the very top of the funnel down to enrollment is crucial. The strategies listed here can help.
Students looking to find the right institutional fit assess several pieces of information. However, one of the most important pieces is the why behind your institution. What is the primary mission of your school? What sets it apart from others? What special programs do you offer that students can’t find elsewhere?
When prospective students look up your institution’s website or social media channels, they should be able to determine the why quickly. This means spending time evaluating and, if necessary, crafting your institution’s brand that is consistent across various media channels. Not only is branding crucial on your website, but it’s also key to have a presence on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube — these are the most popular social media platforms prospective students use to assess a potential institution.
Universities should ask themselves:
Olivet Nazarene University is a master of branding that plays on its strengths. One of their most successful initiatives involved better serving the needs of continuing students, those who had dropped out due to financial issues, poor grades, or other external challenges. They created a groundbreaking, free, self-paced online program. It was a success, seeing a 1,000% increase in new continuing students and a 30% reduction in recruitment costs.
Their branding reflects the success of that initiative and what makes their school so unique. This small, low-cost option created an environment welcoming to otherwise marginalized students. On their website, they highlight their tagline in bold at the top of the page and include a large graphic that features their ranking from U.S. World and News as one of the best-valued schools in the Midwest. Across their social channels, they have the saying, “We believe. You belong.” It’s easy to see their why in the first few seconds on their website and social media channels.
Understanding how and what kind of communication your target audience prefers is critical in order to turn prospects into enrolled students. It’s likely your recruitment office will be spending a lot of time targeting the Gen Z population since they’re the biggest demographic entering their prime college years. To win over the hearts of this generation, you’ll need personalized and engaging communications delivered on the channels they prefer.
So, how do you do that? Here are some ways to create a more personalized experience throughout the recruitment process.
More than 55% of students selected location as an important factor in where to enroll, according to Salesforce’s Third Edition Connected Student Report. Prospective students want to understand university life better. They need to be able to see themselves living and learning in an environment that suits their personality. Perhaps dorm arrangements are most important to them or networking opportunities in their field of interest. Or maybe they’re more interested in whether or not the surrounding area has hiking trails or beach access. Showcasing university life in multiple ways helps prospective students gain better insight into what enriching experiences they can have inside and outside of the classroom.
Here are some ways to showcase university life:
One university using these strategies skillfully is the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On their homepage, they offer virtual campus tours, including virtual tours of the surrounding area and outdoor activities. Students can even explore what to expect from all four seasons in Wisconsin — an excellent feature for out-of-state and international prospective students. A separate page features the Wisconsin Experience. Prospective students can dive deeper into four categories based on the school’s mission and read detailed student stories highlighting the school’s diverse student body. Wisconsin-Madison provides a lot of information in the form of multimedia with a focus on student stories to help prospects get a feel of what life is like beyond the classroom at the university.
Online or in-person, many institutions are adopting a hybrid event approach when engaging with with prospective students. These events are pivotal in pushing students to the top of your recruitment funnel. Below are some event ideas to get you started:
According to the Third Edition of the Connected Student Report, 47% of students select their institution for career prospects. Pursuing a higher education degree at a private, non-profit institution costs, on average, $33,000 a year, so students want to be sure their investment will pay off. And with increased competition from alternative higher education options, institutions need to leverage every tool in their toolbox.
Perhaps one of the best ways to drive home the value of a degree is to get help from alumni. They can offer testimonials and demonstrate future career opportunities if prospects choose your school. Here are some ways to get the support of alumni in your recruitment efforts:
Higher education institutions today are often ranked by their students’ ability to graduate and obtain lucrative employment. Emphasizing alum success and creating mentorship opportunities can persuade prospective students that your institution is a worthwhile investment, leading to higher enrollment rates and increased revenue and better revenues.
Higher education recruitment is a foundational piece of the student experience — a good first impression helps students develop a sense of connection to the university before stepping foot on campus. Recruitment efforts need to be nurtured, evaluated, and assessed regularly. Institutions need to consider their recruitment office’s goals, tools, and techniques to find the right students. One such method is to create personalized engagement throughout the recruitment funnel. Universities can do this by adopting a digital-first approach that plays up their strengths through branding, focusing on targeted marketing strategies, and hosting specific hybrid events tailored to prospects’ needs.
Having the right technology to deploy these strategies is vital. With help from Salesforce, universities can create a recruitment process that fits perfectly into their goals.
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