So, my oldest child joined us for dinner out the other night. She dressed with her usual flair, all yellow and brown this time. And she ordered herself a drink to match – some cocktail concoction that apparently took a cue from her hues. I had never ordered a drink to match my look before, so I asked her what I should get. Her response: "Dad, I have no idea. Your look is functional but vibeless – jeans with a black fleece. How about a Miller Lite?"
Absolutely loved that line: functional but vibeless. How common is that situation in the marketing/communications world? Consider all of the functional but vibeless emails we receive. You probably can’t consider them. They’re all just so forgettable.
Our next opportunity to meet!
NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, CT, Oct 27-29. The Intead team will be there presenting on Admission Process Analysis, Marketing Data Analytics, and Marketing Study Abroad with university partners from our New England region friends from Quinnipiac, Johnson and Wales, Clark, and Emerson. Practical strategies and creative tactics to hit your enrollment targets. Hope to see you there!
The Resource Center for Industry Insiders
Take your challenge of the day and plop it into our search bar. With 800+ publications and our 15 years of weekly blogging, you will find relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting. Valuable perspective and data on topics you care about. From agent-university partnerships to predictive modeling and CRM efficiency, to new market development, our Resource Center has you covered. Check it out.
Examples of what we mean:
→ Dear inquiring student,
Thank you so much for submitting your application. We note you are still missing one document. Blah, blah, blah…our deadline is approaching.
Thanks, Vibeless University Admissions Team
---
→ Dear admitted student,
Let us introduce you to all of the really great student associations you could join here at Vibeless U! When you arrive, you should look into one. Oh, and here’s a fun picture …
Sincerely, Vibeless University Admissions Team
All function, no form, low response rate, immediately forgotten. Instantly deletable.
Taking time, tapping consumer insights from your current students, injecting creativity, tracking the metrics to figure out what works, what converts. These are the activities that produce results. These are the activities that will share your institution’s true vibe far and wide.
Every communication you have with students and prospective students, matters. It’s how you connect with them. Correction: It’s how you stay connected. Retention is as important as recruitment.
Today, we offer the three golden rules to creating a lead nurturing campaign that’s got the function you need and that all important vibe. We think this post will be really helpful for your team members tasked with the nuts-and-bolts details of your institution’s prospective student outreach.
Important to communicating vibe: the order you present your messaging matters by region and student type. Is affordability your first hook? Career opportunity? Environmental justice? Academic prowess? All important content areas. Different student segments will click on one or another topic at different points in their decision-making process. THAT is what consumer insight research confirms for you as you use your content to improve application rates and yield.
Share this one with the right folks on your team and, read on…
Lead nurturing is a vital part of your recruitment strategy. This is the kind of thing that needs refreshing over time to avoid relying on ineffective, stagnant content that’s got no more vibe. How do you know if your content has become ineffective and stagnant? Simply by tracking the conversion rate over time. All the standard stuff that often gets overlooked when recruitment marketing teams get too busy:
- Email open and click rates
- Landing page Google Analytics data
- High-value conversion rates -- inquiries that have gone on to apply and enroll or take other valuable call to action (CTA) steps
If you and your team want more on this, check out one of our very popular posts: 5 Lead Nurturing Best Practices for Universities and High Schools.
The key here: know your audiences, know your admissions process, create content that vibes.
Let’s go.
#1 Golden Rule: Know How Your Audience Segments Will React to Your Content.
Identifying and understanding your target audience is the foundation of any good content marketing strategy. Research the consumer insights that drive student decision-making and action. And those drivers change based on student interests. The basics:
- Geographic considerations
- Academic interests and career goals
- Economic factors (personal and regional)
- Cultural backgrounds, touch points, and motivations
- Safety concerns
- Social justice perspective
So, do your research first. Dive deep. Talk to the locals. Check out the cultural nuances, historical and current. Read up on the local economic and political news. And for goodness sake, talk to your students and alumni from the region.
You are comparing and contrasting all these factors to determine your confidence level for each geographic market that represents potential enrollment value your institution (no small task there). And that means you are figuring out what is valuable about your institution for each specific student segment. Understanding where your true value lies for those you are marketing to...really important. Need more insight on persona development? Check out this past post.
Consider:
- What motivates them to study in the US
- What types of programs are they seeking
- What the local economy is doing
- What social channels and online tools do they use to communicate
- At what point in the conversation they will engage via email. (Yes they will use email at the right time. See this post.)
- Their level of English proficiency
- Their safety concerns (if any)
- Their love of nature, urban life, music, food, dancing, art
- Their connection to social justice issues (inclusion, environment, healthcare, poverty, gender, and so many other important topics)
- The importance of their parents' role (or other important adults in their lives)
- Their personal connections and cultural community connections in your location
- So, so, so many more questions…
Your takeaway: Consumer insights allow your marketing team to refine your messaging to pique prospective student interest and communicate in meaningful, accessible, relatable ways. You’ll want to adjust to where candidates are in their university or high school selection process. Consider the recruitment funnel – awareness, interest, application, yield. Which leads to our next Golden Rule.
Need help with this type of consumer insight research? This is so our jam. Be in touch: info@intead.com.
#2 Golden Rule: Know Your Admissions Process.
If you think the US admissions process is challenging and confusing for domestic students (don’t get us started on FAFSA!), it is even more so for international students who are not even completing the FAFSA.
Beyond transcripts, SAT, TOEFL, bank statement, personal statements, recommendation letters (what are those???), there’s the issue of the travel visa. Some institutions seek to identify serious prospective international students by requesting a bank statement up front. Others see this step as an unnecessary barrier. Knowing financial capacity and stronger visa potential early in the recruitment process can save your admissions team time. Or it can limit your application volume.
Where you place hurdles in your admissions process is significant and will affect application quantity and quality in addition to your admissions process efficiency. The Intead team has conducted admissions process flow (value mapping) exercises to identify bottlenecks and streamline the process to improve targeted yield results. Tip of the hat to David Di Maria, SIO at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who has literally written the extremely helpful and instructive book on this topic. Highly recommend.
Your takeaway: Be specific and direct when communicating with prospects. Lead them clearly through your admissions journey. Help them know exactly what they need to provide your admissions office, by when, and how. Place hurdles deliberately to increase candidate quality (identifying level of intent), without filtering out the candidates you want. This is functional and instructive content that has a very important place in your recruitment content flow. So many institutions present inconsistent and confusing instructions to their prospective students. Done right, this student-focused content will present your institution’s vibe as the helpful, clear communicators you are, which leads us to our next Golden Rule.
#3 Golden Rule: Create Content with Your Institution’s Vibe.
Ok, game on! Craft content that speaks directly to the prospective students. Help them feel seen. Create a connection between your institution and the future they want. Show them the classroom engagement and the student community scene. Help them feel as if they are there among you (even if it is an online program). And importantly, show them how the education they will receive with you will carry them on into the future and stay with them.
- Engage them with images that will resonate with their motivations
- Use words that speak to the academic programs they’re excited about exploring and career experiences they seek
- Provide specific and clear next steps or calls to action throughout your many landing pages, emails, and downloadable brochures
- Connect in ways that are easy for them in the places they want to be (WhatsApp, student fairs, webinars, TikTok)
Be yourself. Be your brand. Show your colors. Share your vibe.
Words, images, animations, video, and messengers matter – students, alumni, faculty, all engaged in working and playing together in exciting ways, heartfelt and unscripted ways, ways that specifically influence the kind of students that fit in well with your institution’s vibe.
Your takeaway: Prospective students are judging your institution at every point of communication. The students we talk to tell us they chose their university based on the way the communications made them feel (and the way other institutions did not make them feel). The point: convey your vibe as you share the functional information.
A Final Golden Rule
Know your audiences, know your admissions process, create content with your vibe. Three foundational rules for powerful, relatable content that prompts and builds a connection. Oh, and the last but definitely not least, Golden Rule: Be in touch to work with a team that truly vibes.
