Recruiting Intelligence

You know by now that digital marketing and student recruitment go hand-in-hand. And as those industry tech terms and acronyms get thrown around at meetings, it helps to be in the know. Here's a useful primer to keep you in the loop when everyone starts talking alphabet soup.

You've heard this before, I'm sure: Students don't read email anymore, they are only on social media. Well that's sort of true.

In our work we have talked to a wide range of students and they actually understand that as they enter the real world, they have to do what those "old" people do to communicate online. They have to use that quaint mode of communication called email.

We hope that our readers who are into digital marketing are tracking their email open rates. This is pretty basic stuff at this point and all of the email marketing tools out there will provide this kind of data to help you evaluate the success of your email marketing campaigns.

The question is, when you look at the data, do you know what it is telling you? Wait, are you even looking at the data you have?

This is the thing with analytics. You need to know what you have and how to use it. And so many have it and don't know what to do with it. 

As you move forward and watch your email open rates, you are going to want to take your analytics quite a bit further. Because the real value of tracking your open rates comes when your digital marketing system allows you to follow the digital engagement path all the way to enrolled!

This kind of tracking takes time and diligence but it is the holy grail of digital marketing. Imagine knowing that one particular email you sent vs. another actually converts 3% more international students to enrolled status. That might make a few impressed eyebrows go up around the office. And with each campaign, you can measure your success.

Our intrepid correspondent, Emily R. Henry reporting from Leiden, Netherlands, is going to give you some insight and some basic tips to produce more enticing emails to your prospective international students. Read on...

~ Ben Waxman

In last week’s blog post, we shared with you our  thoughts on Thailand's educational market inlcuding statistics on the trends in Thai students’ studying abroad. Today, in Part 2 of this mini-series we will give you a better sense of how you should be marketing your institution to these prospective students. This includes a more in-depth look at some of the marketing opportunities we see and the social media platforms that are popular in this country.

In this mini-series featuring the higher education landscape of Thailand, we will be sharing our insights about international student recruitment in Thailand, as well as our own tips for marketing your university and how to relate to your prospective students.

Today, in this series we will address the facts and figures of students from Thailand studying abroad including where and what they study. In next week’s blog we will discuss where you should be focusing your marketing efforts online and what you should be providing your new students so that you can take full advantage of this growing market.

Let's take a look at some of the more significant aspects of the Thai education market...

Being Asked to Innovate? Please Fail.

Innovation is a term thrown around a lot. I'm not sure everyone truly understands what it means and what is involved. Kind of like the misunderstanding around the term “entrepreneurial."

Typically, when these terms are used by senior administrators, the conversation includes the concept of “doing more with less” and “finding a new way.” Have these conversations happened in your office? You might want to share this post...

Nafsa - That's a Wrap

As a seasoned admissions colleague and first time Nafsa attendee shared with me last week, “The pace of this conference is insane!” I couldn’t agree more. And if you tried to attend the Brazilian, Turkish and New Zealander’s evening receptions, well, “insane” doesn’t start to cover it.

Following all of the great conversations we had during our 3 presentations at #Nafsa15 (slides to follow next week), we must thank all of our co-presenters and the many attendees who participated, asked questions and fostered the discussions. Digital marketing is new and constantly changing. Learning how other universities have waded into this form of global marketing helps keep us all on the right track.

Following the theme we started last week with a focus on the student experience, today we get the first-hand, personal details from Hongqian Su, a Chinese student who chose to get her Master’s Degree here in the US. The student experience is critical to our understanding where and how to allocate our limited resources for the best results.

Students and Agents

Hongqian Su, from Beijing, has just completed NYU’s prestigious and rigorous master’s program in digital marketing. With degree in hand, she is now moving on from Intead’s internship program as well and heading out into the world. The story of how she came to study in the US is informative to all of us doing international recruiting and admissions work. Note the important and influential roles of her mother and her agent and her reflection on the application process now that she has earned her degree.

Intead regularly analyzes macro data sets about digital marketing and international student mobility. We also engage in small focus groups and one-on-one conversations with international students so we don’t lose our focus on the micro interactions that inform our work.

Thank you Hongqian, for all the great work you did for Intead during your internship. We will miss you while we watch your star continue to rise.  

As for you, our readers, Hongqian’s student experience is concrete and real. Read on to gain some valuable recruiting insights. We've highlighted some key marketing points to make it easy for you.           

 ~ Ben Waxman

In honor of the Annual Nafsa Conference going on this week, we are thrilled to introduce a new Intead blogger to our community.

Emily Henry is an American living in The Netherlands. Originally from Missouri and earning her Bachelor’s at University of Missouri-Columbia (Go Mizzou!), Emily has just completed her Master’s in International Non-Governmental Organizations at Webster University located in Leiden, Netherlands.

As the Intead team navigates #Nafsa2015 and offers our 3 recruitment-focused presentations, we like to keep Emily and our other Intead staff who hail from international education backgrounds front and center.

This year’s conference has a record 10,700 attendees! 

The learning and networking that go on during this amazing week, the conversations we are having, are almost entirely about the business of academic offerings.

• How do we make the operational elements work better?
• How do we let students know the value of our programs?
• With whom do we partner to deliver a better student experience?

And there lies the key: the student experience. Let’s stay focused on that as we talk about the business of education.

As a fundraiser at Child and Youth Finance International, Emily has worked with educational institutions across the globe. As an international student with a serious case of wanderlust, Emily has also studied in Chile and Rwanda.

Emily’s story as an international student has some interesting pointers for those in the field. Read on and please extend a hearty welcome to our newest addition to the Intead team.

~ Ben Waxman

In last week’s blog post, we shared with you the trends in Malaysian student mobility. In Part 2 of our Malaysian mini-series we will give you a better sense of how you might want to market your institution to these prospective students.

A quick aside: We are thrilled to be presenting at #NAFSA2015 with some great, global institutions including:

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Fresno State
• University of Cincinnati
• American University
• University Cattolica Sacro Cuore
• University of Otago Language Centre 
• Thompson Rivers University

We will share the dais with two of our expert marketing partners:

• FPP EDUMedia
• Admission Table

This week we launch our Malaysian mini-series giving you the international student recruitment landscape along with our tips for marketing your institution in this country. Our two-part blog post should help your team relate to prospective Malaysian students.

Before we dive in, let’s take a moment to remind our readers of our upcoming #NAFSA2015 Conference presentations. If you or your colleagues are attending the show, you’ll want to hear from the great lineup at all 3 of these free sessions on global digital marketing and international student recruitment:

• MYSTERY SHOP INSIGHTS - Wed 5/27 11:45am - how your peers fail (or succeed) at digital mrktg
• STUDENT MOTIVATIONS - Wed 5/27 2:45pm - groundbreaking research from 800,000! students around the world
• CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING - Fri 5/29 8am - practical marketing experience from your peer institutions in field

Our blog from 5/6/15 provides more detail on these great presentations. We hope to see you there. Now, let's travel to Malaysia...

You’ve heard us talk about this before: the power of digital marketing. Unlike other forms of marketing, call it “old school” where measuring results and learning required far more investment, digital marketing provides analytics that tell you where you can improve.

If you are coming the the NAFSA conference in Boston in just a few weeks we will be presenting on this topic.

The learning from digital marketing campaigns can keep you repeating your successes, not your mistakes. And with the marketing landscape and student mobility trends shifting constantly, the analytics that tell us what works are becoming increasingly important as we allocate scarce resources.

So, what does that mean to you?