Recruiting Intelligence

Been at the gym and seen people working out for what is clearly the first time in a very long time? Have you seen them put the machine on some ridiculously high setting right out of the gate? Disaster waiting to happen, right?

Our regular blog subscribers have heard us talk about testing your digital marketing to international student markets before setting the dial to “intense.” I thought I’d take a moment to explain the rationale and the approach.

Bottom Line: Small marketing tests—that look at the combination of distribution channel, timing, message, content and design—are going to lead you to large scale success if you take the time to do it. To do this well, you need an innovation budget to allow for failure. Yes, failure. Why? Because you learn from failing and when you fail fast and cheap, you achieve success with confidence. With digital, this is the way of things.

What you really want to know: How many clicks? And importantly: How many conversions (applications and enrollments)?

Read on...

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