Recruiting Intelligence

Here we go again. Entering a new year with a certain trepidation. Recent headlines warning of mass deportations and reeking of transnational skepticism harken back to a pre-pandemic era of not so long ago. The difference this time: we come prepared. This is a road we’ve traveled. So, lace up your long-distance sneakers and let’s get going. 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• AIEA in March and NAFSA in May, we'll be presenting our latest findings at both. Want to connect at either event? Let us know.

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Despite our wariness of upcoming US, UK, Australian, and Canadian policy changes that are sure to impact our international student community, we are looking forward to 2025. We will find our way forward even despite the incoming US administration's often petty, often chaotic, and consistently unpredictable management style. Sigh.

One important change to how we move forward here at Intead, a resolution if you will, is an adjustment to the cadence of this blog.  

We’ve been publishing Recruiting Intelligence since 2012, on a weekly basis. Our goal has always been, and continues to be, to provide you with deep industry insights that are practical, highly actionable, and meaningful to your day-to-day work. We report on markets, tech tools, recruitment trends, marketing strategy, you name it. If it can improve your enrollment management, we are researching and writing about it.  

This year we are shifting our output slightly by moving to an every-other-week schedule. This shift in cadence is born out of our digital strategy analysis and watching your engagement. Turns out, given our long form content format, not everyone has time to read our posts every week!!!   

OK, obvious, right? What this means in simple terms: our efforts to disseminate meaningful content to as many people as possible is not as effective as it could be with each post. 

By shifting to an every-other-week schedule, our digital team can use social channels more effectively to promote the content we produce. There will be more time for the social algorithms and your clicks and shares to do their work.  

So, long story short, you will still see our longer form musings here, and an increasing presence on social media as we hold true to our goal of providing useful content to industry insiders. Speaking of, we are connected on LinkedIn, right? If not, follow us here.  

In the meantime, a quick look back at 2024 through this blog’s top 10 posts as chosen by you, our readers. We were not at all surprised at #1. Read on…  

Shout out to Q4 for giving us all something to think about. Cue the Chinese expression: "Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos." (宁享平安犬生，莫为乱世中人). Yup, got it! Right now, we are those humans, perhaps wishing we were dogs.  

Between the US presidential election and IIE Open Doors data, many of us are recalibrating our approach to 2025. Fortunately, we’ve worked through anti-immigration policies and lackluster international student enrollment numbers before. We’ll weather this. But there is work ahead for all of us. 

So, if you’ve missed a few of our Recruiting Intelligence articles, we understand. This post will catch you right up. 

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  

• AIEA in March and NAFSA in May, we'll be presenting our latest findings at both. Want to connect at either event? Let us know.

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Below, get our latest insights on topics that matter to you, including:  

• Digital Marketing: The impact of AI on your SEO; Our social algorithms cheat sheet
• Marketing Strategy: 5 Student recruitment markets worth considering; How to find and use your student career outcome data to recruit; Why personas get a bad rap
• Industry Reports: CHLOE 9: Strategy Shift -- Institutions Respond to Sustained Online Demand; Trump v Harris -- Student Sentiment Analysis 
• Conference Highlights: Intead’s notes and slides from AMA Higher Ed, PIE Live Boston, NAFSA XI 

Read on… 

Despite what our writers like to think, it’s not all about content. Digital marketing is also about math. Social media runs on numbers after all. Since we just presented at PIE Live in Boston last week, we are pretty sure there is a pun about the value of pi and algorithms here somewhere.   

While marketers don’t need to build the algorithmic equations that power social media platforms, understanding how they work, or rather the intent of why they work, does matter.  

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team

• AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, Washington, Dec. 4-7 -- including our pre-conference global marketing workshop. A full day of Intead global intel (lunch included ; -). Details here.
• AIEA in March and NAFSA in May, we'll be presenting our latest findings at both. Let us know if you want to connect at either of those two events.

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

Social media algorithms evaluate and prioritize user behavior. These algorithms, a set of rules and signals that rank content, are proprietary and organize social feeds based on user interaction. Each algorithm aims to create highly relevant, interesting content for individual users, which is of course the crux of our society’s love-hate relationship with this addictive medium.  

Today we dive into the intent behind the feeds of 5 top platforms so you can better fit and filter the content you’re pushing out to prospective students. We break down how algorithms differ across major social media platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X). You’ll want your team to keep this post handy when thinking on your social media marketing strategy. Read on…

The buzz topic at NAFSA XI 2024: creative ways to engage students. The primary focus being study abroad during this 3-day event in Hartford, CT in October. The Intead team was there in force gathering intel and sharing our latest data-informed thinking. 

Small industry events like NAFSA’s regional conferences are such a great way to connect with peers to think through the nuts and bolts of what works and what doesn’t on issues we’re all facing. So many conversations on how to raise on-campus awareness of study abroad programs, including how to counter student “why bother” attitudes (all too common).   

Another buzz topic: faculty and cross-departmental collaboration. We are all still struggling to break down silos and build collaborative cultures on campus.   

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov. 19-20, 2024. Two informative sessions: Dissecting the latest IIE data and a deep dive into international student career outcome data with Babson College.
- AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, Washington, Dec. 4-7 -- including our pre-conference global marketing workshop. A full day of Intead global intel (lunch included ; -). Details here. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

A consistent drumbeat throughout the NAFSA Region XI conference was something we as marketers intuitively know all too well: authenticity is huge among this generation. Basic example of how this plays out: polished marketing videos vs. iPhone produced TikTok vibes.  

Obvious across-the-board guidance whether you’re working on recruitment or retention, undergrad or grad. Since so many NAFSA Regional conference attendees are in student services roles, the discussions were largely around how authenticity boosts study abroad numbers. It works – when implemented. 

Simple as it seems, meaningful communication gets lost in the name of strategic marketing all the time. Institutions are so busy finding best-fit students and telling them things, it’s easy to forget to meet them where they are by listening to them before you start telling them things. 

Consider your students who’ve never thought of study abroad as a viable option for their own academic journeys. Is your student union flyer even registering with them? Are your Instagram Reels connecting?   

The real-world examples of success discussed at the conference addressed students’ need for explicit communication that shows them why and how study abroad is actually an option for them. They need their professors, alumni, and fellow classmates to talk about the benefits of studying abroad. They need details on cost upfront, including scholarships or grants available. They need to hear about the more affordable study abroad programs. They need to connect your study abroad programs to their personal investment in their own futures – the future they are working toward on campus right now. They need to know they won't lose out on all the social events on campus because they will be engaging in new and exciting social events abroad.

New ideas? No. Achievable in a better way? Yes.

So much easier to see (and prioritize) the path forward after a few days with like-minded peers. (Thank you, NAFSA!).

Other topics we had a lot of fun discussing include value mapping for improved admissions processes and how to identify useful data to support your recruitment efforts. Action-oriented conversations led by outstanding presenters. Big thanks to Corey Blackmar of Emerson College, Steven Boyd of Quinnipiac University, and Khald Aboalayon of Clark University for sharing the stage with us. 

One final shout out. This one’s for our number one Director of Marketing Analytics Iliana Joaquin. She is the new NAFSA XI IEM Knowledge Center Regional Rep. We are thrilled to let NAFSA borrow her amazing skills in 2025. Congrats Iliana!  

Below we bring a bit of the conference to you. Read on to download our presentation decks with practical tips and insights:  

• Creating a Campus Culture for Study Abroad 
• Admission Process Analysis: Value Mapping and Improvement 
• Wait, So How Did You Get This Data? 

Is AI affecting my SEO? One among a legion of questions surfacing since generative AI went mainstream. But it’s one we’re fielding a lot, so let’s get into it.   

First, the basics. SEO, or search engine optimization, is how you optimize your website content to up the odds that search engines like Google will rank your webpages high on their results pages. The goal is to appear as the top result for relevant search queries. You’re likely more than familiar with the concept.  

You may also know that search engines have been utilizing AI for years. It’s what helps them understand the meaning and intent of a search query – a function known as semantic search, which uses machine learning and natural language processing to help Google and other search tools understand what users are searching for.   

So, it’s not AI, per se, that’s got marketers worried. It’s generative AI.  

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- American Marketing Assn Higher Ed, Las Vegas, NV, Nov. 10-13, 2024
- PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov. 19-20, 2024
- AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, Washington, Dec. 4-7 -- including our pre-conference global marketing workshop. A full day of Intead global intel (lunch included ; -). Details here. 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides decks, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

There’s a concern circulating that ChatGPT will become people’s first-stop search engine. Or that when people use Google, its Gemini content will usurp any hard-won top-ranking SEO results.   

We’ll put it this way: Do not worry. Do, however, get informed on how to use generative AI to boost your SEO. Really.

Our recommendation: share this post with your Search Engine Optimization team and get around a table and talk it through. Below, we suggest some helpful discussion prompts to get the conversation going.

Read on… 

With the amount of time prospective students spend online, you’d think connecting with them would be easier.  

The average US teen spends 7 hours 22 minutes each day looking at a screen, or 43% of their waking hours, per Exploding Topics. And that’s being conservative – Common Sense stats show teens on screens 8 ½ hours per day outside of school-related screen time. Need confirmation? Just look around your campus at all the students not looking at you, but rather their screens. (Reality check: the rest of us aren’t off the hook as the average person clocks 6 hours 58 minutes of screen time per day, just so you know. So yes, that is where all the time goes!) 

Do you know the average number of phone notifications a US teenager receives each day? We answer that below. Make sure you are sitting down when you read it.

Yet, despite all their screen time, or perhaps because of it, your prospective students are discerning consumers of marketing. If they’ve seen one university ad, they’ve seen a thousand. We’re certain you can relate. We all can. But some messages clearly do get through, and it almost always comes down to creativity, cultural nuance, and an appetite for taking a little risk.

Fun fact for the risk takers: Humor is a tough marketing message to achieve with a broad and diverse audience, but when you get it, it REALLY works. 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• ICEF North America in Niagara, Canada, April 30 - May 3, 2024
• NAFSA 2024 Annual Conference and Expo in New Orleans, May 28-31, 2024
• GMAC 2024 Annual Conference in New Orleans, June 19-21, 2024

Let us know if you’ll share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

Take fintech, an increasingly rising "it" program in the eyes of so many STEM-degree seekers, especially those with a bent toward accounting and money-making in general. And rightly so as financial services operations around the world increasingly rely on new technologies to do business. (Shout out to Worcester Polytechnic Institute on its recent fintech doctoral program launch giving students a full-stack (BA>MS>PhD) option in this coveted field. Talk about reading the market!!!)  

Fintech is a huge, booming industry and one that universities with fintech programs are leveraging to draw the attention of prospects. The same can be said for Data Analytics, Cybersecurity, AI, and other “sexy” programs that now drive global and local economies. 

Important note: the counsel that follows here applies to how you message your programs even if you computer sciences are oversubscribed and you are trying to attract students to other options.

We want to promote programs that will draw eyes and pique interest. Highlighting them in your recruitment efforts makes sense. Of course, you know this. And yet somehow marketing that ultimately makes it onto the screen in front of your prospective students’ gaze is so often watered down, generalized speak about “great programs in computer science” or “practical business degrees” or the now far overused, “advance your career.” Ugh. Your prospect just scrolled on.

We know you know exactly what we’re talking about. So often there is a fear of getting too specific. Why mention one computer science program and ignore the others when students need to know there are many amazing degrees from which they can choose?  

Here’s why: you need their attention, and the coveted, interesting, or unusual programs will get it. Not the generalized track that simply prompts the finger flick and scroll right by. 

It’s not just your message you need to consider, it’s also the medium.

95% of US teens now own or have access to a phone per Pew Research. Worldwide, the stats vary (China has the most active smartphone users, followed by India, the US, Indonesia, and Brazil), but it’s safe to say many of your prospective students living outside of the US are on their phones, too. In Sub-Saharan Africa, affordability and access is improving such that there will be 692 million unique mobile users by 2030, 88% of whom will be using smartphones according to lobby group GSMA.

Many of your prospective students will not only be accessing information about your institution via smartphone, but will be completing the entire application process on it as well. Something your international team knows but your domestic team might not be thinking about. 

Marketers and message makers read on for our tips on phone screen engagement tips. Like all good listicles, we’ve got 5 steps to push your team to create effectively... 

If something isn’t online, does it even exist? We jest, and yet, without a strong online brand presence, many prospective students and their families really won’t know you exist. Because let's face it, prospective students today are basically born with smartphones in hand and earbuds on. If something isn’t online, it’s next to invisible in their world. 

That’s why institutions across the board have spent the past decade+ ramping up digital marketing budgets, perfecting their Insta image, and all the rest. A recent Washington Post article claims some well-funded universities are spending upwards of $1-2 million per month on digital ad campaigns alone. (Emphasis there on "well-funded!")

While that number is not industry average, most institutions do not have a Barbie budget, that figure is still a clear indication that digital is mission critical to higher ed marketing. No surprise to you or your finance team.  

But here’s the thing. The newest crop of students and their tag-along Gen Alpha siblings are at once more immersed and less smitten with social media. It's certainly no longer novel. Social media is life as they know it and they are adept at downloading ad blockers and avoiding sales pitches. So take note. Authenticity rules, while overproduced and slick messages are generally ignored.  

Our recommendation is to keep honing your digital marketing game, with this caveat in mind: your digital approach works best in tandem with other channels. We are talking out-of-home, print, in-person, and the like. In other words, the best-bet strategy is omnichannel.

We’ll be at AIEA in DC in about 5 weeks and participating in 3 great presentations: 

• AI for enrollment management  
• Entrepreneurial leadership in bureaucratic environments 
• A discussion around International Student Points of Entry and a new publication to be released later in 2024 
  

And of course, we will be presenting at NAFSA in New Orleans in late May. If you’d like to schedule time to chat over coffee instead of over Zoom, please be in touch (info@intead.com). 

Read on to better understand the importance of omnichannel marketing and how you can use it to engage your target audience and grow your enrollment numbers.  

2023 ushered in some much-needed numbers. Enrollment rose among undergraduate (+2.1%) and graduate (+0.7%) students. And while freshmen enrollment trended downward (-3.6%), interest in shorter-term credentials was on the rise (+9.9%). All this per National Student Clearinghouse figures. 

Likewise, IIE Open Doors data showed a 12% increase of incoming international students in 2022-23. And the more up-to-date SEVIS data indicated 2023 fall enrollment maintained this welcomed momentum. All good news in aggregate. As we parse all these data sets, there are interesting findings and nuanced opportunities to be sure. 

Yet, all news was not good. The chaos of the world at large continued to make its way onto campuses across the nation. Safety continues to be a growing concern, and your prospective students and their families are unsure what to make of it. More admissions inquiries shift from campus life to safety and mental health support services. Also important to note: social justice activities influence an increasing number of applicants. 

In the midst of it all, we do our best to use this blog to weigh in on topics that matter to enrollment teams like yours. So, it’s always interesting for us to look back and see which posts were your faves for most valuable content from the year. There are always a few surprises. 

In 2023, there was a ton of interest in all things internationalization – especially around how student activity in India and China is changing. But that’s not all.

We were told our posts on student career prep, social media trends, and budgeting framework were also really helpful. So, with that, we share our top 10 posts from 2023, as chosen by you, our readers. Plus our staff pick for the most valuable post of 2023. If you missed any of these top pieces, you’ll want to read on…  

From the annual CIEE conference in Paris to Pie Live in Boston then AIRC in Phoenix and a super quick turnaround to ICEF in Miami, Q4 literally flew by. You, too? We wouldn’t change a thing, of course. It’s hard to replace the simple act of togetherness. It’s how ideas come to life. Cliché? Fine. But it’s so true. 

Sharing our research and student recruitment campaign results with our community always feels great. We’re here to make you more effective (and have interesting insights to share at your team meetings).  

A few key Q4 takeaways we will absolutely be bringing into the new year: 

• The global competition for international students is stronger by the day, and institutions need to be increasingly smarter in their approach to international education, including recruitment. Can you be? (hint: it has to do with the skill sets you access to do the work) 
• China and India are hot topics as always, especially India’s dramatic rising numbers of incoming graduate (and undergraduate) students.  
• Enrollment departments are eager to leverage AI. The question is: how? And, is it ready for us? 
• More must be done to support student mental health. So much more. 
• And how about the new IIE Open Doors report?! Lagging data that points toward the future. 
  

Just a few notes we’re thinking about. Clearly there’s no lack of issues for our industry to address. So, if in the midst of this really busy few months you didn’t have time to read all of our posts, we understand. That’s why we’ve compiled this quarterly at-a-glance post. It covers all our news from how to navigate TikTok’s ad platform to what’s going on with higher ed in India and so much in between that you and your team won’t want to miss.Read on… 

Market diversification is one obvious answer to sustaining enrollment numbers. How to successfully go about it, however, is often less obvious. Looking beyond your own campus to see how others are doing it can help. So, we have a story to share. 

If you've seen our other case studies, you know we share more concrete details and data than any other agency out there. We want to make you that much more dangerous and demonstrate the value of investing in customized, creative, and well-tracked paid campaigns.

In 2021, a mid-tier, public, Midwest regional university needed to recruit international students. It’s a student segment they’d had success with in the past, but Covid, as it does, threw a wrench in their recruitment efforts. It became clear they needed new ways to reach prospective students residing overseas. We know you were wrestling with this very issue at the time, too. We all were. 

Find us at AIRC and ICEF. Let’s connect! 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• AIRC Annual Conference – As you read this, our team is in Phoenix offering our full-day digital marketing workshop. If you are at the AIRC conference, please look for us here in Phoenix, Dec 6-9, 2023 
• ICEF North America Workshop in Miami, Dec 11-13, 2023. We'll be offering a half-day workshop on Dec 11 and meeting with everyone on Dec 12-13.

Let us know if you’ll come share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

Back to the results of our digital campaigns in Bangladesh and Vietnam.

With a media buy budget of $35,000, the institution was admittedly skeptical they’d be able to make any meaningful progress in a new market. We always want more wiggle room with our media buys, but we also felt certain they could succeed, with the right approach. They trusted our experience and the market research we delivered.

Our mission: understand who and where the prospective families are and then reach them in ways that prompt engagement. So our data detectives and creative talents set out to: 

• Confirm the institution’s high-value student recruitment regions and where there might be room to grow
• Develop on-brand, targeted, and effective digital marketing assets   
• Launch and optimize digital campaigns to generate highly qualified leads (and build awareness, but really, we all want the high-value leads) 
• And of course, report on campaign analytics to inform future marketing investments.

By any measurement, it went really well. One $12,000 media buy generated 40 million impressions, 500,000 clicks, 1,087 leads, 122 applications, 40 admitted students, and 7 enrolled. But who’s counting? (Please say you are!)

It was a fast, 14-week campaign involving two markets, two academic programs, and two social platforms. Want more insight? Download our free case study. Read on…