Recruiting Intelligence

We don’t know who needs to hear this, but email is still alive and well. Thriving, in fact. And while all things social media are the marketing darlings of the moment, email, like the quintessential, foundational website, is an indispensable tool for your student recruitment. Some of you don’t believe us, we know. 

Consider this statistic: by the end of 2024, there will be nearly 4.5 billion email users worldwide—that's over half the planet's population. Chances are your target markets are among this crowd. What’s more, four out of 10 emails are opened through mobile apps (per Statista), putting your highly connected prospects just a notification away from your next message. 

“Sure,” you say, “But you’ve provided no age breakdown with those stats.” Mmm-hmmm. We hear you. 

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

• NAFSA 2024 Annual Conference and Expo in New Orleans, May 28-31, 2024
• GMAC 2024 Annual Conference in New Orleans, June 19-21, 2024
• 2024 EducationUSA Forum in Washington, DC, July 30 - August 01, 2024

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

Why should you place bets on email campaigns when prospective students are so enamored with hugely popular social media platforms and never (never?!?) check their email? For one, email has an unparalleled direct line to your audience. And, unlike other more entertainment-focused social platforms, messages delivered via email are not competing with a third-party algorithm – you send them, they receive them. Plus, emails tend to be easier for your audience to hang on to than say a TikTok post, giving these messages a longer shelf life.   

Essential to this discussion: at what point in your recruitment comms do you use email? To be clear, use email as part of your lead nurturing strategy, NOT as an initial attraction effort. Capture their attention and inquiry using other channels (fairs, social media, counselor referral, etc.). Email is just one element of your effort to deepen the engagement.  

Interestingly, 58% of Gen Z check their email multiple times a day, 23% check it at least once a day, 12% a couple times a week, and 5% once a week, per Campaign Monitor. So, the idea that email is a vintage, washed-up medium is truly a nonstarter. Email is mainstream and will be for the foreseeable future. Including it as part of your recruitment efforts just makes sense.  

Yes, social media is a must-have recruitment tactic. Should anyone on your team need a refresher on the importance of taking an omnichannel approach to marketing, check out this post. 

In the meantime, read on for actionable tips on how to improve your email marketing game to boost, and prove, your student recruitment metrics. It has SO much to do with your content choices... 

Last week’s blog post helped define the data use problem (find Part 1 here). This week, taking us further into what to do about it.

Trust us, you’re not the only team whose data is not living up to its potential. It’s fairly common within teams and business units. It’s an issue of lack of time and/or lack of skills, but a problem worth solving. 

Because, without well-played data, your team is making decisions based on gut reactions and are more likely to participate in group think. That route is often poorly informed and heavily biased. Data informs and confirms. 

Data also drives curiosity. When your brain (or your team) has one of those aha! moments based on data, it craves more. New  market opportunities start to unveil themselves. New approaches to doing the work (operations) emerge. Prospective student enrollment pain-points will become more apparent – and the ramifications of leaving those pain points unresolved. 

Sure, data won’t solve these problems – that’s up to you – but it will help ensure the problems you’re solving are the ones worth pursuing. Data should be the foundation to most of the decisions you make.

Now, we don’t want to overstate it. Data is not magic (though what our data gurus pull out of the hat can feel like it!). It’s simply math. It’s what you do with that math – that’s the magic.  And that’s why every team needs access to digestible data and why self-service data analytics should be a priority for you. It certainly is for us.

This week we offer a process for helping you do just that. It’s a practical 5-step approach that starts with goal-setting and collaboration. Read on.

You only thought you were using data to make smart decisions.

Understanding how to use data to support institutional planning and growth requires talents and skills that are learned and practiced and honed over time. All these tech companies selling tools and platforms into our systems want leadership to believe that all is simple, clear, and that their dashboards will transform your operational planning and decision making. Wondrous growth is just a click or two ahead. If only.

You’ve tried to create a self-serve data buffet for your leadership team so that they can dive in on their own and make informed decisions.

But…what if they’re not?

We mean, you gave your full team access to the tools with loads of features and data reporting. In the realm of marketing, your CRM captures and reports on email open rates, click through rates, conversion rates, and so much more. Your marketing dashboard tools pull data from Facebook’s Business Manager and Google Analytics (with updates to GA4 that your team is scrambling to implement and fine tune as you read this).

We all want to eke every last drop of data from the platforms available to us now.

Truth is, in the battle of data informed decisions vs human nature, human nature usually wins. Reality: creating, viewing, and understanding reports is not as simple as the tech vendors tell you it is.

Many of your leadership team are simply not data people. They may grab some of the data that supports their ideas, but ignore relevant data that would add more insight, nuance, or might even negate their suppositions.

What we have seen over the last decade is that many organizations are assuming their team’s new access to data dashboards and tools will naturally result in effective use of those tools. Often leaders simply don’t prioritize learning the necessary bells and whistles in the midst of other important deadlines. Still others can’t wrap their heads around it. They have other skills that your institution values and data analysis/interpretation is simply not one of them.

Simple test: Your marketing dashboard provides you with your email open rate monthly average. Among your other standard emails last month, on the 10th your team sent a mass email to a newly purchased, cold email list. What is worth reporting on to your leadership team? How can the data available inform your decisions and actions?

Read on to learn more about what self-service data is, why it can be useful, and how to actually make it work for you. (Oh, and we answer the question about the email open rates).

It’s a sad day when a good idea dies on the cutting room floor simply because the team didn’t quite know how to pull it off or have the time to implement it. Because who has time to bother learning something new? (Runner-up award for worst higher ed institution tagline!)

Truth is, getting started is more than half the battle, which is why over the past 12+ months we ran the popular “Getting Started With” series. Taken together, these posts become your team’s Social Media Marketing 101 for student recruiting tools.

Today, we offer you a compilation of this newbie knowledge all in one place. Read on to learn how to get started with TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, text message marketing, and more. This is one post you’ll definitely want to share with the members of your team who actually get your stuff done.

As AIEA 2023 wraps up this week, we are looking ahead at our next chance to chat about internationalization with .Edu trustees and presidents in San Diego at the AGB conference in April. Honored to be presenting alongside Brad Farnsworth from Fox Hollow Advisory (former ACE VP) and Dr. Gretchen Bataille from GMB Consulting (former president of the U of North Texas among other amazing higher ed roles). We will be talking all about insights university leaders need to guide internationalization efforts.Reach out if you or others from your team will be there.

Read on for links to our full "Getting Started With..." series — highly sharable with the internal team you rely on to move all the recruitment levers just so. Go forth and produce great marketing things!!!

Coming in hot off a truly inspiring in-person workshop with peers and industry leaders yesterday. So many wanted to come but for the timing (or internal approvals). Not to worry. We’ll catch you up in the new year. But the word is our industry is feeling optimistic. Even the new Open Doors data supports our enthusiasm.

Should this energy and associated momentum have kept you from diving into all our posts of late, we totally get it. No hard feelings. That’s why we’re putting all the top news from this fast-moving quarter together for you in one easy-access spot.

But first, if you’ll be at ICEF this week,be in touch. We’d love to connect.

Please note: Our Recruiting Intelligence Blog will be on holiday hiatus for the next 2 weeks. See you in 2023 with some great slide decks for you to download and a surprise announcement to help you achieve more.

Now, read on for best stuff (student lead platforms, 5-year data trends, LATAM stats, and more) from Q4…

Email A/B testing tests exactly what again?

Last week we shared the 3 easy steps to the A/B testing process:

1. Define what you want to optimize
2. Develop a hypothesis
3. Choose your sample size

If you didn’t catch that post, check it out here. It will be particularly helpful for those on your team who get into the weeds of your email campaigns. This is part 2 in our 2 part series.

Come with Questions. Leave with a Plan.

If you are attending the AIRC or ICEF Conferences - here is a huge plus opportunity. 

The Intead/San Diego State University One-Day Workshop on December 13th will be a hands-on opportunity to learn from an awe-inspiring international student recruitment faculty.

• A full day of international student recruitment strategy and execution discussion
• Two luminary keynotes
  • Luncheon on Social Justice with Dr. Jewell Winn and Dr. Adrienne Fusek
  • Dinner on Chinese Student Influencers with Dr. Yingyi Ma and Brad Farnsworth

• At $200 for the day (inclusive of all meals), this learning opportunity is a steal. (Pricing goes up to $350 on October 24, 2022).

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And for those of you going to NAFSA Region XI, be in touch so we can chat. 3 super Intead presentations coming your way during that event.

As we mentioned in last week's post, the creative art of email marketing has everything to do with knowing your audience and tapping into your recipient’s curiosity. Your recipient has to think there is something of value to them because of the sender or the content.

This week, we move on to the next important aspect of developing and tracking effective email campaigns: What to test. 

In simple terms, the A/B testing process pits two slightly different versions (version A and version B) of an email against each other. Each is sent to a different sample group on your distribution list. The email with the best results wins and gets distributed to the remainder of your list. “Best results” has everything to do with what you want to prioritize (see last week’s post).

Almost any aspect of your email campaign can be tested: copy, design, timing. But, how do you actually decide what to test? Read on to learn which aspects of an email campaign we find most helpful to analyze to achieve the results that really matter.

Email marketing isn’t a matter of simply hitting ‘send’ and hoping for the best. The best email campaigns develop from multiple rounds of A/B testing. Not news to you, right?

While this is basic (and easy) stuff for some digital marketers, there are still many institutions struggling to actually putting it into practice. Staffing challenges anyone?

Come with Questions. Leave with a Plan.

How confident are you with your selection of international student recruitment markets right now? 

The Intead/San Diego State University One-Day Workshop on December 13th will be a hands-on opportunity to learn from an awe-inspiring international student recruitment faculty.

• A full day of international student recruitment strategy and execution discussion
• Two luminary keynotes
  • Luncheon on Social Justice with Dr. Jewell Winn and Dr. Adrienne Fusek
  • Dinner on Chinese Student Influencers with Dr. Yingyi Ma and Brad Farnsworth
• At $200 for the day (inclusive of all meals), this learning opportunity is a steal. (Pricing goes up to $350 on October 24, 2022).

  ---

And for those of you going to NAFSA Region XI, be in touch so we can chat. 3 super Intead presentations coming your way during that event.

Getting back to the discussion of email marketing, the fact is, most enrollment marketing teams have limited time to review their data and modify their approach and content based on what they see. Those taking these steps are ahead of the curve.

The creative art of email marketing has everything to do with knowing your audience and tapping into your recipient’s curiosity. Your recipient has to think there is something of value to them because of the sender or the content.

This week, we take a closer look at email A/B testing, also known as split testing – the process of sending two slightly varied versions (version A and version B) of an email to two different sample groups of your email list. The email version that receives the most opens and importantly, valuable clicks (conversions), is deemed “winner” and gets sent out to the remainder of your list.

This approach is the best (and simplest) way to optimize your email marketing campaigns and quickly pinpoint what’s working and what’s not. Often it is the subject line that has the most power. But also you can test whether your prospective students click more on buttons or link text? What color button works best? Do parents respond to subject lines with emojis, or should you leave that to your student segments?

And given that you have so many important student segments to consider (domestic regional, domestic distant, international by country, non-traditional, first-year, undergraduate, graduate, transfer, program of interest, financial capacity, ethnicity), the testing you can be engaged in can become a bit complicated. So, it’s important to have this done with a bit of rigor and careful tracking.

Yes, of course, we are here to help when you are ready to truly adjust your content to maximize engagement and conversion. The results will justify the effort.

Read on for some of our best practice tips just to validate that your team is on the right track. And, be sure to share this post with the copywriters on your staff. It's a great primer for the newer marketers on your team. 

Your focus these past few weeks been a bit off? It’s not just me?

There have been a few more distractions than usual as we all try to get our work done. Still, there are important decisions to be made and the reality is, in our line of work, we truly do make a difference for a heck of a lot of people. Not quite on par with our amazingly dedicated healthcare providers and food supply chain workers. 

Still, helping students adjust to the academic experience that just went kablooey has its place.

The Intead team has been offering a lot of very specific perspective and advice to salvage enrollment numbers and stabilize institutional revenue streams. These are the underpinning of your faculty doing what they do, so that your students can do what they do. We are all connected.

This post has a lot to do with building collaborative teams and advocating for your department budget.

We hope you are taking time to read our recent blog posts and finding some good food for thought in there to support your student marketing initiatives. Now is definitely the time to innovate. And since so much of that student recruitment work is going to be digital, we thought it might be helpful if we gave you a great shareable infographic that simplifies the whole digital marketing process.

Sometimes, we find that the broad university teams we are working with includes colleagues who are not steeped in the digital marketing processes that we swim in every day. We thought you might find yourself in that situation more often than you’d like. Use the graphic below in your reports, in your slide decks, in your emails to those who approve your budget...

Read on for our practical ideas to help you stay focused and build broad team collaboration (and perhaps help you justify the budget request to make your digital marketing succeed).

The first day of spring, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, is only 15 days away (not like we’re counting or anything.) Those few extra minutes of sunlight and that fresh feeling in the air got us thinking…about gardening. Taking our minds off the non-stop Coronavirus news.

With much of the spring international education conference circuit on hold, you just might catch us spending a bit more time in wide-brim straw hats with a gardening trowel. ; -)

But there IS something about the art of gardening — selecting the right plants, planting them in the right soil, providing them with the appropriate sunlight, water and food, that strikes a chord in our little marketing hearts.

Yes, we’re talking about nurturing.

If we consider your student leads as your fledgling flowers, how are you tending to them? Are you providing them with individualized care tailored to their needs? And, most importantly, are you guiding them towards a pathway to growth, or in our case, enrollment?

We’ve already discussed the power of segmenting your pool of student leads on this blog, as well as outlined different methods to segment in order to effectively develop content strategy around prospective students’ areas of interest. These posts are a few of our most read over time, getting consistent new readers each month.

Now, an important aside about email marketing...if you are among those who say, "Email is dead. Students don't read email." That may be because you are not putting any content in your email worth reading. We ALL delete useless sales emails on sight.

Reality Check (based on data): When a student prospect is engaged, they read your email. The onus is on you to engage them.

Segmentation is the first step to nurturing effectively, so make sure you have those defined audiences in place before you focus on today’s article: The How of Nurturing Leads. We’ll be offering you concrete suggestions for structuring email nurturing campaigns, as well as how to efficiently strategize your email topics and deliverables. Read on. 

This week, we are picking up part two of our discussion on email marketing for international student recruitment. If you haven’t done so already, you can read part one here.

There is so much discussion around whether email is ‘dying’ and whether it is even a viable channel for student recruitment marketing. Our answer is an unwavering yes - until something else supplants it. But that hasn't actually happened yet, despite the yammering. It's all about where and how you use this channel to influence the student decision-making. A strategic approach is important and knowing when and where to use email is essential. 

What we know: don't use email marketing lists as your first touch.

The email marketing that we conduct and recommend is not “first touch” marketing through list purchases and email blasts, but rather, nurturing campaigns to draw existing leads down through your recruitment funnel. Once built, a carefully crafted and automated email nurturing campaign can move leads to the point of application, without placing additional burdens on your admissions team. They have enough to do, right? 

Let’s jump into how you can implement an effective student recruitment email marketing strategy.