Recruiting Intelligence

When it comes to international student recruitment and marketing there are many obvious factors that affect a student's interest in one institution over another. Things like (US News and World Report) rankings, cost/financial assistance, availability of desired programs, an international student presence, post-graduation opportunities. These factors all play into a student's decision making process. But there are other factors, which I'll call "soft" factors that also affect student's decision making. In building or maintaining recruitment and marketing efforts it's certainly worth your while to consider these factors.

Universities are getting hit by a tsunami of changes ranging from increased competition among universities as they expand traditional recruiting territories, stronger on-line competition from traditional and new competitive entries, rising tuition and student debt levels as well as a new marketing environment.  I am focusing on the latter change, which is getting less attention given the magnitude of the other factors. 

South Korea, officially known as the Republic of Korea, is one of the most connected countries in the world with high broadband penetration rates and a tech savvy population. The wireless internet is seeing a rapid rise in uptake in South Korea; the number of users of both smartphones and tablets doubled between 2011 and 2012, according to a December 2012 report from the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA).

Tuition discounting is a common way to attract students and or to make the university program affordable to potential students. Universities will encounter an even greater mindset challenge in respect to price as digital courses, MOOCs, and hybrid courses proliferate and become more acceptable as an education credential to employers.  At that time, pricing will be an even bigger issue since you are looking at the willingness to pay at all, not the level of payment. I speak from experience since I spent many years of my professional life in the digital content industry convincing consumers to pay for what was available for free elsewhere.  My experience was rooted in the social expression industry marketing paid online greeting cards, instant messenger content and mobile content, generally widely available for free. Nevertheless,we were able to show value and millions of consumers were willing to pay every year for that digital content. 

You are reading an excerpt from our e-book "88 Ways to Recruit International Students" (Click here to read the entire book)

#57. Search Engine Optimization

At the 2013 ICEF Toronto Workshop I had the pleasure of attending several thoughtful sessions. One of those sessions, led by Anna Ryzhova of the Association of Russian Educational Advisors, was particularly useful. For those institutions that are looking to expand recruitment into Russia, understanding how to enter the Russian market is critical. Through our blog we try to give you a deeper knowledge of various markets to help you begin or expand your recruitment efforts.

We are thrilled to announce that our mystery shopper experiment we announced last month is now featured in two videos created by the ICEF Monitor. This is Intead's fifteen minutes of fame-- actually it's not quite that long! If you're curious about how nearly 25% of institutions we surveyed didn't reply to prospective international student inquiries, here is your chance to check out the video explanations. It's summer-- take a break, pour yourself a glass of lemonade and enjoy the two part video series. 

You are reading an excerpt from our e-book "88 Ways to Recruit International Students" (Click here to read the entire book)

#59. Create a Wikipedia page in local language

For all those students of economics, yes PPP can stand for purchasing power parity, but I would like to use PPP as President and Parent Perspective. Why do I want to talk about that perspective?