Recruiting Intelligence

The never-ending quest for content that helps you move the needle. This year that means a serious focus on ideas and tools your enrollment team can use to adapt to the opportunities out there and reach enrollment goals. The pressure our clients and so many others are under right now feels daunting, to say the least. Our goal: help keep them (and you) focused on effective recruitment and retention.  

In troubled times, we do not sit on our hands. There are always actions we can take despite the challenges that throw us off our original game plan. 

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, ASU+GSV in April, and NAFSA in May. We'll be presenting our latest findings with colleagues from Chronicle of Higher Ed, IIE, AIEA, University of Tulsa, University of Memphis, Northeastern, and others. Let us know  if you want to connect at 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.

Relying on our experience working with a wide range of institutions, public and private, over the past 15 years (and the guidance from David’s book), we have helped admissions leaders identify the admissions pain points that drive students away rather than drawing them closer in. Importantly, this fascinating day-long exercise uncovers opportunities to fix the problems and the improvement measures to track results. Ah yes, some good news. 

Process mapping is a simple idea on the face of it. Like any problem-solving session addressing a complex, multi-layered process, the key to success is getting the right people in the right room to wrestle the right questions. We’re sure you know just what we mean. Practical to downright critical cross-departmental conversations are too few and far between.   

IT, Marketing, Enrollment, Admissions, and faculty (at the graduate level) all play a role. Credential evaluation always comes up as a pain point (more on that in just a bit). Yet, when institutions bring all stakeholders together for one full day to critically examine how their roles interconnect, the clarity is remarkable. We’ve seen even the most efficient teams benefit. And by the end, everyone has a new appreciation for sticky notes and our whiteboard is filled with sound ideas, big and small. 

The litmus test for us is always this: at the end of the day, does everyone see a clear, achievable path forward? From the clear immediate wins to the more time-intensive improvements, a shared vision for a more efficient process will result. That’s the point of process mapping. Read on…  

Our new Know Your Neighborhood (KYN) 2024 Student Sentiment Analysis is a follow-on report to our previous US election research published in June. This one provides the nuance behind the stats. And yes, there’s a clear Trump factor with some choice words shared in the student comments.  

Available today, this new research adds depth to our KYN 2024 report issued in partnership with global study choice platform Studyportals. That initial data set was all about factors influencing international students’ decisions to study abroad, including the effect of the US presidential election (Biden vs. Trump at the time). If you missed that phase 1 research, download it for free here. 

Today’s data set, also produced in partnership with our colleagues at Studyportals, presents new findings by looking at the sentiment behind the survey responses. This report adds even more to our findings with results from a new 4-question survey regarding Harris v. Trump (per shift in Democrat ticket). The Harris v. Trump survey, which ran Aug. 12, 2024 – Sept. 9, 2024, was accessible as a banner ad on Studyportals’ website, resulting in 1,028 responses.   

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, Connecticut, Oct. 27-29, 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.

As you well know, the international student market is a competitive one. The universities that succeed are those that truly understand the consumer in each student segment. So, yes, while the KYN 2024 follow-on report is an interesting read, it also gives insight into the mindset of the international students you’re trying to recruit now. In other words, there’s something to be learned here.  

Read on to download the free report… 

Danger zone of travel: the misperception among your colleagues that your global trip is just another boondoggle.  

It’s a common experience for international student recruitment teams. Jet-setting itineraries make it hard for some travel-hungry colleagues to see your grueling business trip as anything other than a junket. But a junket it is not.  Below we share an 8-point guide to the "why of international travel".

We know images of far-off places seem “luxurious” to those not on your team, which is why so many of you no longer post those photos from your trips on social media. Never mind the 3am (local time) touchdown in Delhi that led to your 7am scramble to the student fair starting in 2 hours where you spent the next 8 hours repeating the same conversation with 122 different students until it was time to cap off the day with a working dinner with your in-country agent. A day lounging at the beach, right?

Our next opportunity to meet!   
NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, CT, Oct 27-29. The Intead team will be there presenting on Admission Process Analysis, Marketing Data Analytics, and Marketing Study Abroad Programs with university partners from our New England region friends from Quinnipiac, Johnson and Wales, Clark, and Emerson. Practical strategies and creative tactics to hit your enrollment targets.  Hope to see you there! 

The Resource Center for Industry Insiders 
Take your challenge of the day and plop it into our search bar. With 800+ publications and our 15 years of weekly blogging, you will find relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting. Check it out.

Here’s the truth. We talk a lot about armchair recruiting and the undeniable advantages of digital marketing around the world. And we stand by that. But for institutions that can afford to, purposeful travel absolutely builds your recruitment strategy in robust ways. We know you agree. But does your provost? 

This week, from-the-field insights on recruitment travel from recent conversations with our SIO colleagues David Di Maria, Ed.D., senior international officer and associate vice provost for international education at UMBC, and Jill Blondin, Ph.D., associate vice provost for global initiatives at Virginia Commonwealth University. Plus, the key conversations that will help you make the most of the travel you do have budgeted. Because you never want to waste a good trip. Read on…  

So, my oldest child joined us for dinner out the other night. She dressed with her usual flair, all yellow and brown this time. And she ordered herself a drink to match – some cocktail concoction that apparently took a cue from her hues. I had never ordered a drink to match my look before, so I asked her what I should get. Her response: "Dad, I have no idea. Your look is functional but vibeless – jeans with a black fleece. How about a Miller Lite?" 

Absolutely loved that line: functional but vibeless. How common is that situation in the marketing/communications world? Consider all of the functional but vibeless emails we receive. You probably can’t consider them. They’re all just so forgettable.  

Our next opportunity to meet!   
NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, CT, Oct 27-29. The Intead team will be there presenting on Admission Process Analysis, Marketing Data Analytics, and Marketing Study Abroad with university partners from our New England region friends from Quinnipiac, Johnson and Wales, Clark, and Emerson. Practical strategies and creative tactics to hit your enrollment targets.  Hope to see you there! 

The Resource Center for Industry Insiders 
Take your challenge of the day and plop it into our search bar. With 800+ publications and our 15 years of weekly blogging, you will find relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Valuable perspective and data on topics you care about. From agent-university partnerships to predictive modeling and CRM efficiency, to new market development, our Resource Center has you covered. Check it out.

Examples of what we mean:

→ Dear inquiring student, 

Thank you so much for submitting your application. We note you are still missing one document. Blah, blah, blah…our deadline is approaching. 

Thanks, Vibeless University Admissions Team 

---

→ Dear admitted student, 

Let us introduce you to all of the really great student associations you could join here at Vibeless U! When you arrive, you should look into one. Oh, and here’s a fun picture … 

Sincerely, Vibeless University Admissions Team 

All function, no form, low response rate, immediately forgotten. Instantly deletable. 

Taking time, tapping consumer insights from your current students, injecting creativity, tracking the metrics to figure out what works, what converts. These are the activities that produce results. These are the activities that will share your institution’s true vibe far and wide. 

Every communication you have with students and prospective students, matters. It’s how you connect with them. Correction: It’s how you stay connected. Retention is as important as recruitment.

Today, we offer the three golden rules to creating a lead nurturing campaign that’s got the function you need and that all important vibe. We think this post will be really helpful for your team members tasked with the nuts-and-bolts details of your institution’s prospective student outreach.

Important to communicating vibe: the order you present your messaging matters by region and student type. Is affordability your first hook? Career opportunity? Environmental justice? Academic prowess? All important content areas. Different student segments will click on one or another topic at different points in their decision-making process. THAT is what consumer insight research confirms for you as you use your content to improve application rates and yield.

Share this one with the right folks on your team and, read on… 

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... 

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 you’re on the fence about WhatsApp, know this: Meta’s goal is to make WhatsApp a household name, whether it is to shop, chat, or stay on top of news and events. That from a recent New York Times article. In it, Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp confirms what we are already seeing, that the conversation has moved from ‘WhatsApp is the app I use outside the US when I travel,’ to something much more mainstream in the US. Below, we get detailed and actionable about what this means to you.

Word from Apptopia confirms as much. Its numbers show WhatsApp’s daily active users grew by 9% in the US last year, with 50% of these users chatting daily on the app, 78% weekly. Aside from Meta’s interest in cementing this app as the singular messaging tool among consumers worldwide, pundits point to a variety of reasons for the uptick in the US – the preference for messaging versus emailing, the preference for closed-group messaging rather than social media blasts, the increase in post-pandemic international travel, and the app’s ease of use for business communication just to name a few. 

Events you won’t want to miss:

Let’s talk international student enrollment at the upcoming AIRC Spring Symposium on April 30. Intead will be presenting on student recruitment marketing budgets – we've got some great new insights to share. Register today!

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations at: 

• ICEF North America in Niagara, Canada, May 1-3, 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)

Those who readlast week’s post know how we feel. (Get to it!). It just makes so much sense for universities to have a Business WhatsApp account, especially those who work with international students. And now, we believe, for domestic markets, too. Check out our handy, quick-hit, 11-step check list.

Just like last week, this post is the kind of thing you might want to share with your enrollment team and prompt a discussion at the next team meeting. How would you adapt our recommendations to your particular situation (CRM, staff structure, enrollment pipeline, etc.)?

If you are going to be using WhatsApp, we strongly recommend you puppeteer these communications from a WhatsApp Business account. We got into the meat and potatoes of setting these accounts up last week. Now, let’s get to dessert, aka best use practices. Read on… 

What’s up with WhatsApp is a question we find ourselves answering a lot lately, especially when talking about student recruitment. And it is a bit more for international students than domestic, though this blog is useful intel for both. As a teaser, more than 100 billion messages are sent each day on WhatsApp. Yes, that was 100 billion per day! We have more eye popping stats below. 

An important messaging tool because it works across countries, many institutions have been using personal WhatsApp accounts that are attached to a single phone number. That works, but as far as standard operating procedures go, that’s a bit flimsy.  

WhatsApp, a Meta company for 10 years now, has an answer called WhatsApp Business. That too has been around awhile (WhatsApp Business launched in 2018), but it’s just been a bit cumbersome for many overly busy international offices to onboard. And many of their domestic student recruitment counterparts have taken a why-bother approach. 

Our take: it’s time to bite the bullet – it’s easier than you think – and set up a WhatsApp Business account that can be managed from a desktop (see our quick hit 11-step process). We concede that it can be time consuming, but there are just so many benefits to having a verified account on behalf of your institution that we think it’s worth your while.   

Events you won’t want to miss:

Let’s talk international student enrollment at the upcoming AIRC Spring Symposium on April 30. Intead will be presenting on student recruitment marketing budgets – we've got some great new insights to share. Register today!

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations at: 

• ICEF North America in Niagara, Canada, May 1-3, 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) 

This is exactly the kind of stuff so many of you read our blog for, right? What is the time investment? What is the upside? How do I set my enrollment management systems up for success?   

So, let’s get right to it. Read on to learn why WhatsApp is proving to be a good tool for many student recruiters right now – international and domestic – and how to go about setting up your business account. We’ll make it easy for you, as always. And yes, this is one of those posts you’ll want to share with your team (link at bottom) and discuss in the next team meeting. 

Have we been selling ourselves short? A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research has got us thinking, "Yeah, maybe." 

The not so fine print in “Late Bloomers: The Aggregate Implications of Getting Education Later in Life” is this: the age at which you get your degree matters. The economists found that the younger you are when you get degreed, the stronger your financial return on the investment from that degree. As a result, it may be time to take a closer look at how you present your institution’s ROI.  

Events you won’t want to miss:

And look for us at these other industry events coming around the bend:

• ICEF North America in Niagara, Canada, May 1-3, 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

The Late Bloomers paper (link below), which looks at university grads beginning with the US 1930 birth cohort onward, also reveals that around 20% of students obtain their 4-year degree after age 30, hence the late bloomer label. A not so insignificant figure, with more than a few not so insignificant implications.  

Sure, the popular notion that university grads are early 20-somethings remains true enough, but the 1-in-5-student stat reveals this belief is not the whole truth – and never was. Turns out the non-traditional student market is significant (you’ve read our series on the non-traditional student advantage, yes?).  

Significant and new with this paper: the understanding that late bloomers’ ROI may not be as strong as once thought. On the flip side, the new data analysis means the ROI for younger grads is even stronger than we believed. Interesting, and worth promoting.  

Other notable findings from the paper: Late bloomers have helped narrow the gender and racial gaps in university enrollment, even despite a widening racial gap among the early university grad set. And, late bloomers account for more than half of the growth in the share of university-educated adults from 1960 to 2019.  

There’s a lot to unpack here, including why we think you may be selling yourself short based on these fresh insights. Read on…we’ll keep it actionable.