Recruiting Intelligence

Marketing to prospective students, especially prospective international students can no longer rely on print materials and websites alone. The array of digital engagement tools available for marketing and admission departments is vast. These engagement tools are affordable, entertaining and can help to distinguish your institution from the competition.

Our mystery shopper experiment as well as our direct work with university clients has shown us repeatedly that many international admission officers don't have appropriate digital support services, such as email, mobile delivery and publishing tools available. This article will introduce you to several cloud-based services to ease your work with prospective international students. 

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

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

India is the second largest source country for students who are looking to study abroad (China tops the list).   However, the complexion of the study abroad market in India has changed a lot. Ten years ago, the USA and UK were the top destinations, but now we see Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, Ireland and other non-traditional destinations like The Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, China and Taiwan all actively wooing Indian students.

Sometimes I try to imagine what it was like before I could Google everything I ever wanted to know. It's hard to believe that such a time existed considering our reliance on internet searches. I Google restaurants, maps, colleagues, stores, toys for my children. You name it, I've Googled it. And you can be sure if I'm traveling I conduct a series of Google searches. If I'm heading out of the country Google is my best resource for information. Google images takes it to the next level with pages of images to accompany any search I can imagine. 

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

#53. Social media

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

At our core we at Intead are a technology company dedicated to helping universities harness digital solutions for their recruitment and retention needs. Let’s be honest here, we love technology. We have been digital marketers for well over a decade now. And we’d love to encourage our readers (and clients) to better utilize options available today. Digital media offers powerful tools for optimizing your marketing over time based on trackable user behavior. Digital marketers can test and modify their messages to appeal to the right student and their parents. Tracking web traffic from the first unrecognized visit by a prospective student to the final step of enrollment can lead to cost reductions, efficiency gains and result in yield improvements.

What do I mean by "rudimentary?" Maybe I should have stated that U.S. domestic student recruitment has become more and more sophisticated over the past few years. This trend will accelerate with increased competition among schools across larger territories, more entries into hybrid and online brands that lend themselves to larger territories, and broader marketing campaigns.