Analyzing Current Student Data for Future Enrollment Success
Want to know the best predictor of who will enroll at your institution? Look at the students who you already have. Yes, your student makeup might change over a ten-year period, but it is highly likely that, year to year, the students who choose you this year will be similar to those who chose you in the previous few cycles.
How can you use this knowledge to your advantage as a marketing team to achieve enhanced enrollment results? You have to know your data. Each student who has given you a “yes” is a data point about what worked in your tactics, and the students who didn’t choose you are just as important.
Digging deep into the data on current students can be a helpful lens for recruitment efforts. Current students have a story to tell — one that includes demographic insights, personality types, and dreams.
By understanding what matters to students that gravitate to an institution or specific degree program, marketing leaders can hone their future enrollment campaigns.
Slice and Dice Based on Common Traits
Look at the geographical information by degree. Do flagship programs tend to draw a more varied student population? Are lower-performing degree programs largely composed of local students? Design marketing campaigns with these factors in mind, considering whether, for example, participation in a local event may be more relevant for certain programs, while nationwide digital ads may be a better fit for others.
Consider the personality makeup of the student body. Develop personas based on assessments like the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and craft messages accordingly. When it comes to the institution’s strongest programs, are most students concrete thinkers interested in practical professions (athletic training, exercise physiology, criminology, etc.) or abstract thinkers drawn to the classical arts and sciences? Are they cooperative helpers interested in psychology, teaching, or communications or are they competitive utilitarians interested in business or law?
Assess the activities that appeal to current students. Do they love outdoor organizations and showing up to athletic events? Is the theatre club bursting at the seams? Is student government the place to be, or do academic affinity groups draw the biggest crowds? Understanding how students choose to spend their time can provide great insight into what may stand out as attractive to a future student who would be a good fit for the institution. These insights can help bring focus not only to messaging but also to audience targeting for ad campaigns.
Add Self-Reported Cues
If you want to know what students think, sometimes it is best to ask. A well-crafted survey can often fill in the data points and help you draw better conclusions. Design your survey to use scales so that you can get numeric results when possible, and ask questions that dig into decision making factors and their perception of the institution. For example:
Ask if your institution gave the biggest financial aid or scholarship offer, and if not, how much the difference was.
Ask who influenced their decision the most. Was it parents, counselors, or peers? Or did they make their own decision?
How many institutions did they apply to and what was the primary factor in their choice?
Did their friends also apply to you?
How strong did they consider your academic reputation compared to their other choices?
What was the reputation of their chosen major?
Was there a factor not included in the survey that tipped the balance on their college choice?
Don’t be afraid to ask the difficult questions. These students have chosen you for a reason and you want to find out what that reason is. If you craft your survey well, it should reinforce that they made a good choice by showing that you value their opinions and are confident in what you have to offer.
Don’t Forget the Ones That Got Away
Many universities make the mistake of ignoring one of the best potential sources of feedback at their disposal – students who turned them down. Maybe it is hard on our institutional egos to hear where we felt short in the eyes of 18-year-olds, but if we only look at the students who said “yes” our view can easily get distorted.
Create a questionnaire. Offer incentives to encourage participation, and ask them direct questions about where you fell short. Was it a problem of reputation? Insufficient financial offer? A certain feature that another school offered?
Slice and dice data. Are there geographic or demographic areas where your yield is particularly poor? Why is that? Do you consistently see low response rates for certain majors? How actively engaged are these programs in the process?
Improve your data set. Utilize data from the National Clearinghouse about where these students ended up attending. Which students are your competitors winning over? Is it in certain majors? Or students who want specific activities or come from certain demographics?
By mining your data, you will uncover gold nuggets that can drive your future marketing and enrollment efforts. Start with the data you already have and look at it from each angle, asking, “What does this say about the student? What does it say about the university?” Include data from both the students who chose you and those who chose the competition. What characteristics are significantly different about them?
Clarify the picture by going directly to the source and asking students - both the “yes” and “no” students – to give you a more qualitative picture. What were their perceptions? How did they feel and what did they believe when they made their choices?
This data, when analyzed carefully, can yield insights to help you make the adjustments you need in your product, messaging, and communication to tip the enrollment scales in your favor.
