More than half of those I spoke with discussed some level of mental paralysis in their division or within their campus. COVID’s forced shift to working remotely since March (which still continues for many of you throughout the nation) has resulted in a state where long-term strategic planning has fallen in priorities. Senior leaders on campus were forced to work on the urgent as opposed to the important for too long, and now everyone’s having a hard time getting back on track. Let’s face it, it’s easy to procrastinate the tough decisions.

If you can relate to this sentiment in some way, I would suggest you check out this quick article from Psychology Today, titled: How To Get Unstuck From (almost) Anything.

I’m equally excited to report that, in spite of all the challenges over the last several months, the vast majority of you remain fiercely proud of your campus, your colleagues, and your students. So many of you defend your campus’s decision to open or close as an effort to balance safety with the importance of your school’s role in fostering a productive future for our world.

You all also have a wide range of stories, from herculean efforts to deliver exciting virtual visits, to assisting families impacted by COVID-19. Those examples are incredibly relevant to our world of enrollment, and I know there are a multitude more that touch almost every corner of campus. It makes me wonder why more of these stories are not in the media each week.

I’m sure you have a cool “campus story” to shout about. Guess what? It’s worth it and it will make you feel great. So use the hashtag #ProudCampusMoment and get the word out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

This one seems unavoidable. Beyond COVID-19, there is so much happening in the world now, and it has us all on edge. But I like to keep these blog posts directly related to our industry. This is normally a celebratory time in our cycle with classes starting, admissions recruitment travel kicking off, national conferences for rekindling professional relationships, and so much more. However, like most of 2020, this September is quite different and many of us are feeling anxious as a result. It’s important for you to know that this is a very common feeling among your colleagues, and I believe your strength and professionalism will carry you through.

In the meantime, allow me to share a low-commitment method for reducing stress at work. Check out Entrepreneur’s 5 Science-Based Tips for Reducing Work-Related Stress.

According to digital advertising giants like Google and Facebook, all campaigns require a learning phase to allow the systems to properly optimize. In most cases, this can take two to four weeks beyond the launch. Facebook, for example, needs 50 leads to come in for the campaign to complete its learning stage. It makes sense though; the platforms need to accumulate data points on what performs best in a campaign, and the more data you have, the more precise the picture will be of your audience, the creative that resonates, and who will be more likely to take the desired action.

We want our campaigns to perform based on data-driven optimizations, and this can only occur if we give the platforms time to learn, which doesn’t happen overnight. While we know it’s scary to not see immediate results, we find that campaigns tend to perform better after being given some time to optimize. At that point, we can confidently make adjustments and optimizations that are in the best interests of your campaign.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that every change to a campaign restarts the learning phase. While the new learning phase may not be as long as the initial one, the platforms are constantly learning and re-learning, which is why immediate tinkering is never recommended.

It’s easy to get impressions, but it’s hard to get qualified clicks, and it’s even harder to get high-quality conversions. Many other digital marketing agencies will inflate their reports with impressions garnered through one of many display networks. While these display networks can provide some value, they’re also often wrought with fraud and bots that contribute falsely inflated numbers of impressions. Display ads are an important element to a digital branding campaign, but unless you’re receiving clicks and conversions, there’s no way to truly know that you’re reaching the right people.

The moral of the story here is that impressions are the least critical element of a digital media campaign. Anyone can get impressions, but it takes truly skilled marketers to get clicks and conversions.

We’ve run thousands of campaigns exclusively for our higher education partners (not many agencies can say that!) and we’ve learned that there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe for a successful campaign. In fact, we’ve been saying this for years.

While there may be a hot new platform suddenly garnering a ton of buzz, that doesn’t always mean it’s the right fit for your audience or goals. For example, we use Snapchat to engage younger audiences with a branding message, but we know from our experience that those campaigns will rarely lead to an action being taken on your site. Keeping that in mind, despite Snapchat being “hot,” we may recommend other platforms to get you leads, applications, event registrations, or prevent melt. It all depends on your audience, goals, and budget.

Sometimes, both we and our partner institutions would like to run ads on every platform, but we just don’t have the budget to do so responsibly and still garner results. This is where our experience comes in. We can take a look at similar campaigns we’ve run in the past and suggest the platforms that are most likely to achieve your goals while staying within your budget.

In order to achieve the best results on a digital media campaign, it’s important to focus on where your ads are driving. In almost all cases, your ads should drive to a strong landing page. The page should be designed in a manner that’s user-friendly and cohesive with your ads. It should render quickly on a mobile device, provide the visitor with an incentive to submit their information, and the embedded inquiry form should only have three or four required fields.

Pro tip: When it comes to campaigns running on Google Ads, the landing page is a critical element of a successful campaign, as it actually impacts the performance and delivery of your ads. In order to achieve maximum success with Google text ads, you want to have your keywords appear not only in your keyword lists, but also in your ads, and of course, on your landing pages. (Plus, a quick load time will only improve your Google quality score!)

In select instances, you may opt to use an in-platform lead generation form in lieu of a traditional landing page. When used under the right circumstances, these in-platform lead generation forms are also safe places to land. In fact, we’ve seen much higher conversion rates using these forms, so it’s important to discuss this option with your account team when planning your digital strategy. However, these forms aren’t right for every occasion. Each campaign has unique goals, and it’s important that we align our strategy in a way that helps you best achieve your desired outcomes, whether that means driving to a landing page or lead generation form.

When you partner with us, you’re not getting a generic agency that works in multiple verticals or areas of “expertise” (a jack of all trades, master of none, anyone?) — you’re getting an agency that specializes in higher education, with professionals who have worked in the field. We have higher ed specialists across departments who have been on your side of the desk, including former admissions counselors, directors, and even VPs. They work together to develop relevant customized digital campaign strategies for every one of our college and university partners. Have you met another agency partner that can say the same?

Enrollment strategy is what we do, day in and day out. From balancing domestic vs. international populations and high-performing vs. low-performing academic programs, to lifting a university brand, we have you covered. Additionally, our real-time reporting dashboards will provide you with essential data, available at your fingertips, at any time. Our university partners can also rely on the fact that we’re here to advise and support your goals as an extension of your internal team.

Don’t sell yourself short with an agency that won’t understand your enrollment goals and vision.

Over the years, I have been asked an all-important question by presidents and senior enrollment leaders: How much should we be spending per inquiry? To answer that question, the Spark team took a mathematical approach with a focus on the inquiries traditionally achieved through in-person recruitment. Below are the typical costs associated with three common scenarios, and an average of the three:

In this scenario, a regional association in your state is hosting a college night. Over the past few years, your institution has participated by sending a counselor. Your goal is to achieve 25 inquiries. The high school is 100 miles from campus and will not require overnight accommodations.

Cost Analysis

In this scenario, a counselor is planning to travel to Virginia from New York to visit several target high schools during the day, as well as participate in the VACRAO College Tour, Week 7, evening college fairs. The counselor will require travel, lodging, and meal accommodations for the week. The counselor’s goal is to secure 55 inquiries between the 12 high school visits (4 per day) and the 4 evening college fairs.

Cost Analysis

In this scenario, a school in the Boston regional area is planning to attend both the Orlando and South Florida National College Fairs in one weekend. The counselor representing the school will require air travel, car rental, lodging, and meals from Friday through Monday. The counselor’s goal is to secure 60 inquiries between the two events.

Cost Analysis

Now that we’ve established the average you can expect to spend per inquiry, you have a metric you can use in discussions with your president, CFO, or board to establish the budget you’ll need to get back in line or even above last year’s pool size. For example, if you are down roughly 1,000 inquiries, you’ll require a marketing investment of roughly $70,000 to get back on track with where you might have been in a season in which typical in-person recruitment efforts were possible.

Of course, the figure mentioned above is elastic. If your need is much greater than 1,000 inquiries, we should experience efficiencies that bring the average down. At the point of 3,000, we should experience an efficiency of about 10%, which would bring the average down to $63 per inquiry.

Alternatively, if you are seeking a smaller increase of 100 to 200 inquiries, the average is likely to increase dramatically. (Marketing costs are always less efficient on micro populations.)

To be clear, by recommending these marketing investments, we are not suggesting a reduction in staffing to afford it. (Keep in mind that once your prospects are generated, someone needs to nurture them, whether that be in person or virtually.) Rather, we are suggesting that you will likely see a significant decline in your travel and recruitment costs this year, and you would be well-served by reallocating those funds to cover your increased marketing needs.

This journey puts customers and their mindsets at the forefront. What are their needs? What are their motivations? What are their challenges? What are their important touchpoints with my institution and how can we make the most of them?

The funnel higher education marketers are accustomed to using is the enrollment funnel, i.e., the process prospective students go through when deciding whether to attend an institution.

The enrollment funnel is action-oriented. Students move through the funnel as they meet certain criteria. Did they inquire? Did they apply? Did they deposit?

For marketers on the undergraduate side (specifically for traditional students), the enrollment funnel works because the enrollment cycle is filled with known variables. Students’ ages, goals, and motivations follow similar patterns. The length of time and affiliate benchmarks within the cycle stay consistent. There is a clearer checklist of “at this time, I need to deploy these tactics in order to deliver students the information they need.”

On the graduate side, the funnel is an incomplete model because the enrollment cycle does not follow the same patterns. Among the differences between undergraduate and graduate are the following:

• Time: Since we generally know when high school students start looking at colleges, we can map the process out from that initial search through their first day of classes, and sometimes even through graduation. The graduate process is different. The time between someone thinking about grad school to enrolling in classes can be as short as a few weeks or as long as several years.
• Age: Though the age range of prospective undergraduates varies to a certain degree with gap years, veterans, and other specialized groups, there generally is a more consistent age range for this group. On the graduate side, it’s not unusual for age ranges to span a couple of decades and cover a few different generations.
• Product*: In their college search, prospective undergraduates seek a coming-of-age experience. The products they’re considering are universities, whereas graduate students search for specific programs as a means to an end: more money, promotion, career prestige. The products they’re considering include universities, but aren’t limited to them. Competitors include free, online resources, networking, or even taking no action at all.

Graduate marketers can account for their non-traditional audience if they adopt the customer decision journey as the model, instead of the enrollment funnel.

This method spurs important changes to your marketing plans.

• Defining customer personas: Freeing yourself of the funnel helps define the customers’ motivations, needs, wants, and desires at each stage of the journey.
• Broadening your perspective: If prospective graduate students are considering options outside higher ed to accomplish their goals, then marketers need to consider those options as competitors.

Mine your CRM and conduct research within your customer base to create customer personas, “semi-fictional [representations] of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”(Hubspot).

Customer personas break your audience into segments based on demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and more. (Not sure how to approach this? Spark451’s persona modeling services can help you transform your quantitative and qualitative data into actionable insights.)

• Background: Liberal arts degree. Working at the same company since graduation. Has on-the-job training in his work, but no formal training.
• Wants: A clear path toward prestige, promotions, and more money within his company and his field.
• Needs: To separate himself from others in the same situation. To build his résumé with real and impressive skills. To stay ahead of changes in the industry.
• Desires: Recognition. Impressive title. High salary. Prestige.
• His Obstacles: Time. Money. Motivation. Energy. Dave worries that grad school is too big an investment in time and money right now. He worries about balancing work and school and having the motivation and energy to do both well.
• Preferred Channels: Referral, email, forums/sponsored content. He is suspicious of anything that seems too sales-y.

Take each of your customer personas and design their journey map to determine targeting, messaging, and tactics at each stage.

The ways people make decisions remain the same, even while prospective graduate student behavior and the graduate education market both continue to evolve. Graduate marketers can adapt to changes quickly and effectively by shifting from the enrollment funnel to the customer decision journey. The team at Spark451 is ready to discuss your graduate enrollment challenges and help customize your marketing and recruitment strategies using a customer decision journey approach. Feel free to reach out so we can get started.