Created out of a passion for education and a vision for technology, Jenzabar offers disruptive, innovative software solutions and services that empower students’ success and help higher education institutions meet the demands of the modern student. Over 1,350 higher educational campuses harness Jenzabar solutions for improved performance across campus and a more personalized and connected experience for the student. For further information, please visit www.jenzabar.com or on Twitter @Jenzabar or LinkedIn.

Spark451 is a higher education enrollment strategy, technology, and marketing firm that combines creativity with powerful technology to achieve measurable results. With a mission to help colleges and students fuel their future, the firm integrates a multitude of communication channels and platforms for effective enrollment marketing, student search, creative services, and digital media. Since 2011, Spark451 has worked with over 200 colleges and universities nationwide.

Looking around the fair, my daughter recognized the brand names — even a few we work with — and I spotted some schools I’ve never heard of. Yet, among all, there were few things that stood out to us first:

1. Is the school’s logo even readable? Is it optimally sized to the tablecloth or runner, or is it hidden by folds? Don’t make attendees struggle to read the name of your school or they’re likely to walk past it.
2. Is the brand prominently and consistently displayed with the school’s primary colors matching across all materials? Nothing says “sloppy lack of quality” like showing off your signature blue or maroon in 10 different shades or using multiple versions of the logo across all materials. While the collateral on your table may be produced at different times, on different materials, and by different processes, consistency is key to project high quality.
3. Is the table attractive, tidy, and well organized? Give guests a reason to approach by flaunting your best giveaways and informative pubs.
4. Is there information easily visible to those just passing by? Consider using lightweight pull ups and table tents, as well as available tech to show off interactive content like teaser videos or campus tours. Don’t forget that showing off your school pride extends to attire, too. Consider a lapel pin, tie, or even branded shirt to complete the impression.

The faces of some high schoolers — usually those escorted by the most enthusiastic parents — showed reluctance, or uncertainty. Even when they did approach a booth, they often weren’t sure how to begin or what they were supposed to ask. What can you do to ease the initial engagement?

1. Why not feed them an opening line? Consider a sign that offers a scripted opening around your point of pride: “Ask me how [your institutions] can help make your education affordable.”
2. Boldly display key stats and information on pullups or table materials to give your guests general information. This will enable you to spend your time on deeper discussion.
3. Have abundant swag laid out for the taking; who doesn’t love a freebie? Offering a fun branded giveaway (when permitted) is a no-pressure way of starting up a conversation.
4. Integrate interactive elements through A/R or simply use QR codes. I know we’re all still in disbelief that the square graphics made a comeback like they did. Looking around the hall, I was hard pressed to find a student without a phone in their hand. Give them something to scan quickly. You can drive digital engagement by offering an A/R experience of a campus facilities tour or by scanning a QR code for a quick visit to a landing page’s inquiry form for additional information.

You’d be surprised how effective tangible takeaways can be — even for digital natives. Giving your guests something to take with them is an important way of continuing the conversation at home, after they’ve had time to process and compare everything they learned at the college fair.

1. Unique formats, special print treatments, and unusual materials and textures make your materials desirable at first glance.
2. Of course, what’s inside is even more important. As families are beginning to compile their list of potential schools, make sure your travel publications contain vital information about areas of study, location, outcomes, cost and aid, average scores and GPA requirements, and visit information. Don’t forget to include a vanity URL to drive (and track) engagement.
3. Do you have differentiated materials on the ready? A single travel piece may not cut it anymore. Do you have brochures, single sheets, or even postcards to introduce your newest programs? Consider which areas of study are struggling and prepare marketing materials to support them. Make sure you have pieces covering financial aid and outcomes, especially important for parents/guardians. And let’s not forget campus life pubs promoting the benefits of living on campus to keep your residence halls filled. Before you get dizzy at the thought of hiring a moving truck to transport everything, remember, you don’t have to lug dozens of every type of piece with you. With a couple of samples on display, you can offer an all-encompassing digital guide with downloads or to mail them physical copies in exchange for their contact information.
4. Whether you still use inquiry cards or offer a digital form, make sure they sign up to receive all other information in the form of your nurture stream.

By now, you realize that basic promotional items such as a tablecloth, an inquiry card, and a single brochure are not enough. I have shared a few ways to stand out in the minds of your guests (and avoid “travel envy” from your own road warriors), but there are countless other tactics that are appropriate for different schools. Make sure that when it comes time to present your institution’s offerings, nobody has cooler swag or more engaging publications and interactive table displays to attract foot traffic at busy college fairs.

Today’s college-bound students have faced a difficult few years, so many are eager to finally embrace the excitement and freedom of what college life has to offer and are hoping to find the right fit school. Recent trends show that students are applying to more and more colleges, so there’s greater pressure on you to do everything you can to set your institution apart from the competition and forge a genuine connection. There are few better opportunities to do that than on the road at college fairs and other recruiting events, and that end-of-summer rush will be here before you know it!

It’s a nearly universal truth of higher ed admission. Students who visit campus generally move through the admissions funnel at a significantly higher rate than those who don’t visit. Not only that, the later in the admissions process that they visit, and the more times they visit, the higher the likelihood that they will enroll. So it stands to reason that schools should place a premium on finding ways to get students and their families to visit.

While most schools are acutely aware of the negative impact they’ve felt by the recent decreases they’ve seen in campus visitors, too few actually factor campus visit numbers into their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for their enrollment funnels and projections. Most institutions keep track of the total number of campus visitors from year to year as a general indicator of interest in their prospect pools. This approach provides a broad sense of overall interest in your institution, but it falls short of providing a true projection of potential enrollment. Tracking campus visit totals alongside your admissions funnel data at each stage—prospects, applicants, admits, and deposits—will give you a truer sense of the level of interest and engagement, and the overall strength within each segment. In an ideal world, your visit percentages should increase at each stage of the funnel. At the very least, you should aim for consistency throughout.

To gain an even more robust level of analysis of your visit pool, you may want to consider utilizing an analytical service like Spark451’s proprietary Enrollytics service to consolidate your engagement metrics, including campus visits, along with demographic, academic, and socio-economic factors to turn data tracking into enrollment predictability. By reviewing your historical enrollment and visit data, we can help you determine just how impactful your campus visit experiences are on your admissions funnel productivity, as well as next-level data like who is visiting and who is not. By drawing true correlations between campus visits and a student’s progress to the next stage of your admissions funnel, you will be empowered to either continue your already effective visit processes or enhance them as needed. Additionally, you will gain a data-driven perspective on the likelihood that your applicants and admits will eventually matriculate.

So, it’s clear that enrollment planning must still involve maximizing campus visitors. However, we must also now adjust our mindset to what our audience considers to be a campus visit these days. The realities of the pandemic era have fundamentally altered the ability, if not the desire, of many families to make long-distance trips to visit multiple campuses in person for a variety of reasons, ranging from health concerns to finances. Additionally, the rise of virtual information tours and info sessions, and even full scale events like virtual open houses immediately made necessary in 2020, have enabled families to broaden their definition of a campus visit, and in turn, “visit” more schools than ever before.

This is not to imply that the virtual visit experience is a good replacement for an in-person visit. Indeed, there’s no replacing the feeling of finding one’s home away from home that a student can get when they set foot on the “right fit” campus. It’s priceless.

But the fact is that fewer families are visiting in person, and colleges and universities can’t let that be a hindrance to the overall enrollment boost that campus visitors provide. The answer is to provide as many and as varied an assortment of on-campus visit opportunities as possible, but to also expand your reach by providing virtual options for those who need them.

Here are several strategies for planning both on-campus and virtual visits that drive enrollment results:

Before you can ask students to apply, they need to know about your school, so the first step with any prospective student is to spark interest. You need to build Brand Awareness, so students can become familiar with your college or university and keep it top-of-mind. Utilize creative digital media channels such as TikTok, Snapchat, Programmatic Display, or ConnectedTV to reach your target audience with eye-catching ads that will get them excited about your institution.

After building excitement and intriguing your audience, you need to keep the momentum going, which means gathering actionable user information with a Lead Generation Campaign. One of the most important factors in a lead generation campaign is the landing page. Driving your audience to a stand-alone landing page with an RFI form that has limited fields will bring in the most leads, as it prevents users from leaving the page and getting distracted. In fact, one of our partners saw a 500% increase in leads by using a campaign-specific landing page. Reach your target audience on lead generation platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google Search Ads (formerly Adwords).

After collecting the digital media leads, it’s important to acknowledge their inquiry. In fact, most people expect to receive a follow-up immediately after submitting their information. Setting up a transactional email such as an Auto-responder Email is the best way to respond to the interested student right away. Use this message to share high-level information about your institution or the program and keep the reader excited for more. This type of transactional email will save you time and fulfill the interested student’s immediate needs.

Drive-to-Apply campaigns on social media are a great way to further encourage prospective students to apply. With the recent changes in privacy protection rules for targeting minors, it’s even more critical to reach out to your audience through multiple channels to help yield more applicants and keep your school’s name in mind when the student is ready to start the application process.

One of our partners, a small private college in PA, started doing digital media and email campaigns with us this year—including social drive-to-apply campaigns. So far, they have seen an approximately 28% increase in applications over the last year, thanks to their use of our DM and email strategies.

To further support your efforts on digital media and email, another channel to communicate with prospects is text messaging. In today’s digital world, everyone is constantly on their phones, so the best way to reach students is on the device they have in their hands 24/7. According to our latest college-bound student survey, one-third of high school seniors say it’s ok for a college to text them at any point during the college search process.