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Do You Need Face Time With Prospective Students?
March 8, 2012

A recent article by René Shimada Siegel for Inc. magazine  highlighted the reasons why personal, face-to-face time can still be a benefit in this modern, ultra-connected world. The piece gave “5 reasons why you need to meet in person”, which included these benefits:

  • Being off the record
    You can learn a lot more from clients one on one and in the flesh than over the phone or skype.
  • Small talk
    It might seem like irrelevant chatter, but small talk can help create bonds and lasting relationships.
  • Making a good impression
    A good impression at a face-to-face meeting can often go a lot further than an email or a conference call. It also lasts longer in the memory.
  • Body language
    This should go without saying: you can often read a lot more from someone’s body language.

You might think that these are not relevant when it comes to education marketing, but we’d argue that there are some very important points here for college marketing departments. If you’re putting in a lot of effort to boost your online presence and improve your share of social media voice (and in the process, maintaining an active community presence on a number of social media platforms), you shouldn’t turn your back on good old fashioned face-to-face meetings.

In fact, one should compliment the other. Search engine optimization, Google Adwords and a comprehensive social media plan can help your college or university promote:

  • Open houses
  • Campus tours
  • Seminars
  • Workshops
  • Special campus events
  • Charity events
  • And more

All of these can give prospective students the chance to see what your school has to offer with their own eyes. It also gives your recruiting and marketing departments opportunities for face-to-face meetings with prospective students, scenarios where Miss Siegel’s advice can be handy indeed.

What do you think?

 

CATEGORIES: Blog

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Facebook for Recruitment Purposes
November 22, 2011

Nowadays, almost every higher education establishment has a Facebook page or group. A presence on this social network lets schools not only increase their visibility on the Web and stay connected with their students, but also reach potential students.

Facebook for Recruitment Purposes

More and more schools are using Facebook for recruitment purposes according to a survey conducted by Varsity Outreach on 150 American colleges and universities. The results show that in 2011, 79% of schools had an admissions-specific Facebook presence, whereas only 65% had similar pages in 2010.

These statistics demonstrate that email is the main platform that schools used to promote their Facebook page. 75% of schools insert a link to their Facebook page in their email signature and 62% send emails solely to inform prospective and current students of their Facebook presence.

The survey’s statistics also show that 71% of schools measure their Facebook page’s performance in order to refine their way of reaching out to potential students on this social media platform.

Higher education establishments have undoubtedly a lot to gain by being on Facebook. However, simply having a Facebook page does not automatically make it an efficient recruitment tool. Read our post on the subject to learn how to generate more leads with your school’s Facebook page.

Is your school active on Facebook? If so, can you relate to the survey’s results?

Read the whole survey here.

CATEGORIES: Blog

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College Drives Enrolment with Tech
November 4, 2011

The college crowd is by definition a young one, and technology plays an increasingly important role in that coveted demographic. Consequently, it stands to reason that schools playing up the technology card stand a better chance at catching their target market’s attention than those that don’t. We’ve discussed how schools are now branching out to use foreign social networks to recruit international students.

Another great example of a school making the most of technological advances is Lone Star College, an American community college in Texas. The school has embraced technology in order to provide students with more modern and engrossing experience at the school, and this approach has the added side benefit of acting as a broader marketing strategy of “marketing via quality.”

“Students vote with their feet, and Lone Star is one of the fastest-growing institutions of higher education in the country,” says Shah Ardalan, Lone Star College’s chief information officer.  ”Students realize the value of our education, and their success translates into matriculation at [coveted] universities.” In other words, a solid education in a school with a cutting-edge technology system makes for more marketable graduates – an attractive draw for prospects. It also makes it much easier to recruit students, the vast majority of which are now searching for programs online.

Lone Star College’s technology innovations include:

The college’s efforts at bring technology to students has been well recognized: the school recently got 2nd place in a annual Digital Community College Survey by e.Republic, a Center for Digital Education. This is a direct result of Ardalan’s efforts. “My IT leaders are constantly challenged to plan for the future,” he explains. “Not to survive, but to ‘change the rules.’”

CATEGORIES: Blog

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BCCCA Google Analytics for Improved Lead Generation Presentation
October 30, 2011

Higher Education Marketing founder Philippe Taza recently spoke at the 2011 BCCCA Conference in British Columbia. Phil discussed the increasingly important role that Google Analytics plays in today’s education marketing.

The following is Phil’s in-depth presentation of what Google Analytics can measure, best practices and tips to configure Google Analytics. It focuses on helping colleges improve their ROI and increase the number of leads generated from their websites and online marketing initiatives, such as social media.

BCCCA Google Analytics for Improved Lead Generation

CATEGORIES: Blog

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The University of New Orleans Adopts a CRM System
October 21, 2011

The University of New Orleans recently announced that from now on, they would use a customer relationship management system (CRM) to simplify their admissions and recruitment process. By doing so, they hope to manage their leads and their students more efficiently.

The University of New Orleans chose to work with Azorus, a company in charge of the CRM systems of many North American universities. According to Mike Rivault, chief marketing officer at the university, this technology will allow them to get closer to their students and to better grasp what their needs are.

Customer Relationship Management Systems for Improved Lead Conversion

Community colleges and universities use their CRM systems to stock information about their leads in a more effective way, therefore simplifying the task of the recruitment team, who can offer a better customer service.

A good CRM system is crucial during the lead conversion process.
It can help your school:

  • Update the lead database
  • Store information about leads
  • Answer prospective students’ questions quickly and consistently
  • Easily transfer leads to the appropriate people or department
  • Ensure inquiry follow-ups
  • Send emails and newsletters (which is a good method of staying in touch with leads who may not immediately enroll)
  • Send auto-response emails

A customer relationship management system is a valuable tool in student recruitment because it will instill department organization and reduce the time it takes for your school to respond to inquiries. Student recruitment is very competitive, and often the school who responds to inquiries fastest makes the best impression. A short response time also helps increase your chances of converting those leads.

For more information on how to convert education marketing leads, contact Higher Education Marketing.

To learn more about the University of New Orleans’ CRM system, read Campus Technology’s article.

CATEGORIES: Blog

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Memorial University Leverages Foreign Social Networks
September 14, 2011

We recently discussed how and why your school should be maintaining a presence on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, but what about foreign social networks? Memorial University‘s School of Graduate Studies (SGS) has taken a new approach in their graduate student recruitment strategy, using social media websites based in South Korea, Japan, and China. Memorial University (MUN) is focusing on the following Asian social networks:

  • Mixi -a popular social media network in Japan
  • Naver - a popular search portal and blog based in South Korea
  • RenRen – a Chinese social network that looks suspiciously like Facebook

These nations represent the top three source countries for international students in Canada, so it makes sense that MUN is focusing their online recruitment strategies there. The use of social media to connect with Asian students is also logical, since Internet use is very high in South Korea and Japan, and it continues to grow in China.

The SGS actually received $20,000 from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in 2010 for this project, and it has hired a grad student from each of the three nations to build a presence on the aforementioned social networks.

Andrew Kim, manager of enrollment and strategic initiatives at the SGS, says the use of foreign social media sites is already working. “We are now into the second phase of this project and the results are pretty good now,” he told MUN News. “We have generated hundreds of new leads, and applications from the three source countries we targeted are up 38 per cent over last year.”

Brock University last year started a similar initiative, but MUN is the first Canadian school to try the social media approach in South Korea. Mr. Kim says the project is expected to conclude in December, but the SGS is hopeful it can extend it into 2012.

Does this mean your school should do the same? Not necessarily (at least for now). You should absolutely make sure you’ve established (and are maintaining) a positive and engaging presence on Facebook and Twitter. With increased competition for prospective students, however, foreign social networks may also be an increasingly common recruitment option in the near future.

 

CATEGORIES: Blog

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UQAM Launches First Mobile Version Of University Website in Quebec
September 9, 2011

Last week, UQAM launched UQAM Mobile, the first mobile version of a university website in Quebec. Developed for smart phones using Android, as well as for Blackberrys and iPhones, this mobile site enables users to find their way around campus thanks to their phone’s GPS system, to access their daily schedule and to quickly find someone on campus. Very interactive, UQAM Mobile was conceived as a tool to regularly update students about what is going on in and around campus, to send text alerts and to have questions answered quickly.

According to Jean-François Tremblay, Project Manager for Technical and Educational Projects in the Audio Department of the university, « [t]he challenge was to gather several applications for students already available on the Web in one single place ».

At Higher Education Marketing, we understand the challenges associated with mobile services applications,  but we can’t stress their importance enough. With well-defined mobile goals, you can develop relevant and engaging applications and content that can be crafted specifically for your target audiences.

Contact Higher Education Marketing today to learn more about our mobile services.

CATEGORIES: Blog

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