BY Anthony Campisi | December 21st, 2022

Construct an actionable dashboard to fill your funnel

To fill your funnel with qualified leads, you need both a solid strategy and a way to track performance. Not only will metrics help you optimize your campaign throughout the year, but they can also help you determine which tactics worked and tie your spending back to ROI so you can justify your budget. But where to start? To construct a comprehensive, actionable dashboard, include the elements below.

Digital Advertising

First and foremost, it’s important to create a tracking system (prior to beginning your campaign) to capture activity in 3 key ways:

• Cost per Click (CPC)
• Cost per Lead (CPL)
• Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – or seated student

In higher ed digital advertising, you often can’t get a true CPA until you have your final seated class. At that point, you can do a match-back process to see how many seated students came from your marketing and how much each lead cost. But since that may happen at the end of the year, the CPC and CPL are what you should be measuring and optimizing throughout your recruiting season.

Year-Over-Year Application Activity

While capturing started and submitted applications is critical, the total number only tells part of the story. Many admissions teams tend to focus solely on the finish line number needed to hit enrollment goals. However, it’s important to assess data based on certain benchmarks throughout the year. Try creating a 3-year snapshot of quarterly numbers. For example, where do started/completed apps stand:

• By season
• Monthly
• After major yearly events (for example after the first large admissions event of the year)
• After application pushes

Be sure to factor in changes to event schedules and any additional items that couple impact numbers – for example, moving admissions events online, having an event canceled due to weather, etc. This will give you the closest YOY snapshot possible.

Email Engagement

The true value of using a CRM to nurture leads comes in tracking, measuring, and analyzing your data so you can act on your findings for better results. You’ll want to consider tracking general communications flows, event registration emails, and application emails.

A CRM gives you all of the data you need to make decisions on how to nurture your leads:

• Engagement level
• Subject line performance
• Clicks within the email
• Filters

Website Activity

Whether you use Google Analytics or another software platform to track your website activity, it’s important to stay on top of this data because it can signal when it’s time for a change. Try looking for data on:

• Where your traffic came from, organic vs. paid
• Any landing pages set up for specific campaigns
• Bounce rates

When you have data, you can pivot your plan in real-time to increase or decrease your spending in certain areas and ramp up or pull back based on interactions. It is recommended that you use a firm that is skilled in tracking ROI and building dashboards so that you can focus your time and effort on marketing and recruiting. Our experienced team can help you create a tracking dashboard that will inform your decision-making for future campaigns. Contact us today to start the conversation.

BY Anthony Campisi | December 13th, 2022

Are your enrollment numbers where they need to be? Don’t panic!

As the year winds down, admissions and marketing staff at many schools are busy analyzing funnel activity and determining what’s next. Do you have enough leads? How many applications are started vs. completed? What are your attendance numbers for upcoming events? What needs to be done to ensure you hit your enrollment goals?

While it can be tempting to make a split decision to try something new if your numbers aren’t where you want them to be, it may be more advantageous to first re-examine your strategy and find ways to make minor tweaks to the plan you’ve already put in place.

Consider these key questions prior to making major shifts to your marketing or recruiting plans:

Does your strategy have these key elements?

Every good recruiting and marketing strategy has key elements that make them more likely to succeed.

• Audience segmentation based on prospective students’ needs
• Accurate positioning of your school and programs based on audience
• Tactics organized by channel
• Plan for monitoring

If you have these pieces in place, you can rest assured that you have a solid foundation to build from when planning ways to fill your funnel.

Did you document key performance indicators (KPI’s)?

For admissions teams, it’s easy to focus only on the end goal of seated students. But it’s likely that you have historical data at your disposal that can help you determine Year-Over-Year (YOY) numbers so you can track progress during the recruiting cycle. If your KPI’s don’t currently align with key dates throughout the year, this is an excellent place to begin charting a path toward analysis.

For example, you can start by examining event attendance for Fall, Winter and Spring events and comparing them to the current recruiting year. Are you on track? You can also look at application data to determine when a majority of your applications were started and completed over the last 2-3 years. You may be surprised to find out that you are in alignment with previous years and closer than you thought to your target.

What are the levers you can pull to optimize your marketing?

In your marketing and communications plan, you may use several tactics to communicate with leads and encourage action. Some are easier to increase than others depending on effort, resources, and budget. For example, for your unpaid tactics, consider optimizing your website, increasing emails, social posts or adding an admissions webinar. For paid tactics, does it make sense to shift a portion of your digital advertising budget from an area that isn’t working to a tactic that is performing well? Or to try a new channel or media product?

If you are looking for ways to determine whether your marketing and recruiting strategy will hit your target enrollment goals, GPRS can help. Our experienced team can evaluate where your strategy stands, how to enhance your tactics, and ways to increase enrollment through digital advertising. We can also help you create a tracking dashboard that will inform your decision-making for future campaigns. Contact us today to start the conversation.