Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | May 17th, 2022

Do you really know why students pick your program? Ask them.

Your school’s marketing materials are made up of a carefully curated and balanced mix of messages that highlight your brand promise and program attributes. When your recruiting and marketing teams work together, they can create powerful messaging that connects with prospects on their journey and helps them make the decision to enroll in your program.

Once you’ve seated your class, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that your admissions process worked its magic. But before quickly moving on to recruiting for the next class, you may want to take one additional step with your brand new class. Ask why students pick your program.

Here’s why.

You might learn something new

Over the past couple of years, the higher ed industry has shifted dramatically. What prospects are seeking in a program has changed, along with their career aspirations and work and family situations. What used to be considered strengths of your program may not be anymore, and innovations you made to quickly adapt may now be the norm. It’s important to find out if your messages are still resonating with your prospect pool and if the perception of your school has changed. Start by going directly to the source — your current students!

You can use their insights in future marketing materials

When you are marketing your program, one of the most impactful strategies you can employ is helping prospects see themselves at your school. You can do this by presenting real stories of real students who chose your program. When prospects see their culture, background, aspirations, and even challenges represented in your materials, they are much more likely to feel included.

Regardless of how you collect the information — survey, email, informal interview, podcast, video, etc. — be sure to integrate as many real quotes from students in their own words for authenticity. You can use these insights on your website, in print materials, on social media, in videos, and in blogs to show diversity, inclusion, and a variety of stories.

You can build connections

The next time you’re talking with an undecided prospect, wouldn’t it be great to be able to connect them with a current student that faced the same struggles? The more you learn about your current students’ unique backgrounds and what factors went into making their decision to attend your program, the better you can match them up with prospects who need an extra boost of confidence. For example:

Is one of your prospects switching careers and wondering how your program can help in the transition? Connect them to a student that had those same questions and is currently making a shift.

Is another prospect a new mom who is wondering if this is the right time to start the program? Connect her to other parents who are navigating similar challenges.

Gleaning insights from your current students can help you shape (and reshape) your brand narrative, improve your marketing and recruiting strategy, and connect prospects to your program in an authentic way.

As you consider how to collect and utilize this invaluable information, GPRS can help. With years of experience working in the higher education industry, we are skilled at customizing your message for your unique audience to increase enrollment. Contact us today to start the conversation.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | April 29th, 2022

Cultivating personal connection in the recruiter outreach process

Your recruiting and admissions process is a complex machine made up of several touchpoints. It’s designed to give you a full picture of your prospect — qualifications, culture fit, and potential for success. But it’s important to keep in mind that while you are gathering data on them — test scores, GPA, and references — your prospects are forming their opinions on your school throughout the recruiting process as well. Here we’ll examine how staff can use personal relationship building in different ways to pull prospects through the funnel.

It starts with a conversation

In a digital age where everyone is flooded with emails, texts, and a 24/7 news feed, your prospects are overloaded. While you may not think a phone call would be welcome, it’s possible that it’s just what you need to break through the clutter. You can begin by setting the expectations low and leading with a short script asking them something personal about themselves and seeing what questions they have. This takes the pressure off of them to have a carefully curated list of career goals and just opens the door to a personal connection in graduate recruiting. In your initial conversation, be sure to focus more on them — what they like and where they are in their journey versus what your program can do for them — that will come later.

Continue the momentum by following up

Although we just mentioned above that prospects are often digitally overloaded, it’s important to note that there is space for meaningful, authentic follow-up communications. Start with a personal email letting them know that you heard them and that they’ll be receiving some information from your program. This opens the door to engaging them in your automated CRM, but it also reassures them that they can reach out to you if they have any questions along the way.

Offer meaningful information

When your recruiting process involves active listening, you will be able to determine the barriers your prospects have — what motivates them, what’s holding them back, and what things they are curious about. When you have collected this valuable data, you can use it to customize your messaging and offer meaningful information that will help them make decisions.

Are they worried about the time commitment? Offer a conversation with an alum.
Are they concerned about the cost? Send them your latest ROI report.
Do they live out of state? Provide a video series about campus.
Do they want to experience the program and learn more about the curriculum? Invite them to an event.

Guide the process and answer their questions

Perhaps the most common mistake made by recruiting teams is to rely too heavily on a CRM to pull prospects through the funnel. Building multiple opportunities for human connection, remaining accessible, and following up with guidance can make all the difference. Sometimes even being available to answer a brief question over an online chat can help a prospect advance to the next step. Make sure to develop a personal connection in graduate recruiting.

If you’re looking for ways to integrate new recruitment strategies into your enrollment plan, GPRS can help. With years of experience working in the higher education industry, we are skilled at customizing your message for your unique audience to increase enrollment. Contact us today to start the conversation.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | April 13th, 2022

The secret to successful graduate program marketing

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” — Albert Einstein

As marketers of the higher ed industry, success is often what we focus on. Salaries, promotions, and title changes are king — and we often use them as the reported end goal to show what our students will “become” to entice them to attend our programs. But in marketing our programs, we must remember to strike a balance when composing our messaging and lead with how success is obtained — by adding value and contributing to important conversations in meaningful ways.

Why a degree?

There is an overwhelming amount of data showing that an advanced degree can advance your career. To understand what’s important to your prospective student though, it’s imperative to go beyond what title they are striving for and learn what’s behind their desire to pursue higher education. After all, it is a large investment of both time and money. Maybe they are in an industry that doesn’t suit them or come naturally to them. Maybe they have hit a ceiling with their current career path and need to expand their knowledge base. Or perhaps, they even have aspirations to be in the boardroom, but they need help articulating their points to add to the conversation.

To meet your prospects where they are in their journey, it’s important to dig into what they need to make it to the next step — and usually this can start with finding a way to add value in their current situation, or be seen in a different light. A degree program can set them on a path to achieving these goals. In addition, your prospects may be seeking professional fulfillment that adds value to their lives and makes them feel like they are making a difference. Therefore encouraging self-exploration in the context of business is key.

Here are some questions you can aim to address in your marketing messages based on your prospects’ personas:

Where are you on your career journey?
What does success look like in data: salary, title, promotion?
What does success look like in working relationships?
What do you want to gain from your career?
How do you want to be seen by your peers, team, and management?

Why a degree from your institution?

Once you’ve honed in on the motivations behind why your prospects are pursuing a degree, it will be easier to connect your program features to what they are seeking. You can start this process by defining your school’s unique selling points, showcasing the tools you’re offering, and then connecting them to a direct benefit for the student. For example:

How is your program unique from the competition?

How does the curriculum focus on both the quantitative and soft skills needed to be influential?
How can your program prepare your prospects to add value in a professional setting?
How can your program add value to your prospects’ lives and career paths?
What will your prospects gain beyond extra letters behind their name?

Connecting the dots

In a market saturated with competition, it is key to connect with your prospects on multiple levels that show you understand them, their goals, and motivations — and that you can help them enhance both their personal and professional lives. These steps are often the secret to successful graduate program marketing.

If you need ideas for uncovering industry insights, developing a competitive analysis, or creating meaningful marketing strategies, contact GPRS today. We can help you develop a plan to fit within your strategy and budget.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | March 29th, 2022

How well do you know your competition?

You’ve identified your program features and benefits. You’ve defined your audience segments through personas. You’ve determined objectives and created ways to measure success. But how will you stack up with your prospect pool once your well-vetted marketing plan hits the market? Unless you’ve done your research, your competition could eat your lunch. So where do you start?

Perhaps one of the most critical (and overlooked) aspects of creating a marketing strategy is competitive analysis. Building this base layer can provide guideposts for developing messaging that will resonate with your target’s journey. Here are a few ways to determine who your competition is and some key areas to evaluate:

Regional competition

For every school, geography is a key consideration in building a marketing strategy. How far does your brand reach and how are you perceived in your market? How do you stack up locally, regionally, and nationally? How far are students willing to drive for an in-person program?

To evaluate your competitive set, begin with building concentric circles around your school.

Who’s in your backyard? Even if they may not seem like a direct competitor, the geographic location may make their program more viable for a prospect who’d prefer to stay local.
Who’s within a 2-hour drive? Take stock of programs beyond state lines. Local prospects may be willing to drive farther for a bigger name, stronger alumni network, lower cost, or flexibility.
Who’s online? In today’s higher ed space, everyone is competing with online programs. The recent proliferation of remote programs has forced innovation and provided more accessibility that did not exist previously.

Aspirational competition

An aspirational competitor is a school that you may share similarities with — in program offerings, benefits, regarded faculty — but there is little direct overlap in your pool of prospects. You aren’t directly competing with an aspirational competitor, regardless of whether they’re in your time zone or not, and they are often regarded as a market leader.

It’s important to include these schools in your competitive set because you can glean insights by evaluating their programmatic innovations, new content and marketing strategies. Even though your ideal student may not be applying to their programs, it’s true that market leaders often set the bar for expectations and outcomes, and it can benefit your school to be aware of their presence.

How to evaluate the competition

When building a competitive analysis, using the template below can give you a holistic view of the playing field.

Programmatic

This is where your prospects will be spending most of their time doing their research. The insights you gain in evaluating these pieces can help you position your program’s unique features and benefits. Begin building your competitive analysis matrix using these criteria for a well-rounded evaluation:

Credit hours
Curriculum focus
Program length
Tuition
Specializations
International component
Faculty

Admissions

While every school’s admissions process is different, it’s important to understand when the competition is hosting events in your market, how often they are pulling students from your pool and how they are reaching out to prospects. You can also see what types of events they are hosting so you can modify your event strategy. Most of this information can be found directly on your competitor’s website:

Number of intakes & timing
Recruiting process
Events

Marketing

Reviewing a competitor’s marketing may take some extra effort. Beyond scouring their website, you may not be able to see their geo-targeted digital advertising if you’re not in their market. Doing a bit of sleuthing can benefit your marketing team. Here are a few suggestions:

Email communication – try signing up as a ghost student to gain VIP access to their CRM system
Social – Subscribe to competitors’ channels to monitor campaigns and messaging
Content – Take note of videos, podcasts, blog posts, and other unique content types

Competitive benchmarking

If you need help evaluating your competition, GPRS can assist. We have worked with over 150 programs nationally and can offer you insights and information that can help you enhance your marketing planning process.

Let’s start the conversation today.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | March 16th, 2022

Moving prospects from awareness to application using personas

Each step of the admissions and enrollment process represents a different stage of the customer journey. So, it makes sense that marketing messages should change based on where your prospects are in their decision-making process. Creating personas and using the data about your target audience can help you stay attuned to their motivations so you can address their needs and guide them through the different stages of the funnel.

In a past article, we examined how to create personas and how they can help you gain insight into your target audience. Here, we’ll take a look at how you can use your personas to target your digital advertising, pull prospects through the funnel with communications and encourage action and enrollment.

Top of the funnel: Interest and awareness

Activity at the top of your funnel is purely interest based. Your goal here is to create top-of-mind awareness and affinity toward your school and program. Here, you can use insights from your personas to shape:

Your audience segmentation: What “types” of prospects are you targeting?
Marketing strategy: What is your target seeking? How can you address their questions? How can you create brand awareness?
Your media mix: Where is your target searching for information?
Your messaging: How can you personalize your message for their career stage and where they are on their journey?

Middle of the funnel: Conversion

When prospects have made it past the initial “I’m interested” phase, it’s your job to make them feel welcome and give them all of the information they need to take the next step. You want them to learn more, engage by coming to an event or talk to a recruiter about the admissions process. Here you can use insights from your personas to address barriers and motivations and shape:

Your CRM strategy: How can you create an automated communications flow that maps the intended journey from “learn more” to “come to an event”? How can your present your program’s benefits in a structured way that your prospects will relate to?
Your event mix: What is the best way to engage with prospects? Are they ready to come to campus for an event, or do they need more information before taking the next step? In addition to preview days, would it be helpful to provide webinars, a phone call, an informal luncheon, etc.?
Your recruiting outreach: Based on your prospects’ barriers to entry, how can you help them feel more comfortable? Can you personally communicate with them or provide them with alumni contacts?

Bottom of the funnel: Taking action

Based on how your prospect’s journey has gone so far, this can either be the easiest or most difficult stage. Here, you want them to hit the “submit application” button, put down a deposit and commit to your program. At this phase, you can use insights from your personas to encourage action. This is your final push and staying attuned to their barriers will be critical. What will your personas tell you here?

What is holding them back?
What do they need to take action?
How will they convince their boss, their spouse or their family that their time away will be beneficial?
How will they justify the cost against ROI?

As you can see, there are many benefits to creating personas that extend past the initial insights. Not only can they help you craft your marketing strategy, but they can also carry you through all stages of the funnel to convert leads to enrolled students.

If you are looking for an experienced partner that’s skilled in creating personas and using those insights to craft marketing strategies at all stages of the customer journey, look no farther than GPRS. We have worked with over 150 programs to seat students and optimize marketing and recruiting processes. Let’s start the conversation today.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | February 28th, 2022

What to look for in an agency partner for your school

There are many reasons you might seek out an agency to help enhance and bolster your marketing department. Maybe your team is small or you’re facing new challenges. Perhaps you’ve had budget cuts and you need ideas on how to do more with less. Before you begin your search, you’ll want to have a shortlist of criteria to consider. Here are a few ways you can narrow the field to find an agency partner that can have a big impact on your school.

Higher ed institutional knowledge

Why is marketing higher ed different than other industries and why does education experience matter when you are selecting an agency?

Audience segmentation: The decision-making process for prospective students is complex. Select a partner that can help you develop personas to properly focus not only on demographics (who they are) but psychographics as well (why they buy).
Price point: Creating a strategy that aligns with that of a luxury good can take finesse.
Knowledge of the sales funnel: The sales process in higher ed looks different than in other industries, often with marketing and admissions operating in lockstep. Find a partner that can provide insights at all stages of the funnel.

A focus on lead generation and enrollment

In many organizations, marketing may be responsible for filling the funnel while sales take the hand-off to close the deal. In higher ed, the sales funnel behaves a bit differently and can benefit from both marketing and admissions working together throughout the process. Having an agency on board that understands enrollment targets and the flow of prospects from initial interest to a seated student can be critical. Seek out a partner that has the capability to interact at different stages of the funnel with strategies that can dislodge stalled leads, encourage submitted applications and integrate with your CRM to facilitate the yield process.

Agility and flexibility

Higher ed programs often have defined recruiting cycles. And while it may be tempting to repeat strategies and tactics that worked in a previous cycle, it’s important to maintain a level of flexibility and continually assess what is working (and what isn’t) in real-time. What worked last year may not work as well this year. It’s important for your agency partner to strategize with you to build out your marketing plan, but also be prepared to track data and pivot at a moment’s notice if the plan is not generating the activity required to meet your enrollment goals. Having digital lead generation experts that can shift, test, monitor, and react is invaluable.

Tracking ROI

What if you were able to track every seated student back to a specific marketing campaign, ad or message? And what if you were also able to assign a cost per lead to each student and find ways to optimize your marketing spend so you could attract more students? Partnering with a digital firm that has powerful analytics capabilities with custom dashboards and integration with your CRM can give your school actionable insights and justification for every dollar you spend in your marketing budget.

If you are looking for an agile partner that is an expert in higher ed lead generation and enrollment, look no farther than GPRS. We have worked with over 60 institutions to seat a growing number of students and have our own proprietary tracking platform called GPInsights™ that can optimize digital campaigns in real-time and give you a window into how your marketing is performing. Let’s start the conversation today.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | February 26th, 2022

Lincoln University “knocked the socks off” their enrollment goals

Challenge

Lincoln University is the nation’s first degree-granting Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Despite this unique distinction, Lincoln faced challenges with enrollment at the undergraduate and graduate level. The COVID-19 pandemic compounded an already tough situation for a small university trying to survive and remain relevant to today’s college student.

Solution

Lincoln hired GPRS to be its Agency of Record (AOR) – to assist its leadership in developing and implementing advanced enrollment marketing processes for the university, as well as increasing its brand recognition and enrollment numbers at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Through this comprehensive relationship, we were engaged to deliver our full portfolio of marketing and enrollment support services, as well as technological solutions, to aid Lincoln in maintaining healthy and steady enrollment.

We started by performing an Enrollment Growth Assessment to define their ideal students and determine the key drivers in selecting Lincoln over other competitive institutions. We also examined why admitted students decided to enroll in other institutions, especially those that were not HBCUs. Our comprehensive report and recommendations became our action plan and the foundation of our partnership.

Among a lengthy series of initiatives we completed over just the first year of our multi-year partnership, these are a few that stand out:

Working in conjunction with the Lincoln I.T. team, we developed a roadmap to optimize www.lincoln.edu to improve its ranking in search engine results. Performing SEO was an important and necessary step in ensuring that Lincoln was positioned to outrank their competitors, increase the volume of organic leads, and improve the Cost Per Click (CPC) of the digital marketing campaigns – by improving quality scores.
We launched a coordinated series of branding and enrollment marketing campaigns, focused on attracting African-American, college-bound students from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. In addition to digital tactics like Email, SEM, Social, Display, and advanced forms of retargeting and CRM remarketing, we also launched radio spots, billboards, bus shelter/interior ads, and direct mail campaigns.
In order to help prospective students along their student journey, and get a higher percentage of the inquiries to apply (and ultimately enroll), we designed a sophisticated Communications Lifecycle, integrated into their CRM, to nurture prospective undergrad and grad students through their decision-making journey.
To help improve undergraduate enrollment yield, our creative team launched a “Missing Something?” campaign where admitted students received a single branded Lincoln University sock via direct mail. They were informed that they would receive the other sock when they arrived on campus for registration. The campaign was a viral hit, and created excitement and anticipation for the new Lincoln recruits.
Our Contact Center (Call Center) was also deployed to help build relationships with high school counselors, to schedule campus visits, dramatically increase Open House attendance, and keep Lincoln’s value proposition top-of-mind in a very competitive market.

STATES STRATEGICALLY TARGETED FOR ENROLLMENT GROWTH

SOCKS FOR EVERY ENROLLED FRESHMAN

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | February 15th, 2022

Using hyper-targeting to drive event attendance and applications

Filling a room with prospects at your next recruiting event is your objective. But beyond the numbers, it’s important to make sure that the people in the room are qualified and likely to apply. So how do you ensure that prospects you identify through digital marketing are a good fit for your program? You can start with hyper-targeting.

What is hyper-targeting?

Hyper-targeting is a way to deliver highly personalized messages to a specific audience segment. Whereas an awareness campaign may be referred to as “casting a wide net,” a hyper-targeted campaign will instead focus indirectly on one type of student and deliver a message aimed specifically at their motivations. The thinking is that the more relevant the message and placement of that message is, the more likely they will be to interact or take the intended action.

How can you use hyper-targeting to optimize your digital marketing?

Hyper-targeting can help you further define the path that your digital marketing will take. For example, if your program aims to attract more women, you may begin with creating an audience segment based on age, career or title, and gender. However, hyper-targeting can take it several steps further. What is your ideal female prospect’s stage of life? What are her motivations, challenges, and career goals? Asking these questions early on in the strategy process will help you meet your prospects where they are on their journey. By developing messaging that is meaningful to your target’s goals and selecting focused media, your marketing will have more impact because it is connecting with the target in the right place at the right time.

What are some ways to begin crafting your hyper-targets?

All solid marketing strategies rely on some form of audience segmentation to define ways to attract the right leads. What hyper-targeting allows you to do is articulate the exact points of a prospect’s consideration set and create messaging that is tailored to their behaviors. There are a few ways to begin this process.

Develop personas. This process involves breaking your audience into segments based on personality traits, characteristics, motivations, and activities.
Create specific messaging. Focus on the needs and wants of your target. This may involve developing ads and content with an extremely narrow focus.
Research your delivery method. Finding the right channels and mix can be challenging, but it’s important to start with the end goal in mind.

If your team needs help developing personas or creating an audience segmentation strategy, contact GPRS today. We can help you develop a plan to optimize your communications based on your school’s strategy.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | February 2nd, 2022

The University of South Alabama achieved success without breaking the bank and compromising quality

Challenge

The University of South Alabama needed help creating awareness and demand for its PhD program in business administration. Their initial investment in a digital campaign with a local vendor delivered only 63 leads over a 12 month period. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, creating an economic crisis that increased uncertainty for higher education recruiting. Given these factors, coupled with a limited market of prospective PhD candidates, South Alabama had an immediate need for help improving their enrollment marketing efforts.

Solution

Working closely with the South Alabama PhD program, GPRS crafted marketing messages and designed ads focused on targeting and attracting the highest caliber, and most interested candidates. We selected the most promising platforms, determined the optimal timing, and identified affordable keywords to maximize the program’s visibility to its target audience in search engines, social networks, and digital media channels. Using our proprietary optimization platform, GP Insights™, as well as proven lead generation techniques, we were able to match the same 63 inquiries in just the first month, followed by 88 the second month. Within 6 months of our engagement, the qualified inquiry count had topped 400 qualified leads.

Results

Through careful research and planning, as well as micro-targeting, GPRS was able to deliver a 535% increase over the previous year’s results… and in half the time. More importantly, South Alabama received 81 applications from PhD candidates excited to join their program.

YOY increase in PhD program inquiries

Number of applications submitted in first 6 months

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | January 31st, 2022

A content marketing strategy playbook

Content marketing. It’s the current buzz. It’s defined in many ways. It’s absolutely critical for your school. So how can you integrate content marketing into your recruiting plan? Let’s dig into defining content marketing and formulating a plan to include it in your admissions strategy.

Defining content marketing

Content marketing means many things to many organizations. If you ask any marketer on any given day, you may get a different response. That’s because the term itself is so broad. In general, start by asking these questions:

How can you optimize your current content to get as much mileage out of it as possible?
How can you proactively plan and create content that can go the distance?

Cohesive content marketing can enhance your brand and support your strategic pillars. When it’s done well, it can help build smooth customer experiences as you focus on creating, testing, editing and constantly improving digital content that spans multiple audiences and channels.

Optimizing current content

When you think of developing a content marketing strategy, start with what you have. Find out if there are ways to make your existing assets work harder for you.

For your website, this means optimizing for SEO, evaluating your customer experience and the flow of information on each page, determining if your landing pages spur action and if your content is generally organized in a way that makes sense to the reader.

For your assets, this means inserting them in multiple places for a cohesive messaging strategy. Assets could be any piece of content you’ve created that aims to resonate with a prospective student—infographics, videos, blogs, employment reports, alumni stories, news articles, viewbooks, the list goes on. It can also apply to past social posts that you can aggregate into meaningful collections. Start by grouping your assets by theme—for example, ROI, program benefits, faculty, and alumni success. Next, create a planned editorial calendar to deploy themed content by month in a coordinated effort via social, email, features on your website, and any other channels you are using.

Planning new content

As was mentioned above, an editorial calendar of the themes you’d like to promote can be extremely helpful in creating a consistent message for your prospects. Start simple by planning one theme for the next 6 months based on both your marketing strategy and the benefits of your program. After you’ve assessed what exists for each theme, you can determine where the gaps are and where you need to create something new.

Another way to plan new content is to brainstorm about the story you want to tell and decide on creating a hero piece that can be disseminated in multiple channels. Hero pieces are the kinds of content that may cost more but make a big impact. For example, a video series about distinguished alumni, a compilation piece of ROI stats, etc. When marketing and admissions are aligned on creating pieces like this, everyone benefits.

If your team needs help assessing your current content, creating a plan to get more mileage out of your assets, creating new pieces, or planning themes, contact GPRS today. We can help you develop a plan to optimize your communications based on your school’s strategy.