Don’t be intimidated by data

Data can be one of your most powerful allies in developing strategies and tracking tactical effectiveness. But many marketers are often intimidated by the concept of making decisions using numbers, statistics, and large amounts of quantitative information. Here are some simple ways to start using data analytics to inform your strategic planning and make needed shifts along the way. Starting small and expanding as you gain confidence with your data can have far-reaching effects.

Analyze what you already have

Using small, digestible pieces of data (from your own analytics) can make a huge difference in optimizing your communications and developing plans for new and ongoing marketing campaigns. Here are some areas where powerful data may be accessible and waiting to be uncovered:

• Website: Digging into the analytics of your website may not be as complicated as you think. Try looking at top-performing pages, time on page, bounce rate, and error links. From there, you can analyze where people are landing and how long they’re engaging so you can determine what areas to expand, enhance or remove.
• Email campaigns: You can often pull simple reports on open rates and engagement throughout email campaigns. Notice that activity is tapering off mid- to late-funnel? Try shortening your campaign length, or updating your subject lines.
• Digital advertising: Whether you are using a vetted agency to place and track media or you are managing your advertising in-house, it’s important to know how your campaigns are performing so that you can optimize them and move the budget around if needed.

Make small moves

The great thing about data is that numbers don’t lie. When you can identify trends, engagement, clicks, and viewership, the data is often actionable as long as you know how to read it. When you first start utilizing data to make decisions, it can be overwhelming. Start small and build as you gain confidence with measurable results. In any scientific experiment, if you change to many variables, the results can lose their validity. So make sure you’re intentional about what you’re changing and how often.

Construct an actionable dashboard

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. Here are some areas to include when constructing an actionable dashboard:

• Digital advertising to track cost-per-click, cost-per-lead and cost-per-seated student
• Application activity based on seasonality
• Email engagement
• Website interaction including landing pages and form fills

When you have this 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. You don’t have to be intimidated by capturing the information you need and using it to make decisions. If you need an experienced firm that is skilled in tracking ROI and building dashboards, contact us today to start the conversation.

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How does an Enrollment Growth Diagnostic™ work?

At any given time there are common challenges that many business schools may face. While these are not necessarily new in higher education, when your school is facing them for the first time or is continuing to struggle with low enrollment, shrinking market share, lead generation issues or alignment between marketing and admissions, it can be a challenge to determine where to focus resources. There may be a time when your school needs an outside, objective evaluation and help to navigate meeting your enrollment goals in a continuously shifting market.

If you’re looking to identify areas of opportunity for growing enrollment, how to better align your marketing and admissions functions, and if your marketing tactics are sustainable, it may be time for an Enrollment Growth Diagnostic from GPRS.

What is an Enrollment Growth Diagnostic?

As a response to shifting needs we’ve observed in the market over the past 20 years, GPRS developed a unique offering that goes beyond the traditional evaluation schools may receive from a consultant or agency. Using a vetted discovery process we created drawing from our deep expertise in higher ed marketing and admissions, GPRS offers an Enrollment Growth Diagnostic (EGD) that is designed to “diagnose” the cause of your school’s specific challenges. The process includes in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and a working session to prioritize goals and ideal outcomes. The result is a deep report citing observations and recommendations to improve processes, funnel management, cross-departmental relationships, and ultimately, enrollment.

With an EGD, your school will receive a comprehensive report and then have the choice on how to proceed. You may want to explore a specific area further, implement the recommendations with the school’s internal teams or work with GPRS to customize a path forward.

As a true partner, GPRS aims to work with your school in the way that best suits you. We find out who the key stakeholders are, where the issues lie, and how we can best support the information-gathering effort and offer solutions that will make an impact.

How does the evaluation process work?

To get started with any partner school, the GPRS team goes straight to work, interviewing key stakeholders, reviewing each program, the admissions process, marketing, goals, audience and competitive positioning. Based on the market, competition, and challenges we identify, GPRS will deliver a report that may include findings on:

• Blind spots in the admissions processes
• Website functionality
• Marketing lead generation
• Funnel management
• Opportunities for synergy between departments

Following the report, GPRS will deliver a recommended roadmap including solutions to address common challenges we identified throughout the diagnostic process. Past schools we’ve worked with have been able to take these findings and implement actions to launch re-engagement campaigns, improve lead tracking, develop personas, and increase top-of-funnel engagement.

Interested in an Enrollment Growth Diagnostic from GPRS?

Partner with a firm that is truly invested in your school’s success. We’ll integrate with your team, help you identify your opportunities, and collaborate on solutions to increase your enrollment. Contact us today to start the conversation.

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Higher ed digital marketing trends to watch in 2023

At GPRS, we are continuously tracking trends in both higher education and digital marketing so we can bring our clients the most updated recommendations to help meet their enrollment goals.

As you are planning to seat your next class, we can help you identify ways to use new and trending techniques to ensure you stay relevant and top-of-mind with your prospect pool. Below are our top 3 higher ed digital marketing trends to watch (and try) in the coming year.

Video marketing

Whether in short form or long form, be sure you harness the power of video in your ongoing marketing strategy this year. As your marketing team may already know, storytelling is one of the most important ways that schools are connecting with prospective students. And what better way to do that than to capture a slice of life, a real student’s perspective or a faculty member in action? Once you’ve determined how video fits into your strategy and how you will use it to tell your school’s story, there are multiple channels you can use to get as much mileage as possible out of your content. You can display your videos in their entirety on your website, post snippets to social media and even include links in your email campaigns.

Conversational marketing

According to HubSpot, conversational marketing is changing the way organizations speak with their customers by making interactions seamless and quick. Additionally, these conversations happen on the prospect’s timetable and can be personal regardless of the scale at which they are happening. In other words, in the age of “live chat”, customers expect to be communicated with how, when and where they prefer – and they want information right away. If you have the technology to conduct a live chat, that’s great, however, many schools aren’t there yet. That’s ok. You can use LinkedIn to communicate with prospects via direct messaging or other live messaging apps, according to Harvard Business Review.

Highlighting career outcomes

Recently, we discussed why employment data matters in your marketing. During a time of market uncertainty, your prospects may be looking to advance or switch industries altogether, and they may (or may not) see an advanced degree as the key that can open the door to their next career move. Finding a way to position your program as a trusted partner along the journey to a rewarding promotion or management role is critical. Showcase the value of your program through the lens of career growth by sharing alumni testimonials, including promotion data, and reinforcing how a broadened perspective can help students speak the language of business.

As your strategic goals and tactics to support them fall into place, ensure that you have a partner that can keep you top of mind with your prospects. GPRS has worked with over 150 graduate programs and analyzes benchmark data to determine the best ways to market and meet enrollment goals. Need some help in your upcoming recruiting year? Contact us today to start the conversation.

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New year, new focus on enrollment goals

As the beginning of any new year presents itself, we are often faced with setting new goals. While New Year’s resolutions may tend more toward personal aspirations, it may be helpful for your team to revisit your enrollment goals, see how you’re tracking against your objectives, and renew your focus. You may even find that some adjustments are needed to make the next part of your recruiting cycle as productive as possible.

Since it can be difficult to gather the troops when recruiting events and planning are in full swing, we’ve included a few resources here to help you begin your year with a focused, strategic mindset.

Go back to the basics

When planning for the future, you can easily become overwhelmed with a long list of to-dos and intended outcomes. As you sort through your goals and the strategies and tactics to achieve them, remember to start with the most important piece of the puzzle – your audience. Digging deep into your prospective students’ motivations can help you choose the right platforms, create messaging that will resonate and determine the best strategy for tackling the upcoming year.

Dislodge your stalled leads

If you’re like many schools, you’ve got a group of stalled leads that need a little “push” to make it to the next stage of the funnel. You may be wondering if they decided to pursue another program or school, or if they are facing a barrier. Either way, re-engaging those stagnant prospects that were once interested in your school can be a critical step in rounding out your class.

Fine-tune your website

Your school’s website is your first touchpoint and most critical vehicle of communication for prospective students. It can act as an extension of your recruiting team, giving your prospects the additional information they need to make a decision. It’s important to enter the new year with content that is fresh and targeted to accomplish the task at hand — landing your next seated class. Be sure that you find time to audit your key pages so you are presenting your brand in the best light possible.

As you head into the new year, we can help you hone your marketing and enrollment strategies. Whether it’s developing personas, strategizing on digital marketing or creating a dashboard to track your progress, GPRS can help. Contact us today to start the conversation.

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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.

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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.

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Develop a strategy to reach prospects looking to upskill

Now more than ever, people are upskilling to keep up with the demands and pressures of the continually evolving economic landscape. To position your school as a partner along your prospects’ career paths, you will need a clearly defined strategy with multiple touchpoints showing how your program can help develop their talents and skills to succeed in the business world today and in the future.

Define your audience

To create a strategy that is aimed at reaching prospective “upskillers”, start with defining your audience. Think about constructing mini-personas and matching them to the programs you offer. For example, an IT professional that aims to manage a team may need to layer strategic leadership training on top of their deep technical background. For this learner, you may focus on a certificate program or management class within your Executive Education department. For a nonprofit professional seeking a corporate job, you may recommend an MBA to give them a deep dive in finance and operations.

Hone your strategy

A majority of professionals who are seeking to upskill may not see the value in a full-time degree, or even paying out-of-pocket for a program that may be less expensive online or have been previously offered in-house at their company. Your communications strategy can show them how your programs can contribute to their long-term career goals. Try highlighting alumni stories, reinforcing ROI and defining the exact path and time commitment. Focus on outcomes to address barriers in your prospects’ decision-making process.

Emphasize soft skills

Today, some of the most in-demand skills are related to how individuals present themselves and manage interpersonal relationships. Alongside your program positioning, be sure to emphasize the soft skills that will take any employee the distance, including:

• Strategic management
• Complex problem-solving and reasoning
• Sphere of influence
• Leadership
• Emotional intelligence
• Creativity
• Analytics

With a few small updates to your marketing strategy, you can reach the upskillers who are seeking a new path.

If your team needs help, GPRS can help you construct a strategy, develop personas and create communications to meet your prospects where they are in their journey. We have worked with over 60 colleges and universities and have insights into digital marketing strategies and how to leverage your school’s unique selling points. Contact us today to start the conversation.

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