Posts Tagged ‘college recruitment’

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The Unexpected Partnership That Can Lead to Increased Enrollment

July 29th, 2015

You already know that a student’s excitement about your college leads to a far greater likelihood of enrollment. And, you probably know that college tours and campus visits can influence a student’s level of excitement about a particular institution. But, you might be surprised to learn exactly what does and does not create excitement during a campus visit.srudent fireworks1

Recently, we asked 12,000 college-bound students to give us the scoop on campus tours and, frankly, we were shocked by what they told us. For instance, approximately 60% of students say that college campus tours are about the same in terms of generating excitement. Most don’t generate any more or less excitement than all of the others they experienced. In part, the reason for not generating excitement, students say, is the focus that the college places on itself rather than the student. This is especially so in group tours. In contrast, students who receive one-on-one tours where the focus is on them and what they want, tend to see the campus visit experience as a demonstration of the college’s personal interest in them.

When asked to rank the order which factors are most influential in generating their excitement about a college, students rank “seeing the campus” as most influential. The importance of interacting with current students places second. This is a continuing refrain, as evidenced in other data uncovered in The Excitement Factor! (our latest national higher education study) about the power of current students as a draw for prospective students.

Can you guess what ranked third? More influential than talking with counselors, meeting faculty, or even spending a night on campus or attending a sporting event? Seeing and experiencing the city and community in which they will live!

That’s right, gaining a sense of the community and what it has to offer has a big impact on prospective students. It’s an important component in the total set of factors that will make up this new chapter of their lives.

Lower number represents greater influence.

Lower number represents greater influence.

The relative influence of the city/community suggests that colleges will be well served in their recruiting efforts by taking a hands-on approach to enabling students and parents to see and experience all that the city and community has to offer them, in much the same way as a campus tour is planned, organized and executed.

How can you tap into this resource most effectively? We have compiled a few effective strategies for you to consider.

Personalize It

Some universities actually have an online interactive tool that allows students to select the various types of restaurants, activities, shopping and sights they are most interested in experiencing. Once the selections are made, recommendations are made and directions, reservations and special offers are made available.

Make Handouts Meaningful

If your college, like most, includes a community brochure in your welcome packet, it is time to take it up a notch. Ask retailers to include special offers for visiting students and their parents or to provide some local swag such as t-shirts, hats, cups, mugs, posters, etc.

Involve Community Leaders

Your institution is an enormous player in the local economy and adds great status to your city. If you don’t already have a presence in the local chamber of commerce and downtown association perhaps now is the time to do so. Progressive chambers of commerce will welcome the opportunity to expose their membership to your influx of potential new “residents” and may be willing to host events, present city tours and provide key community players to interact with the students. Downtown associations and chambers have been known to organize street parties and welcome events during campus tour periods and to ensure that every establishment is decked out in welcome signage.

Offer a Taste of the City

Invite restaurants, retailers, attractions, and key businesses to be a part of the campus tour experience. Whether you make this a stand-alone event or integrate it into your standard tour, it can have big impact. Entertainment from local theme parks and attractions; demonstrations of anything from skateboarding to the rock climbing club; food samples from area restaurants, all designed to expose students to a selection of activities that represent your unique community is sure to generate excitement.

These community partnerships needn’t be budget breakers either since the majority of cost will be borne by the businesses you work with. You’ll be offering priceless exposure to local businesses and creating excitement for the community AND your college or university.

Measure It!

Most colleges survey students and parents after a visit. Were we friendly? Did we provide the information you needed? Was the tour guide engaging? Did you like our campus and community? What did you like most and least about your visit? What improvements can we make?

These may seem like good questions but they don’t tell you much. Instead, ask questions that tell you whether your campus/community visit “moved the student’s needle” in your favor. Examples: Did your campus tour guide make you more or less excited about attending? If so, by how much? Why? Did you find the city/community more or less exciting and inviting than other colleges you visited? If so, what made it more or less exciting? To what degree do you feel we took a personal interest in you? Did that make a difference in your desire to enroll here? Did your view of our college change as a result of your visit? If so, how? For better or worse? How can we better show you what your life will be like as a student here?

This just scratches the surface of the range and depth of questions you can ask. Don’t be afraid to ask penetrating questions of students and parents after a visit. Let students and parents know that your purpose is to better serve them, and future students, by gaining a greater understanding.

The best part: You will be differentiating your campus visits/tours from all others! 

Summer is the ideal time to train and motivate your staff. Email or call me if you are interested in how we can help you develop a powerhouse team of admission counselors, tour guides, student callers, and others on campus who impact your ability to recruit students.

Because it’s connected with the topic of this post, you should know that we are launching a new higher education study (the latest is a very popular series) in which we will explore, in detail, how students form a relationship (or not) with the colleges they consider. It’s called, The Relationship Dynamic: How prospective students form a relationship with your college, and why it matters in your ability to grow and control enrollment. You can get insight into how effectively you are building (or not building) relationships that will lead to enrollment.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. Be sure to Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.

RickMontgomery_100x100Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. Rick can be reached at 913/492.1265 x.708 or via email at rmontgomery@longmire-co.com.

 

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Posted in Campus Tours, Campus Visits, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Customer service, Organizational development, Parents, Your Value Proposition

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Enrollment Planners: Creating Excitement Will Drive Enrollment!

July 15th, 2015

I will be in Chicago this week to make an appearance at the ACT 30th Annual Enrollment Planners Conference. With a full day of pre-conference workshops followed by more than 60 ACTepcpractitioner-focused sessions and nationally known speakers addressing the latest topics in student recruitment and retention, the ACT Enrollment Planners conference is always a very rewarding professional development experience.

Rick Montgomery, from the Longmire and Company team, and I will be joining Cathy Heinz, Purdue University, Director- Enrollment Management Communications, and Rachel Balows, University of Denver, Associate Director of Admission and Communication, to present: ”The Excitement Factor: Drive Enrollment by Creating Student Excitement.”

This is sure to be an enlightening and thought-provoking session where we’ll present the findings and implications from a groundbreaking study, The Excitement Factor! The research revealed that a prospective student’s excitement about attending a college is more highly correlated to enrollment than either cost or the perceived quality of the institution. Purdue and University of Denver are two of the more than 40 colleges across the United States who cosponsored the study, which generated more than 13,000 respondents.

We are looking forward to taking a deeper dive into the data that was uncovered in this study. This is actionable information that will help enrollment professionals better understand the environments in which student excitement is created, the people on campus who create it, points in the recruiting cycle where it is most frequently created, and specific methods and messages that are most and least effective in creating a student’s excitement about your college.Excitement_Factor

Most importantly, Cathy from Purdue and Rachel of the University of Denver, will be sharing specific strategies that any college or university can use today to increase the excitement factor and grow enrollment.

Attending the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference? Join us Thursday, 9:45 – 10:45 a.m. in the Armitage Room on the 4th floor. If not, you can follow the conference on Twitter @ACTepc and #ACTEPC. If you are interested in learning more about The Excitement Factor, you can DOWNLOAD  the full report now. Or, better yet, call or email us and we will provide a comprehensive presentation of the data for you and your staff.

We recently announced the launch of our new co-sponsored study, “The Relationship Dynamic: How prospective students form a relationship with your college, and why it matters in your ability to grow and control enrollment.” This study is a partnership of private and public colleges and universities from across the country seeking powerful data about building the types of relationships with prospective students that will lead to enrollment. CLICK HERE to learn more about getting involved in this new study.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company’s Interactive Counselor Training Program, click here. Be sure to Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.

RHL_Photo_100x100Bob Longmire is President of Longmire and Company, Inc. He is a recognized expert on the topic of how prospective students and parents form their college selection decisions – and how colleges can use that knowledge to grow and control their enrollment. He can be reached at (913) 492-1265, ext 709 or at blongmire@longmire-co.com. Connect with Bob at Linkedin/in/boblongmire.

 

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Posted in Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Organizational development, Research, Your Value Proposition

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The Best Admissions Teams Know: “It’s Not (about) YOU, it’s (about) ME!

June 30th, 2015

As I was enjoying a cup of coffee (and, yes, a wickedly good croissant) at the local coffee shop last week, I happened to catch a snippet of a conversation between two recent high school graduates. It went like this:

coffeeshop“Yeah, I just wasn’t feeling it.”

“Really? I thought that was your perfect fit.”

“Yeah, me too at first. But he didn’t really even get to  know me. You know what I mean? Like, he was treating me like I was everyone else. He never even asked me about what I really like to do or what I want to do in my life or anything.”

“What a jerk!” (I replaced the unprintable descriptive she actually used.) “So, now what?”

“Oh, it’s all good. I have enrolled at XYZ University. The admissions counselor was amazing, she asked me tons of questions about what I like to do and what my friends are like and what I see myself doing in the future. She really cares about me. Next week I am going to a summer program there where she said I’ll meet lots of other freshman students like me. I can’t wait!”

Light bulb moment: College admissions and dating have a great deal in common!

“It’s not you, it’s me” is more than a classic break-up line, it is also a lesson for us in enrollment management. Developing a relationship with a prospective student (or a boyfriend/girlfriend) is much more about THEM than it is about YOU.

Many times when we are on college campuses presenting our Interactive Counselor Training Workshops, we uncover a disconnect in the minds of admissions counselors on this very issue. Too often, the counselor spends too much time selling the institution rather than trying to understand what the student sees and feels as being valuable.

Instead we encourage counselors to spend the time they have with a student to truly get to know the individual; his or her unique combination of interests, preferences, desires, anxieties, and aspirations. With that greater understanding you will naturally communicate a unique value proposition. The student will perceive you as unique among their available choices. You will have reached the coveted state of differentiation.

In The Excitement Factor!, our recently released nationally co-sponsored study, 12,000 college-bound students told us that the college’s personal interest in them, or lack of it, was influential in their college selection decision. For a significant percentage of students who reached the application or admit stages of the funnel (36% to 42% of students in the public and private pools respectively) the issue of personal attention was a key factor in their ultimate choice.

The answer to increasing enrollment in the face of the many challenges in higher education today tuition lies in taking an entirely student-centric approach to recruiting where the admission office and counselors realize that “it’s not about the institution – it’s about the student.”  This is powerful when put into practice. Through our Interactive Counselor Training Workshops for counselors, we spend a great deal of time changing the focus of admission counselors. We see their transformation and improvements in productivity. Most importantly, we see changes in the recruiting process that exposes students to the information and experiences that truly interest and excite them.

From my many years in enrollment management, I know that summer is the ideal time to train and motivate your staff. Email or call me if you are interested in how we can help you have a powerhouse admissions team. And, if you want to join a prestigious group of colleges and universities that are exploring the issue of building relationships with prospective students click here for information about of our new co-sponsored study, “The Relationship Dynamic: How prospective students form a relationship with your college, and why it matters in your ability to grow and control enrollment.”

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. Be sure to Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.

Karen Full picKaren Full is a highly-respected higher education professional who has held positions in admissions and enrollment management at several institutions in the Midwest and Florida. With her vast experience working with large and small, public and private colleges, Karen brings a valuable perspective to her role as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. Call Karen at 913/492.1265 x.711 or email her at kfull@longmire-co.com. Follow Karen on Twitter @KarenAFull.

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Posted in Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Research, Your Value Proposition

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Enlightening, Surprising, (and Sometimes Shocking), Insights From Recent Higher Ed Admissions Studies

June 18th, 2015

We recently announced the launch of our new co-sponsored study, “The Relationship Dynamic: How prospective students form a relationship with your college, and why it matters in your ability to grow and control enrollment.”

This study is a partnership of private and public colleges and universities from across the country seeking powerful data about building the types of relationships with prospective students that will lead to enrollment. This is the seventh co-sponsored study we have facilitated in the past six years in an effort to help enrollment management professionals dive deeply into the heart of the issues impacting our industry. CLICK HERE to learn more about getting involved in this new study.

shocked babyOur most recent studies have uncovered many enlightening, surprising, and sometimes, even shocking, insights about the college shopping process. Adept admissions professionals consider these findings opportunities to differentiate their own college in the minds of the students they are recruiting. Here are just a few examples:

Enlightening….
A student’s first choice school is very likely to change.

Roughly 40% of students from the pools of public and private colleges swap out their former first choice school with another institution during their college selection process. This happens in about 25% of cases for prospective community college students.

Surprising….
Your college’s perception can be changed from “too expensive” to “totally worth it!”

Even though a student or parent may initially view a college as being “too expensive,” 70% would be likely (25% very likely) to reconsider the college if it can demonstrate greater value. When asked to identify the added value that would be required, numerous students and parents mentioned a scholarship or other financial incentive. However, the majority mentioned added values that are non-monetary such as “greater opportunities,” “job placement,” “better internships”, and “superior academics.”

Shocking….
Prospective students and their parents rank college pre-enrollment service lower than the post office, Walmart and their cell phone providers.

Nationally, students and parents gave colleges and universities a rating of 6.83 in overall service during the college selection process. Compare that to the American Customer Satisfaction Index that reports the United States Postal Service receives an average rating of 7.4, banks earn a rating of 7.6, hospitals 7.7, wireless telephone providers 7.1, and discount stores 7.6. Need I say more?

More Shocking….
That prospective student you are working so hard to recruit? He or she thinks you don’t really care.

In our most recent nationally co-sponsored study, “The Excitement Factor!”,we asked 12,000 college-bound students if the colleges they were considering had taken a personal interest in them at any point in the recruiting process. The response was shocking. Two-thirds said “No” or “Don’t Remember” and in our view “Don’t remember” is the same as “No.” (You can DOWNLOAD  the full report now.)

“The Excitement Factor!” revealed that a student’s college selection is tied closely to the strength of the relationship they build with a college over time. Contributing to the overall relationship are interactions a prospective student has with current students, professors, admission counselors, and even people in points across campus and beyond that are unknown to the admission office. Additionally, students revealed that they can, and do, form strong connections with colleges that lead to enrollment without ever stepping foot on campus.

Building relationships is a complex, nuanced and powerful part of student recruitment. Colleges are asking what they can do to influence relationship-building with their prospective students in all aspects of their recruitment efforts, from social media to personal contact. And, they want to know how to involve all influencers, on or off campus, in the development of rich relationships with prospective students.

Join this partnership of highly-respected colleges and universities and here’s what you’ll learn about the prospective students in your pool:RelationshipDynamic_300x172

  • When the relationship building process begins, the subsequent timeline, and milestones
  • Why students form a bond with one college and not another
  • The types of conversations and interactions that bind a student to a college
  • How admission counselors and others on campus can be more effective as relationship builders
  • How differing forms of communication help to cultivate relationships (personal interaction, email, social media, direct mail, and more)
  • Identifying psychographic segments of students and the types of relationships they seek with colleges
  • How people and methods outside the control of the college impact relationship building and how you can leverage those influences

Co-sponsors find our studies valuable because of the wealth of information they gain – information they can use to drive action and change. And because these studies attract a high number of co-sponsoring institutions they are extremely affordable, costing a fraction of the expense of an individual research project.

For more information, download detailed information about the study by CLICKING HERE or call us at 913/492.1265 x.701.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. Be sure to Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.

RickMontgomery_100x100Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. Rick can be reached at 913/492.1265 x.708 or via email at rmontgomery@longmire-co.com.

 

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