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Yes! You Can Accurately Predict What Prospective Students Will Think and Feel

November 30th, 2017

Consider the facts:

  • A student’s excitement about attending a college is more strongly correlated to enrollment – by a factor of two – than either cost or perceived quality of the college.
  • Almost all college-bound students (over 90%) believe it is important for colleges to attempt to understand their feelings and emotions. Yet, only 24% of them say that colleges are making the effort.
  • More than 80% of college-bound students say that the relationship they built with a college significantly impacted their decision to enroll.

Today’s college-bound students want to be excited about the college they choose; they want the college show a real interest in them; and they want a personal relationship with the college. 

You may ask, “Is it possible to develop the type of personal relationships the students we are recruiting crave when each of our counselors iks working with a have a pool of hundreds?” Or perhaps, “Our marketing efforts are focused on social media and mass marketing. How can that be personalized?”

Yes, it is possible.  And, it may well transform both your short and long term recruiting efforts. It involves segmenting your pool of prospective students psychographically. It’s about finding out what’s going on in the student’s head and how it will influence their college selection decision. And you can do that on a mass scale.

Psychographic segmentation is an effective strategy that can be indispensable in higher education and can impact every stage of your funnel. By definition, segmentation simply involves dividing a broad target market into subsets of consumers (in our case prospective students) who have, or are perceived to have, common needs, interests, and priorities, and then designing and implementing strategies to make your personal and mass communications more effective to the various segments you have identified.

You may already group your prospective student pool into geographic and socioeconomic segments. And you might overlay additional data sets for the purposes of predicting outcomes (such as enrollment). Predictive analytics is fantastic. As a marketer, I love it. But my sales background makes me want more. I want to understand each person I’m talking to. I want to know what they want and why. I want to know how they make decisions. I want know how I can frame a value proposition that will most resonate with them. I want to know how they can be best served.

Capture the information:

You CAN get this information from prospective students and it will dramatically improve the quality and richness of your communication with them. You just have to ask them for it.

We have. Over 50,000 college-bound students have participated in three of our most recent national co-sponsored studies, “Emotional Motivators,” “Hidden Influences,” and “The Relationship Dynamic.” In those studies, we uncovered what is going on in their heads and hearts as they search for the kind of college they want. We gained insight into how they make decisions. Multiple psychographic segments emerged.

By asking students to describe their personality traits from a set of variables, and after statistical analysis, we uncovered four distinct personality types which make up our Psychographic Dimensions. We labeled them this way (in bold) based how students described themselves (in italics):

  • Warm and trusting: Easygoing, warm, caring and trusting
  • Assertive extrovert: Spontaneous, risk-taker, assertive, social and extroverted
  • Skeptical introvert: Private, introverted and skeptical
  • Analytical perfectionist: Analytical, ordered and perfectionist

In a following set of variables, we asked them to describe what they most want in a college. We then explored the associations between their psychographic dimensions and the attributes they most want. Here are the connections between personality traits and desired attributes.

  • Warm and trusting: Career-oriented, friendly, values, safe, personal and affordable, social, career-oriented, fun, exciting, friendly, safe, personal and values.
  • Spontaneous extrovert: Party school and sports.
  • Skeptical introvert: Diverse and liberal.
  • Analytical perfectionist: Prestigious, challenging and well-known.

This isn’t all we uncovered. As part of the Emotional Motivators study we presented students with a third set of variables that described the feelings and emotions they experienced as part of the college selection process. It’s fascinating to see the connection between their personality type, what they want in a college and the feelings and emotions they experienced leading up to college selection. When you layer these three dimensions you see people you know. You’ll recall someone who fit a specific personality type, who wanted certain things in a college, who exhibited specific feelings and emotions.

Leverage the data:

Imagine the power of reducing these three dimensions into a single code or variable at the end of a record in a table in a CRM. That single code could trigger different appeals, through different channels, with different information and calls to action.

At a personal communications level, admission counselors could have a fuller understanding of each student they talk to so they can serve them best. They can predict what they want and why. They can know how an individual student makes decisions and how to frame a value proposition that will most resonate with that person. A college that gathers this information at one or more points in the recruiting cycle can tailor every communication with a prospective student in a highly-personalized way that will dramatically improve the quality and richness of their communication with them.

For years, we’ve been capturing psychographic and “what you most want in a college” data in our Yield Enhancement System (YES) projects for colleges to assist counselors in crafting a more personalized approach to individual prospective students. Admission offices use this information to have more effective one-on-one interactions and, ultimately, boost their yield.

But now, the capture of this data on a wide scale could offer dramatic efficiency and effectiveness in communications and service to prospective students.

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

Bob 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 Behavior, Campus Tours, Campus Visits, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Organizational development, Parents, Research, Worthwhile Reading, Your Value Proposition

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A Simple Fix for the Common Mistake Your Admission Counselors Are (Probably) Making

November 21st, 2017

During one of our recent on campus Interactive Counselor Training Workshops, I asked Andrew, a veteran admission counselor, to describe a typical interaction with a prospective student. “I like to start out with the big picture. I tell them about our great academic programs and name drop a couple of well-known graduates of our business school.  Then, I focus on the fun stuff like our winning sports teams and Greek system. Everyone comments on our attractive campus so I always mention that.”

There is no doubt that Andrew did a great job of enthusiastically describing several key features of the renowned university he represents, but did he move the student closer to enrollment? Probably not and here’s why:  A feature is not a benefit.

Features Tell/Benefits Sell.

You know that list of special attributes of your college that you point out to every prospective student?  It may be entirely meaningless to them. Worse, they may be totally tuning you out while you are droning on about things they don’t care about.

Simple Fix:  Probe to uncover what is of value to the prospective student.

In any conversation you have with a prospective student, whether it’s your first or your fifth, and regardless of where you are in the recruiting cycle, you need to probe. You HAVE to ask many questions.

Most counselors think they already do this. But in our training workshops with admissions counselors across the country, we see two common mistakes.

First, the questions being asked don’t penetrate deeply enough to uncover all of the student’s motivations, assumptions, concerns, preferences and influences in their college selection decision.

Secondly, we see questions asked that do little more than give the counselor an opportunity to talk about the college.

The key is to turn the focus of the conversation toward the individual student. Information you provide about the college must relate to only those things the student has told you are important in their college selection decision or, frankly, it is meaningless.

We have a theory that we share with counselors: To have a relevant conversation we must discover what a student is thinking. To be more meaningful we must know what a student is feeling. A conversation without relevance and meaning is just talk.

When you have asked enough questions to have a full understanding of the student’s unique preferences, you are ready to talk about your college and demonstrate how your institution can best meet their individual needs.

In our Interactive Counselor Training Workshops we teach counselors to probe and uncover key factors that will motivate a student to select your college over all others.

For instance, if you ask about the importance of distance-from-home in selecting a college, and they say they are willing to go anywhere, you’ve just determined that distance-from-home is neither going to be a deal-breaker nor a strong perceived value of your institution. In that case, you can close that issue and move on.

There is an art to probing. But it’s also an acquired skill that can be learned and perfected. We have helped counselors master the art of probing in a manner that is so effortless that at the end of the exchange the student describes the encounter as a “great conversation.” In the process, the student has handed the recruiter every tool he or she needs to present the value of the college in perfect alignment to what the student will perceive as being valuable. More importantly, the student feels understood and valued.

College admission directors and enrollment managers often tell us that they wish they had the budget to hire professionals to train their admission teams. They tell us they know they need training; that their counselors would greatly benefit from learning new skills; and the right program would energize the entire staff. “But,” they say regretfully, “we just don’t have the budget to support the expenditure this kind of professional development often costs.”

So, last year, we conducted a series of one-day intensive Yield Season Counselor Training workshops on host college campuses across the country. We held workshops on the campuses of Eastern Kentucky, Guilford, Westminster (PA), Rosemont, University of Mary Washington, and others. Colleges from the surrounding areas sent counselors (many driving three hours) to these events. They loved it and so did we!

We are kicking off our first yield season workshop this season at Drew University in New Jersey on December 12th.

We are talking to colleges around the country about being a host site (there are incentives that make being a host site very attractive so contact us if you have an interest hosting a workshop).

Whether you are a host college or not this is a very affordable workshop designed to benefit seasoned counselors just as much as counselors who are going through their first full recruiting cycle. Counselors you send will return home with skills and techniques that can be shared with the whole admission team.

Your admission counselors will learn new methods to:

  • Adopt a student-centric approach to recruiting.
  • Reveal the needs, preferences, motivations, and perceptions of prospective students.
  • More effectively present the value of their college based on what the student (and parent) perceives as being most valuable.
  • Manage the perceptions and opinions that prospective students form about their college.
  • Uncover hidden influences that will impact a student’s enrollment decision.
  • Learn how to differentiate your college.
  • Create and foster relationships with students that will lead to enrollment.
  • Discover the true influence of cost and isolate factors that will outweigh cost.
  • Enlist the support and influence of parents.
  • Share their new skills and techniques with the entire admission team.

The Bottom Line: You can up your game this yield season for a minimal investment in time and money and a maximum return in your enrollment. If you are interested in attending a workshop, suggesting a location, or even hosting a workshop, ask for details here.

We help colleges with their recruiting efforts every day. If we can help you please call me or any member of our team, Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo. For more information about Longmire and Company and the tools we have to offer, click here. Be sure to subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly-valuable information.

Bob 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 Campus Tours, Campus Visits, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Organizational development, Parents, Your Value Proposition

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Your First Look at Emotional Motivators Study Findings – Alleviate Stress and Increase Yield

November 7th, 2017

Preliminary findings from our latest national co-sponsored higher education study are definitive on this subject:  Your prospective students want/need you to understand the feelings and emotions they are experiencing as they navigate the college selection process.

Over 10,000 recently enrolled college students have revealed to us the specific emotions they encountered while searching for the right college. More importantly, they are sharing their perceptions of what the colleges they considered did, and did not do, to support their feelings and how that influenced their ultimate college choice.

Of course, we are all well aware of the range of emotions that envelop prospective students during their college selection process. That is not news. What the “Emotional Motivators“ national co-sponsored study uncovers is how you can increase and control your enrollment by getting a deep and accurate understanding of how students really feel about your college and what you can do to channel those emotions.

[Full disclosure:  The study is underway and I am sharing just a few preliminary findings. However, at the current sample size, the margin of error at the 95% level is +/- 1%.]

So, what new insights does “Emotional Motivators” offer that you can use right now?

First of all, the study findings reveal that choosing a college is even more anxiety provoking than you may have thought. More than 80% of students say they experienced anxiety while searching for a college.anxiety chart

When asked if any college tried to find out about, address or alleviate their anxieties, 64% said “NO.”

What happens when a college reaches out to address and alleviate anxiety? An overwhelming 78% of students tell us that it makes the college more attractive to them.

In our prior higher education studies we have identified the 6 stress-inducing actions most often cited about the college admission’s industry:

  1. That we communicate poorly
  2. That we’re slow to offer or reject admission
  3. That we have burdensome processes
  4. That admissions people are not responsive
  5. We are poorly organized, and
  6. In some cases, they believe we’re being DISHONEST

Ouch!!!

“Emotional Motivators” takes a deeper dive into this topic and asks students what advice, actions, experiences or information provided by colleges helped alleviate their stress.

Some of the most cited:

  • Personal contact with an admissions counselor who provides counsel throughout the process
  • Communications from current students via email, phone calls, text messages and personal visits
  • Responsive and consistent communications
  • Overnight visits to the college
  • Humor in communications
  • Treat each prospective student as you would expect and hope to be treated
  • Above all, show a sincere interest in the student

These may seem obvious but it’s amazing how many colleges fail to practice these proven behaviors that will serve a prospective student and parents well.  Every student has a unique combination of needs, preferences, perceptions and motivations. Identifying and dealing with all of them enables the college to have a deeper and stronger relationship with the prospective student. Uncovering them requires that the college focus on the student rather than the institution.

There are communication techniques your staff can learn that will help them feel confident about reaching out to prospective students to ask the right questions. This is one of the core techniques we teach in the Interactive Counselor Training Workshops we hold on college campuses throughout the country.

We’ll be sharing more insights from “Emotional Motivators” in upcoming blog posts but if you want to capture this powerful data about what students think and feel about your college, there is still time to join a prestigious list of co-sponsoring colleges and universities, large and small, and participate in this study. Co-sponsors find our studies valuable because of the wealth of new insight they gain about their individual pools of prospective students – insight they can use to drive action and change.

As a co-sponsor you receive a comprehensive set of tabulations relating to your pool of students, as well comparative data of others in your cohort and other market segments. You’ll also receive the national summary report before its widespread release.

In addition, Longmire and Company Enrollment Strategists will prepare and deliver a fully-customized webinar to review your individual findings and offer recommendations for specific actions you can take to improve your communications, conversations and interactions with prospective students. For these webinars co-sponsors often assemble staff from admissions, marketing, financial aid and faculty to benefit from the new perspectives, ideas and actions that these studies yield.

We have been told many times by colleges that the webinar alone is worth the small cost of getting on board!

You get a deeper level of insight on the pool of prospective students you were working for 2017 and get a clear understanding of how you were or weren’t tripping their trigger. You can click here for a video with all the details.

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

Rick 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 Behavior, Campus Visits, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Organizational development, Research, Your Value Proposition

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Do You Really Know What Students and Parents Think About Your Campus Visit Experience?

June 8th, 2017

First, let me share some data. Then I’ll extend an invitation that I think you’ll want to accept.

The Data:

Colleges do not differentiate themselves through their tour and visit programs, students say. In our national co-sponsored studies, and through focus group research we conduct, 60% of students say that campus tours are “all the same,” and they don’t consider that a good thing. Students tell us that most don’t generate any more or less excitement than all of the others they experienced.

The key reason, students tell us, is that most tours focus on the college and its attributes without consideration for the student’s specific interests. 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.

Ask yourself:  Do our tours and visits capture the magic that is unique to OUR college?  Does the visit feel personalized to the interests of the student? 

In our recently released study, “Hidden Influences,” over 18,000 college bound students were asked what they remembered seeing or experiencing on a campus visit that made a college especially attractive to them. Two primary themes emerged. Students were enamored with the campus itself (which they described in many different ways) and the students (both prospective and current) they observed and interacted with on their visit.

Students most frequently express their appreciation for the campus less in terms of physical attributes and more in emotional attributes such as the “feel” of the campus, “atmosphere” and “vibe.”

Interaction with current students on a campus plays a critical role in their college selection decision. It gives them a feel for what their life will be like if they enrolled. Prospective students respond very favorably to current students who are friendly, enthusiastic, happy and welcoming.

Ask yourself:  Are visiting students given a variety of opportunities to interact with each other and current students in a positive environment?

When prospective students were asked what they remembered seeing or experiencing on a campus visit that made a college especially unattractive to them, the same two primary themes emerged: the campus and students/people.

Interestingly, though, their comments about things they find unattractive are notably more visceral than their comments about things they find attractive. They describe campuses as “gloomy,” “dreary,” “dirty,” “run down,” “desolate” and “empty.” They describe students as “snooty,”“unhappy,”“unfriendly,” “mean-spirited” and “rude.”

It’s hard to imagine that any student would enroll in an institution at which they had such negative emotional responses as described above.

During a campus visit about one-half of prospective students see and experience things about the college that they find unappealing. This finding may be expected since all students are not going to like everything they see at all of the campuses they visit. What is more concerning is that only 13% of students say that an admission counselor ever inquired if they had seen or experienced anything the student found unappealing or concerning about their campus.

Ask yourself: Are you asking your visitors if they saw anything they didn’t like? Simply asking, “How was your tour?” isn’t enough. Probe for the specifics of what they did and did not like. If you don’t ask, they won’t tell and you will never know the real reason they didn’t enroll.

Perhaps the most important questions you can ask yourself are:

  • Is your campus visit program resulting in greater yields?
  • How well do you use this golden opportunity to cement the emotional commitments of prospective students and their parents?
  • Do you accurately measure the results of these visits and the impact on enrollment?
  • Is every campus representative well-trained in their role?

The invitation:

After our last two co-sponsored studies, we wondered: Just how much and how precisely are colleges capturing the thoughts and opinions of students and parents after their campus visits? Are they capturing truly relevant data, or are they capturing data that doesn’t prove to be all that useful in helping them improve their campus visit experiences in the hearts and minds of prospective students?

So, out of curiosity, we asked a number of our clients to let us see the “post-visit” surveys they use. They were more than happy to have us review and comment on them.

In a nutshell, the surveys were mostly boilerplate. With questions like “Were we helpful?. Or, “Did you see everything you wanted to see?” Or, “Can you see yourself enrolling here?” Etc. Etc.

The questions on these surveys did not measure CHANGE in a student’s view of the college. Or dominant EMOTIONS that were or were not instilled in students and parents as a result of the visit experience. Or how the visit experience COMPARED to other campus visit experiences the student had with other colleges.

We’d like to look at are larger number of “after-visit” surveys in use at colleges across the country. We’d like to see how they can be improved.

So, if you’d like to send us your campus visit survey please do! (Don’t worry, it won’t be shared with anyone.) We’ll take a look at it along with others we receive. We’ll then share with everyone the best, most incisive, most actionable, and most creative questions we see. There is no cost for this!!

Send your campus visit survey to Bob Longmire by CLICKING HERE. You may want to leave your contact information in case Bob has a question or suggestion specific to you.

Shifting gears:

I hope you’ll check out the national co-sponsored higher education study we are launching now:  Emotional Motivators. This study is based on the adage: “Facts tell. Emotions sell.” Students want and need facts and information about the colleges they consider. But their college selection decision will hinge on how they FEEL about the school they’ll ultimately enroll in. This study will tell you how they feel about you relative to the other colleges they considered (or chose to attend).

You should get in as a co-sponsor! There is still time. You can get a deeper level of insight on the pool of prospective students you were/are working for 2017 and get a clear understanding of how you were or weren’t tripping their trigger. You can click here for a video with all the details.

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

Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative and dynamic 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 Behavior, Campus Tours, Campus Visits, Closing the Sale, Conversion and Yield, Counselor Training, Organizational development, Research, Worthwhile Reading, Your Value Proposition

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