Attitude toward enrollment

Enrollment for a traditional institution is generally a passive process.  The admissions department announces enrollment deadlines, potential student applications pour in and the college makes decisions about whom to admit and whom to reject.  The college is not required to pursue potential students because the students come to them.  When a college launches an online program they generally approach enrollment in the same way.  The program is launched, the college does some limited advertising and they sit back and expect the students to just show up.  Simply put, enrollment into non-traditional programs doesn’t work like that.  A college that fails to adopt a proactive enrollment model can expect their non-traditional programs to fail.

Program Selection

There are many ‘high demand’ degree programs in the world of non-traditional education, but these same programs also tend to be ‘high supply’.  In other words, there is a lot of demand for a Bachelors Degree in Business Management, but just about every school offers this program.  Differentiation of offerings is a way to stand out among the crowd and attract potential student interest.  Iowa Central Community College is a great example of how degree differentiation can help a new program launch.  The college leveraged campus resources to add a Homeland Security twist to its online criminal justice program.  Iowa Central was a first mover for this type of offering and it enjoyed the success of a unique program when the degree was launched.  The key to program differentiation is to offer a unique program that is not too niche to appeal to a wide audience.  A Business Degree with an emphasis in E-Business has a wide appeal and it stands out from the crowd, an emphasis in recreation management might stand out from the crowd, but the audience of potential students is much smaller.  Program selection can be the difference between success and failure.  Colleges should choose programs based on demand, not what the faculty wants to teach.

Advertising

Many traditional colleges launching online programs fail to advertise the new offerings properly.  I believe that there is a common misconception that simply being on the internet is enough to bring inquiries to you.  Personally I have spoken to several program administrators who did not even realize that it was necessary to purchase inquiries for their program offerings.  Furthermore, in the instances where they knew it was necessary, they did not have any sense of how to go about doing so.  The fact remains that if a college wants a successful online program, they need to promote it, and doing so can be expensive.  Those schools that do understand that inquiry generation is a necessity are faced with another challenge, how does the enrollment department intake and manage inquiries.  Whether the college chooses to engage in interactive or traditional advertising, it needs a way to manage the inquiries that are submitted.  In the absence of inquiry delivery and management tools it is impossible to effectively evaluate the impact of advertising expenditures.  Advertising new online offerings presents a college with a set of challenges that the program administrators may not be prepared to handle.  Promoting online programs is a lot more complex than simply spending money.  It requires both understanding of the market and technological expertise.  In most cases it makes financial sense for colleges to engage an experienced partner to help them manage the critical advertising function.

Evaluation of Enrollment Outcomes

Enrollment for online degree programs is significantly different than enrollment for traditional campus programs.  In particular, online enrollment requires that an admissions department track certain key metrics that are not generally evaluated by a traditional admissions division.  In particular the college must closely evaluate its cost per new student acquisition or CPA.  This metric is a key performance indicator for enrollment and marketing efforts and it lends significant insight into the effectiveness of both.  This figure generally ranges from $1200 to $2500 depending on the program and admissions requirements.  The fact is that most colleges launching new online programs do not realize how expensive it is to acquire new students.  In many cases this metric is not even being calculated and therefore it is impossible to truly evaluate how effective the enrollment staff is being or how effectively marketing dollars are being spent.  It is also important to note that CPA is only one of many important metrics used for tracking enrollment outcomes.  There is a lot that goes into enrollment, and it is possible to waste a lot of time and money trying to figure what metrics to monitor.  The best solution for a college new to online enrollment is to enlist the help of a partner that is proficient in the field.  ‘Consultant’ is a bit of a dirty with negative connotations, but the truth is, an experienced consultant can save a college time and money and help build a foundation for future enrollment success.  In short, if you don’t know what questions to ask, hire someone who does it’s worth it.

We work in an industry where the student is non-traditional, many times not immediately ready for school and frankly a bit unsure if they want to commit to a life change at all. So the phone might be their cousin’s, and the email their friends. What does this; or rather what are they as students, saying to us? They are saying that we need to rethink our definition of quality and change the methodology that we use in working with our leads. We need to meet the student where they are and be willing to take them with us to where they, deep down, want to go.

So what is a quality lead? A quality lead is one where the person’s door is open to the idea of enrolling in school and completing a goal of obtaining a college degree. This does not mean that every lead that comes through our system, quality or otherwise, is going to convert into an enrollment and then to a start. It does mean that at some point in their day a person thought about going to school enough to go out on the web and look for something specific. Whether that be a school, program, or general area of interest they spent some time in that place.

If that is the definition of a quality lead then we need to be willing to look past the one-call close and look to the quality of how we are working with that person’s dream. We should be willing to attempt contact more than 3 times and not just forget them. We should be willing to be upfront about all the details prior to the enrollment. And more importantly we should be willing to work with that student through their fear of commitment and not leave them because they aren’t an easy start.

In my experiences there is no pigeon hole in which we can place a potential student. The student who takes two or maybe three appointments to enroll, takes a moment to count the actual financial cost of their decision and begins their first set of classes with thoughts about their ability to keep up with the demands makes just as good, and at times a better, online student. It comes down to mindset, we need to be willing to constantly change.

If we go forward looking at each lead as a dream we are working to help fulfill and not just a number we might better see their quality and in return our quality of service as institutions will follow.

Too many institutions have lost sight of the fact that if you take care of you take care of your students, the students will take care of your institution. It boils down to simple math. If the average cost per acquisition is between $1,000 and $2,000 and a first course costs anywhere from $500-2000, then most institutions will not realize any tuition revenue until the second and sometimes even the third course. If you are forcing students in to class, don’t be surprised to see them drop out of class.

The one common theme among students that persist in class is this, they are comfortable with the decision that they are making. The choice to go to school boils down to a student deciding to get over his or her fears about finding the time, paying for school and most importantly the fear of failure. No amount of arm twisting is going to change these fears. The admissions rep can only usher the prospective student to a place where he or she can make the decision on their own. When a student drops because they didn’t have the right expectations, the admissions rep is 100% to blame. The golden rule applies to enrollment as well, take care of you students and they will take care of your institution.

Today’s traditional universities often find themselves over-subscribed and unable to accommodate the vastly growing number of traditional student applications. In addition, the high demand for adult-centered programs has pushed the traditional institutions to compete in the nontraditional marketplace. To meet this high demand and provide educational opportunities for both traditional and non-traditional students, universities are using various means of advertising to inform the public of the unique programs they (universities) have developed.

A popular technique had been the use of market targeting. Using market-targeting techniques, schools are seeking to provide access to an educational avenue for anyone who is interested. Market targeting looks at how to appeal to the vastly different needs that individuals may have. In the industry of higher education, market targeting seeks to point out the various education options that people have to choose from and evaluate the market to decide which audience to target and how to provide for their individual needs.

To do this effectively, three factors must be examined: the impact of competition, size and growth, and institutional objectives and resources. Today, as colleges and universities compete for market shares, traditional and non-traditional institutions are finding market-targeting techniques an effective means of advertising.

With the myriad of choices offered today, there no longer exists a “traditional market profile.” Anyone can find an educational program to meet his needs, whether it’s attending a community college, four-year university, adult-credentialing program, or an online program. In addition, with annual enrollment steadily increasing, successful marketers of higher education understand the critical need to separate themselves from the competition and identify themselves in the marketplace. To compete, colleges and universities must be recognizably different. Market targeting provides a unique means of advertising for each school to meet its individual needs.

The lure of market targeting reaches well beyond the realm of those learning institutions with large advertising budgets. Market targeting is often used by departments within schools to attract students to particular programs. Also, in an attempt to best utilize the funds they have available, smaller budgeted programs are turning to professional advertising agencies to develop their market targeting strategies.

In today’s education market, the bottom line is all schools seek to increase enrollment. And, in a society where higher education is becoming a necessity in order for individuals to advance in the job market, advertising is the means for schools to communicate with the targeted audience who will benefit from that school’s program.

What does the future look like for higher education? Competitive. But by using market targeting, today’s colleges and universities are reaching greater numbers of people and, in turn, these people are using higher education to obtain their career goals.