Enrollment is a tricky beast. It can be easy to get wrapped up in the process and forget about your goals for the year. If you’re not careful, you could even end up with an enrollment that doesn’t hit your targets! Here are five steps to setting yourself up for success when it comes to managing enrollment goals:
1. Know Your Target Market
The first thing you need to do is to gain a clear understanding of your target market. What’s the average age of the students at your school? Are they married? Do they have children? In addition, who are their friends and family members? This kind of information will help guide you in crafting messages that appeal to them.
2. Know Your Competition
Here’s another obvious point, but you should know what your competition is up to. How are they marketing to the same market as yours? What appeals to them? Be aware of any differences in enrollment messages between schools like yours and schools that enroll students with similar interests. This will help guide you in developing a marketing plan that is most likely to work.
3. Do Your Research
Once you understand your target market and your competition, it’s time to do some research. Understand their virtual college tours online and their strategies. You should consider what appeals most to the members of your target market? Have they responded favorably in the past to specific messages or types of messaging? If so, what exactly was it that appealed to them? This information will help you when developing your enrollment campaign.
4. Keep It Focused
Once you have completed your research, create a focused marketing plan based on the findings. Your marketing message should be straightforward, targeted, and concise. There is no reason to use fancy language or wordy messages when they are ignored. With this information at hand, you can now create a marketing message that is likely to garner attention and encourage prospective students to learn more about your school.
5. Make Prospective Students’ Lives Easier.
Finally, keep in mind that your enrollment messages should make the lives of prospective students easier. This means you need to provide them with the information they need to get started at your school. How can you help them enroll? What are forms required? When are applications due? Where should they send their transcripts, test scores, and other admissions materials? You also need to determine what types of deadlines or enrollment requirements exist so that you can communicate these requirements to prospective students.
The five steps of Digital Strategies for Updating Your Student Recruitment Plan detailed in this article will help you stay on track with your enrollment goals and make a successful, positive impact for the future. You can’t afford to miss out on any of these important steps.
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