Mapping the Student Lifecycle From Inquiry Through Graduation

• David Rose, Vice President of Enrollment, Indiana Wesleyan University

• Lyle Kraft, Vice President of Enrollment Partnerships, PlattForm

• Mary Shepard, Vice President of Partnerships, Seelio

1

Today’s Objectives

1) Understand how the student journey has evolved

2) Ensure that you understand how to align with your prospective students

3) Discuss effective marketing strategies from interest to inquiry

4) Understand how to create and maintain engagement from inquiry to alumni

Today’s Prospective Students

Ever-Changing Behavior

Aligning Your Institution

Aligning Your Institution

Understanding prospective students’journey is a good start.

To really gain traction, you need to dive deeper into students’ considerations, beliefs, obstacles and the options available to them.

Planning and Development

• Build audience profiles

• Define your competitive landscape

• Evaluate degree and program demand

• Find and articulate your differentiators

• Analyze your channel opportunities

• Develop your strategic media plan

Effective Messaging Alignment

Excellence

Individual Attention

Scholarships

Employment Pledge

Career Services

Success

Skills

Affordability

Outcomes

Access

What

YOUhave to

offer

Whatprospective students are looking for

How do you build target audience insight into your creative in meaningful ways?

The Student’s Journey

Spoken or unspoken, these are the questions prospective students are asking.

Is your institution prepared to respond with an integrated media and messaging strategy?

Recognizing the Stages

The previous questions have a purpose, and these are the phases in which we as marketers can add value to their decision-making process.

Top-of-the-Funnel

90% of education-seekers start their search without a particular school in mind.

Top-of-the-Funnel Considerations

• Do I know my demo well enough to invest in top-of-funnel marketing?

• Does my digital marketing strategy effectively target my potential students from the top of the funnel all the way down?

• How am I generating interest, and do my conversion efforts match up?

• How will I measure success?

• Do I have a good bottom-of-funnel capture system in place?

Top-of-the-Funnel

Having solid positioning in the top of the funnel makes the whole process easier – increased branded searches, more website traffic and improved traffic-to-inquiry conversion rates, among others.

You have the opportunity to pick and choose whom you communicate with, and you should leverage every channel you can in getting your message out.

Top-of-the-Funnel

If you think in terms of the funnel and its sections, you see a barrier to traditional direct response advertising:

You can’t go from awareness to inquiry– not without research or trust.

Middle-of-the-Funnel

84% of smartphone and tablet owners use their devices as second screens while watching TV at the same time.

Middle-of-the-Funnel Considerations

• Can prospective students engage with my institution?

o Will they like what they see?

• Am I waiting for them to take the next step?

o Am I giving them reason to?

• Are they getting consistent experiences?

Middle-of-the-Funnel

Thinking back to the funnel as a whole, the challenge is to achieve trust.

In other words, students have verified that what you have to say about your institution is true.

With trust, you can focus on converting inquiries at the highest rate possible

Bottom-of-the-Funnel

80% of education search query paths end without a conversion to inquiry.

Bottom-of-the-Funnel Considerations

• Can they find what they are looking for?

• Does my messaging match my strategy?

• Do they know how to inquire?

• Have I communicated a reason to inquire?

• What happens after they inquire?

Continuing the Students’ Journey

We know that bringing a student to campus isn’t the last step. From there, we need to focus on:– Engagement– Retention– Graduation– Placement

A tool that make an impact across the student lifecycle: portfolios.

Using Portfolios to Impact Engagement & Retention

CREATE LEARNING TOUCH POINTS

• Build in time for students to think critically about their learning across all contexts

HELP STUDENTS MAKE CONNECTIONS

• Enable students to connect their learning to skills that employers are looking for

Example Activity from UM SSW

This module is designed to help students:1. Identify key values and beliefs.

2. Develop a philosophy that captures their

professional approach.

A Student’s Result: Professional Philosophy Statement

Getting to Graduation & Placement with Portfolios

INTEGRATING CAREER PREPARATION

• Build career preparation into every student experience—from day one to graduation

SHOWCASING AND STORY TELLING

• Provide model for students to showcase work so they can enter interviews with confidence

Preparing Students for Success

skill building & identification

presentationof self

career alignment & development

Empower students to begin reflecting and synthesizing early. Seelio’s model:

Capturing and showcasing learning

Leadership Experiences

Work Experiences

Research Papers

Musical Performances

Athletic Leadership

Volunteer Activities

Presentations & Speeches

Service Experiences

Example from Colorado Technical University

Assignment prompts help students identify how they want to present themselves and tell their story

Example from Colorado Technical University

Feedback from students using Seelio

“Jobs in my field aren't really easy to find, but with Seelio I have a one up on other candidates.”

“I like that it lets me not be a piece of paper, it shows who I am.”

“I'm very satisfied. Seelio is a great resource to use. I recommend it to all students!”

[Seelio helps] “others see what I accomplished and viewing others success. It's a great experience.” Also mentioned that “Seelio has helped me with job searching and showing off my success.”

“…It's a great place to showcase everything.”

“As a student with a lot of video work, it's extremely helpful that I can display all my videos in one place that's completely customized to me; not just a YouTube page.”

Questions?

To Learn More

About Indiana Wesleyan University:• David Rose, david.rose@indwes.edu, indwes.edu

About PlattForm:• Lyle Kraft, lyle.kraft@plattform.com, plattform.com

About Seelio:• Mary Shepard, mary@seelio.com, seelio.com/educators