Updated 10/23/2023 Persistence and student academic success has become one of the most important...
Updated 10/23/2023
The truth is, we didn’t realize at first how working “aged” leads would make such a huge impact for our clients who are trying to grow academic programs. We had a thought that if we combined two established practices, aged lead follow-up and outbound contact strategies, it would redefine the way our higher education Contact Center operates. It wasn't until we saw it in practice that we noticed how significant of a game-changer it was for our partners. By placing the prospective student's experience at the forefront of our strategic proven process, we uncovered a whole new way to drive growth.
Jennifer Goode / CEO of Enrollment Builders
1. You’re not reaching out at the right times.
To meet these prospects where they are, a lot of outreach from admissions should happen after traditional office hours and on weekends. The problem? Most admissions teams aren't available to speak with prospective students when they are available to communicate. And that's okay. We can help!
2. Your prospects aren’t always ready when you are.
Your admissions team may have reached out many times to those prospective students languishing in your CRM, but a prospective student who didn’t respond to previous campaigns isn’t lost. Even the most interested prospects require an average of six proactive engagements across phone, email, and text from admissions to engage. Even the most mature strategies leave at least 1% of prospects behind who would actually choose to pursue their college degree with your institution if we just reach out at the right time of their lives. For these prospects, the choice to complete their degree is about timing. Be ready!
3. You don’t have unlimited resources.
Your admissions team doesn’t have time to reach out proactively to an ever-growing list of prospects. Think about this: to successfully contact 2,500 prospective students six times before your next term would easily require 15,000 outreach attempts in the next 60 days by comprehensive phone, email, and text campaigns. Most institutions don't have the technology or staff bandwidth to support that kind of activity. Not to mention, most admissions counselors aren't expected to be available after 5 p.m. or have the time to stay on the phone for eight hours a day. These are busy people! But we can help them!
How has this been impacting your institution?
You’re missing the opportunity to share how you can help prospective students achieve their goals when they’re ready to hear from you. This leaves you with a high "cost per student enrolled," which is hard to justify when you have thousands of viable prospects going unworked after you’ve already paid for the leads. Decreased "lead-to-enrollment" conversion rates contribute to issues with reliably predicting and growing enrollment. These barriers create an opportunity that most institutions just don’t have the resources to take advantage of without help.
The solution?
If you are struggling to engage your aged leads with a consistent experience, then it's time to outsource the task to an experienced and trained admissions team who uses contact cadences to reach, engage, and nurture students. Cadences are critical to fixing your enrollment challenges. You can't generate tuition revenue until the hole in the front of the funnel is closed.
Cadences do that. And if you can't do that in-house, you must outsource.
