Over the past several years, data has become a core part of industry decision-making. Higher education is no exception, particularly when it comes to the admissions process. Today, admissions offices and recruitment professionals have more data at their fingertips than ever. Using it the right way can help in a wide range of applications, from optimizing recruitment to targeting the right students and increasing yield. But getting there can be complicated. Building a data-driven admissions strategy in higher education requires not just collecting the right data but also understanding how to analyze and apply it across the entire enrollment funnel.
Today, you’ll learn how to harness data to inform and improve your strategy. Doing so will ultimately create efficiencies and competitive advantages when you’re recruiting your next incoming class.
Why a Data-Driven Approach Is Critical for Enrollment Success
Before digging into the nuances of building a data-driven admissions strategy in higher education, let’s begin with the why. Understanding the value of quantitative information in making informed and strategic decisions can help you set priorities and secure the resources you need to create and implement your strategy successfully.
More specifically, data can help your enrollment efforts in three key ways:
- Uncover trends in student behavior, such as application patterns and timing. Also, uncover the areas that typically interest students at various parts of the funnel. In the process, you can learn more about the journey your students take as they move from first researching colleges and universities to making their tuition deposits.
- Better allocate resources to the recruitment efforts that will benefit your enrollment goals the most. Building a data-driven admissions strategy helps you understand which of your recruitment tactics are working and where you should spend your funds to recruit your next incoming class.
- Create competitive advantages by using your data in effective and sometimes unexpected ways. For example, you can create more personalized messaging with advanced student information on your side. You can also use data to segment your audience better, targeting only the most relevant prospects and ensuring that your messages resonate more than those of your competitors.
Add it all together, and you get one of the most powerful tools available in modern higher education admissions and recruitment marketing. It is a powerful tool, that is, as long as you collect the right data.
Collecting the Right Data to Build a Better Strategy
Big data is not just everywhere—its ubiquity is becoming increasingly problematic. According to one estimate, 64% of organizations manage at least one petabyte of data, and more than 40% manage at least 500 petabytes. For the record, that is equal to 500,000,000 gigabytes. It’s no wonder that 80% of business professionals regularly experience data overload.
The key to avoiding that conundrum is not treating all data as equal. Instead, admissions teams can benefit from collecting and prioritizing the information most relevant to their decision-making progress, including:
- Demographic student and parent data such as age, location, academic interests, and socioeconomic background
- Behavioral data such as website interactions, email engagement, event participation, and outreach to admissions teams
- Application data such as historical admissions trends, applicant performance, and yield rates
Limiting your data scope is key to successfully building a data-driven admissions strategy in higher education. Applications like FlippedApp can provide admissions professionals with detailed student profiles that match the institution’s criteria, which offers valuable data points to target prospective students more effectively.
Analyzing Your Data for Actionable Insights
Once you have a good strategy and process for collecting data that will be useful for your needs, it’s time to think about the next step. When you’re building a data-driven admissions strategy, that means establishing the means to interpret and analyze the data so that it can inform future admissions efforts.
Start by understanding which of your prospective students are most likely to apply and enroll. No two colleges or universities attract the exact same audiences. Understanding who your messaging and campus culture resonate with can help you maximize your efforts. Instead of trying to be all things for all people, you can focus your efforts (and budget) only on students likely to make it far down your funnel.
Next, identify patterns in student engagement and application rates. For example, you might find that some high-achieving students apply soon after your application opens, which can help you target your messaging early in the cycle accordingly. Students with lower financial means may apply later, creating a bigger need for messaging focused on financial aid at that stage in the cycle.
You can also go beyond simply looking at past trends by using predictive analytics tools. In addition, you can forecast enrollment outcomes for the future of your enrollment cycle, helping you better understand what your current efforts are getting you and where adjustments may be necessary. The earlier you can make those adjustments, the more flexible and successful your recruitment efforts can become.
Finally, consider implementing data visualization tools to make your data more approachable and easier to analyze. Visual dashboards and reports make it easier to see trends and identify opportunities to improve your strategy, especially when sharing insights with non-technical audiences. You can act more quickly and with more backing from your stakeholders, again creating more flexibility.
Personalizing Your Outreach Based on Data
In addition to strategic improvements, building a data-driven admissions strategy can also help your individual messaging. Use it right, and you can better personalize your outreach to each student prospect and improve engagement in the process.
For example, you can use information you’ve gathered about your students to better tailor your email campaigns, social media content, and event invitations to their preferences and behavior. You can also segment individual students and parents into groups based on their interests or demographics. Then build more targeted communication for each segment.
We know that personalized marketing outreach can greatly impact audience satisfaction, regardless of audience. A platform like FlippedApp can create that personalization. Then, you can connect admissions professionals with students who match pre-set institutional criteria. This process will streamline and optimize communication efforts.
Using Data to Optimize the Admissions Funnel
At its best, building a data-driven admissions strategy is not just about improving one or two areas. Instead, it’s about optimizing every stage of the admissions funnel, from the initial inquiry all the way to confirmed enrollments and “butts in seats” at the beginning of the semester.
Here’s how data can influence your admissions funnel at every stage:
- Inquiry stage: Use it to track lead generation data such as origin source to focus on initiatives already optimized for lead generation.
- Application stage: Monitor app completion rates and identify roadblocks that might prevent your prospects from completing their apps.
- Admit stage: Identify where they’re most likely to engage and continue engaging with them to increase your yield.
All of your conversion metrics, as well as qualitative and quantitative student feedback, are opportunities to learn and refine your recruitment tactics. It becomes an iterative process. You can continuously improve as you build a better, more optimized admissions strategy across the funnel.
Continuously Improving Your Data-Driven Strategy
Don’t think of building a data-driven admissions strategy as a one-time effort. Instead, consider it an ongoing initiative designed to continue getting better and finding new opportunities for improvement.
It starts with collecting feedback directly from your students and your recruiters—those directly in contact with your students. Ask about the most common questions and needs. Also, identify roadblocks that might be preventing students from moving down the funnel. As long as you keep asking, you’ll keep finding opportunities to improve the process and the strategy behind it.
It also helps to set measurable goals during each part of the admissions cycle. Then, assess the performance of your tactics against those goals, such as inquiries generated, campus visits, post-campus surveys completed, and applications submitted. Falling short of your goals does not mean failure, but an opportunity to learn the reason behind falling short and getting to work on finding a solution.
Finally, your end-cycle enrollment cycle offers an immense opportunity for data inputs into your admissions strategy. At the highest level, you’ll learn whether your enrollment efforts were successful. But you can also learn more about the students you attract through demographic averages, an academic class profile, and more. Each data point is an opportunity to adjust and improve your strategy for the next cycle.
Of course, you need tools that help you collect this data easily. Look for tools like FlippedApp, which provides actionable insights and helps streamline your data collection. Greater ease of collection makes it easier to analyze the data, helping you refine and improve your strategies in the moment and also after the cycle ends.
Building a Data-Driven Admissions Strategy for Long-Term Enrollment Success
In short, the benefits of building a data-driven admissions strategy in higher education are both clear and far-ranging. In every piece of the equation, data can help you make more informed decisions and improve your recruitment outcomes.
But that process doesn’t happen on its own. Beginning to build a data-driven approach requires evaluating your current data practices and finding opportunities to implement new strategies.
That’s where tools like FlippedApp enter the equation. They can support your data-driven efforts by providing valuable student insights, creating more personalized communications, and streamlining the admissions process. Learn more about FlippedApp today, and begin to leverage the power of data for your enrollment efforts.