Supporting Indecisive Students

Prospective students and their families begin the journey of researching different universities and programs very early in the process.

They think about the location, the university’s brand, programme quality, career opportunities, famous alumni, expanses, campus structure, university amenities, student housing, etc. Taking into consideration all the available information and reaching a decision is a very difficult process, so it is very likely that your higher ed institution will encounter many indecisive students. The only way to support the prospective students and help them in decision making, is by reaching out and providing relevant information.

Why should you support indecisive students?

Indecisive students are already interested students who visited your website and engaged with your content. Interested but indecisive students lack information to reach a decision, and they just need a little push to go from interested students to applicants. Higher ed institution’s role is to analyse well how people engage with their content and thus realize what piece of information is missing. This might sound as a demanding and time-consuming task or you might decide that indecisive equals uninterested. Both examples would lead to abandoning the indecisive students, and then consequently, you would move on to attracting new students. In trying to reach out to new students, you will need to engage in the whole process again. Interested students are students who you have already attracted and who are already potential applicants. This does not mean that you shouldn’t work on reaching out to new audiences, it just means that the potential and interested students should not be neglected. Revise your channels and strategy and see what you are not saying. In the following, you might find out how you could provide the deciding factor.

Update your content across platforms

Students engaging with your university are carefully researching and gathering information. Because of this, revise your content and see if all the information is up to date and relevant. See with what content people engage, and make it visible and easily accessible. For example, how the campus looks like and what it offers are important aspects for students. They want to envision how their student life would look like and what they should expect. Update the virtual tours and even include them in your email campaign.

Personalize emails and include only relevant information. Do not overwhelm interested students with all the information you think they need, but include one topic per email and provide all the relevant points. Every page and link on your website contain information connected to one aspect of your higher ed institution. When a student visits that page, or clicks on some outbound links, you can automate sending emails with summary or additional information related to that topic. Email marketing is part of lead nurturing campaigns where your institution interacts with indecisive students (leads) to turn them into applicants. If you are not sure how to get started with personalized student communication, reach out to Keystone Education Group and find out how it could be beneficial for your specific needs.  

Lead nurturing campaign

Turning indecisive students into applicants requires two efforts from the higher ed institution: anticipating students doubts and personalizing experience. However, it can be difficult to address every applicant individually, especially when it comes to popular study programmes.  This could be easily achieved carefully planning and then implementing a lead nurturing campaign. Simply put, nurturing leads means personalizing the content for the target audience so that they are offered content which matches their needs and interests. This way, you are providing relevant and personalized information which could help in reaching a decision.

Taking a step back, how do lead campaigns make possible anticipating the needs and then successfully and efficiently supporting them? The strategy starts with collecting data, which needs to be utilized to its maximum and optimized well. As aforementioned, choosing a university depends on different aspects, and every student prioritizes a different one. Collected data provide an insight into their doubts, which if analysed well could be extremely beneficial for your overall marketing strategy. When considering and planning a lead nurturing strategy, have in mind the following methods:

• Lead scoring:

  Lead scoring is deployed in CRM systems to find out which lead are more likely to take action. In other words, it is a way to prioritize your indecisive students by ranking them according to their behaviour, and see which ones are more interested than others.
  
  

• Multi-channel storytelling:

  Firstly, telling a story through different platforms and channels are puzzle pieces that make up the whole. Every channel where you can reach out to your audience should be utilized to its full extent. Every platform has a unique way of interacting with users, and the type of content one expects to find there depends on the platform itself. Therefore, carefully choose content which you will present on different channels and in what way. Remember, that all your channels create the story of your brand.
  
  

• Don’t leave your leads waiting:

  Indecisive students should be approached right after they have shown interest. When buying a simple shirt, we spend a lot of time online – now imagine how many university websites and social media accounts one visits. It is very likely that in the sea of information, someone could forget about your program. Because of this, make sure that you follow up with indecisive students and provide them with the relevant information while they are still considering your higher ed.
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Your recruitment process will benefit highly from an efficient lead nurturing campaign. Personalized student communication and email campaigns could be one of the strategies of lead nurturing campaigns. However, they could also be the starting point for your overall marketing strategy in nurturing the indecisive students and being involved in their decision making. Therefore, if you are not sure how to approach the vast data to which you have access and create an efficient lead nurturing strategy or personalized communication, then book a call with Keystone Education Group and find out the best solution for your university.