The Conversion Conundrum - How to become the first choice institution
No-one wants their university to be the second or insurance choice. As marketers, we want to inspire students to consider us as their top choice, not merely a backup.
Through our research and work with HE marketers, we’ve found there are some common yet avoidable traps that cause prospective students to consider your university as the insurance rather than first choice.
In this episode, Penny Eccles, CEO and Founder of Marketing Partnership, breaks down these common issues and dives into the topic of conversion strategies. Penny identifies the key stages of the application process that can make or break that relationship with students and ultimately affect conversions.
For more, keep reading or tune in to the full podcast episode below.
Common mistakes that keep you from being the firm choice:
1. Ghosting your enquirers
Students who show interest in your university want to see that interest returned. So don’t take it for granted and assume they will apply. Waiting until they apply to reach out to them is a common misstep. But we’ve found that the very best converting universities invest time in that pre-application relationship. They don’t leave valuable student contacts sitting in their CRM system forgotten.
Your top competitors could be ahead of the game here, and who do you think the student is more likely to pick when it comes to making their firm choice?
2. Inadvertently positioning your university as the insurance choice
Insurance choices are there so that students have an option to fall back on if their first choice doesn’t work out. So naturally, the insurance option usually has lower entry requirements.
If your courses have lower requirements than your competitors, you may be naturally perceived as just a backup choice. While you may think that being the insurance option is better than nothing at all, it can result in converting fewer students overall.
On the other hand, if your entry tariff is the same as your competitors, the problem could be that your university isn’t seen as competitive or appealing. In this case, think about what you can do to make your university more attractive to students. This could include offering something different or showcasing the benefits of attending more effectively through marketing materials and open days.
3. Devolving the interview process
In a lot of cases, student interviews are passed on to the subject departments themselves. It might seem like a sensible option because subject teams are much better placed to judge the academic suitability of an applicant. But there are risks associated with this approach if it is not viewed as an important relationship-building touchpoint.
Students are also interviewing the university and will often make a decision based on the impression an interview leaves them with.
Course administration teams don't necessarily have conversion rates on their mind when scheduling interview dates. If you’re experiencing high withdrawal rates after interviews, this could be an area for improvement and a different approach may be needed, such as training or having different people attend.
4. Neglecting rejected applications
Naturally, universities want to focus on the students they’ve made an offer to. But don’t neglect the students you reject. There’s still room for opportunity to convert them.
If they have to go through Clearing, there’s a good chance they’ll pick a university already on their shortlist – which could very well be yours.
However, if the experience of rejection is negative with no follow-up, they may look elsewhere. Rejection can be a sensitive subject for students, so it’s important to handle it delicately. Make sure there’s a positive upside and take the time to build cascade processes, especially for high-rejecting courses.
5. Failing to prioritise returning visitors
In an ideal world, interested students would attend both open days and applicant days to see the full range of what the university has to offer. But only about 3% of applicants do this. Why? There’s a common assumption that those days are basically the same thing. But they shouldn’t be.
Make sure that your open days and applicant days are distinctively different and communicate that clearly with prospective students. Outline exactly what’s on offer, what the day will include, and make sure you highlight the value a student will receive after attending.
For those students who do attend both days, treat them like royalty! They’re your VIPs because they are the people most likely to convert. After encouraging people to attend, follow up with them and offer more information or some kind of reward for repeat visits. Let them know that you recognise they’ve attended before.
6. Contractualising the relationship too early
Next, look at the type of correspondence a student gets before and after an offer. The emails and leaflets they get beforehand encouraging them to apply often come from marketers who want to build a great relationship with students. But once that offer comes in, there’s often a stark contrast in tone.
This usually happens when the student is passed onto another department. They may receive incredibly formal or robotic-sounding correspondence that can feel disappointing and alienating for students who are excited to pass their exams and receive offers.
One reason for this is that there are legal requirements to abide by when communicating offers and enrolment information. Another is a lack of coordination with the type of tone previously used by the university. Remember, that this is an incredibly exciting time in a student’s life, so don’t make it sound contractual and cold. Create moments of joy and a consistent tone.
7. An uncoordinated welcome
There’s a lot of information students collect throughout the application process, and it can quickly get overwhelming.
Picture your email inbox bursting with correspondence about student flat deposits, alumni teams, subject tutors getting ahead, student finance, and the IT department asking for photos for your ID card.
When this all happens at once, it feels chaotic and overwhelming. And it shows there’s no coordination between departments.
Once, when we worked with a university, we suspected this was an issue and found that on average, prospective students received 65 pieces of correspondence! This isn’t just a bit annoying. It can have a detrimental effect on student recruitment. Our research shows you can lose up to 10% of your firm choice students between application and enrolment.
Students often experience what we call “the wobble,” that moment where they have second thoughts and change their mind, even with a firm choice. This “wobble” isn’t always a conscious thing. It could simply be a negative feeling associated with a university, and a bombardment of correspondence could be a factor.
Instead, set up a clear onboarding plan, working with other departments to coordinate communications more effectively.
Many of the above issues come down to planning and communication – whether it's a lack of, or way too much. But if you can address these common problems in the student recruitment process, you’ll start to see conversions ticking up and more students picking your university as a firm choice, not just a backup.
Make sure to review your strategies and communication with students and other departments on a regular basis to constantly define how you approach recruitment.
Penny Eccles is a marketing consultant specialising in Higher Education marketing and student recruitment.