This is also a specific audience to target. Considering what audiences want and why they want it can also help galvanize brand identity and open up opportunities for differentiation. For instance, segmenting by location will ensure you have a list of local leads ready to go if you are running an event in a particular area. If youre not sure what model is best for your school, the best approach is likely to look at how your team might be segmenting its leads already. Maybe you want to pull in lateral transfers from junior colleges or high schools because your freshman class is full and attrition is a factor for upper grade-levels. Are you ready to create, transform and grow? Knowing which contacts in your database are potential future students, or people in the position to influence the decision of a potential future student, is a basic distinction. Read world-renowned marketing content to help grow your audience, Read best practices and examples of how to sell smarter, Read expert tips on how to build a customer-first organization, Read tips and tutorials on how to build better websites, Get the latest business and tech news in five minutes or less, Learn everything you need to know about HubSpot and our products, Stay on top of the latest marketing trends and tips, Join us as we brainstorm new business ideas based on current market trends, A daily dose of irreverent and informative takes on business & tech news, Turn marketing strategies into step-by-step processes designed for success, Explore what it takes to be a creative business owner or side-hustler, Listen to the world's most downloaded B2B sales podcast, Get productivity tips and business hacks to design your dream career, Free ebooks, tools, and templates to help you grow, Learn the latest business trends from leading experts with HubSpot Academy, All of HubSpot's marketing, sales CRM, customer service, CMS, and operations software on one platform. One of the most frustrating answers to the question who is your audience? is all too common in higher ed everyone. But that answer doesnt help anyone. If one of your team members segments leads using a different system, youll likely wind up with a slew of disorganized lists clogging up your CRM. Segmenting your email list is a fundamental building block of personalization. You don't have to be coy. Another common way that schools segment leads in an education CRM is by program or course of interest. !lf{@BJ.pE
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FIaF>k'0`g`mP+`{pDCP-1[2X0>bh Once a lead gets into your database, you can refine which segments they fit in as you collect more information about them. From there, let's cross-slice this intel with what you know about where a lead is in their enrollment journey. Marketers trying to differentiate institutions in an industry full of already similar in fact nearly identical offerings need more clarity and specificity when defining market segments and choosing which to serve. If you want to level-up your recruiting, more effectively fundraise and better engage donors, the winning strategy is segmentation. Focusing on fewer strategic targets is actually going to result in higher returns if done correctly. What they all have in common are varying audiences with different motivations and passions for you to capitalize on. For example, you could have your team set up a microsite for the country you are targeting. Institutions can no longer rely solely on their academic reputation to attract students; to appeal to todays cohorts they need to adopt a more agile approach to student recruitment and reach out to different student segments with personalised content.In other words, a one-size-fits-all approach to student recruitment is no longer fit for purpose. Although created with a specific focus on undergraduate students, the segments provide ample room and flexibility for all prospective students. Example: The criteria for an active list in HubSpot which uses the IP address of leads to identify contacts based in Seattle. Your team could opt to create remarketing campaigns on platforms like Facebook Ads in order to reengage existing leads and push them further towards application. If so, what is it? These are examples to illustrate how you can use segmentation to specifically design programs to target them. sfdcCampaignId: "701C0000000r9TTIAY" What if you want donors to give small amounts on a more regular basis such as monthly? Lets apply the same principles and questions to some potential scenarios for marketing and recruiting. Great - now you can market to them. These groups should be accessible, actionable, profitable and/or have growth potential for your organization. Lets explore how Full Fabric can help you and your institution. Resources for faculty and staff from our partners at Times Higher Education. Does your admissions team have trouble dividing its workload? These cookies do not store any personal information. (713) 942-7959. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Practically any of your audiences demographic characteristics could form the basis of your lead segmentation model. Military Mike an explanation on your school's leave policy for soldier-students who get called up. Aside from all that, segmentation also offers you an abundance of the one thing that is the holy grail for digital marketing: information. Before the turn of the 21st century, students were often driven by factors such as a universitys geographical location. Household incomes? But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Free and premium plans, Customer service software. To start, here are some questions you need to ask yourself and team: By segmenting out just this group, your team can better focus efforts to solve these questions. The higher education market is becoming increasingly competitive. What are some simple questions you can ask so you can put the lead in their proper persona bucket? Your higher education CRM system will likely have a number of preset contact properties that you can include to ensure leads are placed in the correct segment. This property could form the basis for psychographic segmentation in a CRM. From there, your team can award additional scores for any activity that demonstrates a prospects level of interest, such as email opens, downloads, web page views, or even actions like event attendance. Its the secret to ensuring the right message hits the right audience at the right time. Making segments useful and actionable means looking beyond basic, overly generic grouping approaches such as undergraduate vs graduate students, or online vs residential student. In using these segments as a basis for their own, universities can form a better understanding of what motivates different student cohorts and adjust their recruitment strategies to suit them. A space to discuss the ways in which we market and communicate about higher education and the collegiate experience. Here, ten points are being added to the score of any prospect who opens a particular email. As a result of segmented messaging, they saw a 37% increase in inquiry form submissions, a 20% increase in overall site visits, a 647% increase in site visits from China, and a 390% increase in site visits from Mexico. Can a high school teacher ruin an applicant's chances? This segment can be addressed specifically and separately with key messages or communications once you pull them out and focus on them. Free and premium plans, Content management software. Many institutions take some form of a one-size-fits-all approach, like building an overly generalized recruiting video, or developing a couple of ads for all parents and students or creating a single universal admissions package. Founded in 2008, HEM is a multi-lingual company, based in Montreal, with a wide range of education clients across Canada, the US and Europe. Their approach, titled The Differentiated University, separates students into six distinct and defined segments based on their motivations and mindsets rather than just demographics, allowing college and university leaders to develop more sophisticated strategies for reaching the next generation of students with offerings and operating models to most effectively and efficiently serve them.. Or you can send an offer to talk with a financial aid counselor to someone who downloaded a financial aid guide. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(53, '3d7cbac9-0e99-4d21-a709-4046bb35eada', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); Originally published Apr 6, 2016 7:00:00 AM, updated November 13 2019, How Schools Can Use Segmentation to Increase Enrollment Rates, progressive profiling to pre-fill an offer form with a lead's data. For instance, if you are segmenting leads by program and a prospect converts on a landing page related to a particular course, you can configure your CRM to automatically segment them into the correct program list. 2018-2022 BrandExtract, LLC. This is a lead nurturing methodology that involves serving prospects with additional offers in order to entice them to give you more information. Based on where you find your biggest opportunities, you can start to make adjustments in what and how you market to each segment and subsegment. endstream
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According to Parthenon, higher education is lagging behind in the area of student segmentation and as a result many institutions are failing to meet students demands. HEM uses cookies to improve your experience of our site, make it easier for returning visitors to access the resources they want, and to understand how our site is being used. This isnt the case anymore. You can then repeat that process with other groups: you can create a segment for those who never open or read their mail or email, for those who think you already have enough money and dont want to donate and for those who think filling out a card and mailing it back is too tedious. Maybe you can uncover that this group thinks their tiny gift would not make a difference. The key to segmentation is specificity, so you need to make sure you arent too broad. Education levels? hbspt.forms.create({ Thats a mistake. Fortunately, with the right technology, knowhow, and a bit of hard work, your school can create a list segmentation system that allows you to improve your efficiency, personalize your follow-up activities, and maximize your conversions. As the marketing clich goes, sending a vegetarian a coupon for a free meat-lovers pizza is no way to build trust with your prospect. Quality is better than quantity. Do you want to target teens who are interested in STEM subjects? Will they be motivated by the same email? Let's say you've got a list of prospective students (or their parents) who have downloaded applications, but haven't submitted them. Keep these two ideas in mind as you ask questions about your potential marketing, recruiting or fundraising initiative: Lets say you want to expand the diversity of your enrollment. Identifying, understanding and reaching the right segments within the higher education market requires thinking through the most meaningful, useful ways to divide and organize various groups that comprise it. 18-24-year-olds with impressive academic records, Academically-driven with post-graduate plans, Attracted to excellent research faculties, Less academically-driven than Aspiring Academics, Motivated by social culture and activities, Using higher education for career progression, Looking for a course that will enable them to reach their goal in the shortest time, Aiming to advance their career in current role or industry, Working adults with some educational background, Interest in institutions that acknowledge academic and career experience, Value non-traditional delivery methods (ie. For a start, dealing with specific groups makes it far easier to organize your teams activities and tasks. You need to segment your goals the way you segment your audiences. Even if they dont have a formal segmentation model in place, there are likely organizing inquiries according to some criteria as they come in. How will this help your organization? What kind of diversity are you looking for? Whatever you pick, be it another state or even another country, take on a communication perspective of a parent or student segment from within that market. As you create your list segments, that's a great time to uncover and address any content gaps you may have. Segmentation provides perspective on what it is that makes an institution unique that the market cares about. And CTR is also higher when using the recipient's company name in the subject line over no company mention. If youre just starting out, it might be best to avoid more than two or three big categories to start, you can expand once you have perfected this approach and process. The six segments aspiring academics; coming of age; career starters; career accelerators; industry switchers; and academic wanderers transcend traditional groupings to identify much more useful and actionable shared characteristics that should inform marketing strategies. endstream
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You can use persona information such as where they get information, what devices they're using to access content, what questions they have about how to look for a school or figure out what kind of school makes sense for them. See pricing, Marketing automation software. Tim Jones reminds us that our audience isnt everyone and shares ideas for better segmentation. For instance, universities can promote industry placement opportunities to Career Starters and Accelerators in the application phase, and offer Coming of Age and Academic Wanders career advice support during their course.