If your institution is swimming in appealing candidates for admission each year, more than you could possibly desire, then this article may not be for you.
For all other colleges and universities, the bedrock of a healthy applicant pool usually involves large-scale marketing outreach, often with the assistance of high-volume name buys--known generically as “search.”
Over the years, the annual process of purchasing prospective student names has become an increasingly critical part of the student recruitment process for many colleges and universities. Chief enrollment officers in charge of making the name-buy decisions have found that selecting and executing a sound, strategic search program is not easily achieved.
The House Doesn’t Have to Win
The search selection process can sometimes resemble a casino-like atmosphere. It is not uncommon for the institution’s enrollment professionals responsible for student name-buys to fear that they are throwing a large pile of money down onto the table, hoping the bets they’re making will pay off. The lights are dim, the pressure is great, and the upcoming enrollment cycles may ride on the decisions made at that table. To make matters worse, the dealers of the name-buys rarely encourage anyone to slow down, bet less, or–heaven forbid–step away from the table.
It is a bit stressful, especially when the dealers endlessly point to a few well-worn spots on the table labeled Texas, California, Florida, Arizona, and New Mexico. What if those are not good bets for your institution? How are you going to know? What if there are a few good names in there, but you are uncertain which ones they are? How can you approach the table with more information to inform your decisions?
If this sounds at all familiar, then this article just might be for you. You can turn the intimidating complexity into an exciting strategic opportunity. Indeed, it is possible to demystify the search process and select your prospective students with much more knowledge and confidence.
The Nature of the Game
With literally thousands of different institutions vying for students’ attention, it has become incredibly difficult to differentiate your institution among the piles of glossy publications, letters, and e-mails to get your message heard above the din. Conveying your distinctive, compelling value proposition to prospective students at the right time is critical in generating applicants. Often, the safest solution to this challenge seems to be casting a large net by purchasing prospective student names in increasingly large numbers and marketing to them en masse.
Some smaller and mid-sized colleges have taken the “more is more” strategy to extremes, purchasing upwards of half a million high school student names each year. This is an incredibly expensive approach when all those prospective students receive at least one piece of mail from the institution. Colleges and universities routinely mail costly, odd-sized, multi-colored publications designed to “stand out” from all the other odd-sized, multi-colored publications that fill students’ mailboxes. In such cases, the large-scale search efforts can promote a feeling of security in the admissions office that the larger volume and carefully designed publications will result in greater numbers of applications. But, how well does it really work? What is the return on such large investments? These are questions with detailed answers, and uncovering those answers is essential.
A great many institutions simply do not have the resources–or the desire–to purchase so many names and communicate with so many prospective students. They opt for a more measured approach. But, even moderate search programs represent a large portion of an institution’s annual student recruitment budget. Because selecting and purchasing student names, creating and printing marketing collateral, mailing and e-mailing marketing materials, and then managing an ongoing recruitment stream with interested prospective students are costly both in staff time and resources.
With all the costs, complexity, and consequences, when the new batches of high school student names are available each year, even the most successful recruiting operations still ask the question, “How can I choose prospective student names more strategically for better results in the future?”
