Managing Enrollment in An Economic Downturn

A sign of the shaky economic times.

The University of Denver recently sent letters to thousands of undergraduate students asking them to consider all options before leaving school for monetary reasons. The University is offering payment plans, extended deadlines, and financial aid, all in an effort to hold on to their students. This according to a recent FoxNews Report.

Managing enrollment in an economic downturn. It's a concern that's on the minds of college leaders and boards across the country. Forget an annual retention rate, many institutions are concerned about students returning for the next semester.

As I've talked with enrollment leaders from undergraduate, to graduate and professional education, I'm often asked what others are doing/what 'we' should be doing to compensate. Here are a few ideas and lessons that I learned in the corporate world:

Reach Out to Your Best Customers
During the last economic downturn earlier this decade, I was working for an international technology company. We started feeling the effects of the Internet bust in the mid-2000's and we immediately made a concerted effort to speak directly and proactively to our customers. To support this, we embarked on a global CRM strategy and invested in technology. This allowed us to not only have a 360 degree view of our customers across functional area, but to increase transparency in our sales pipeline with opportunities and activities.

How does this apply to higher education?
The relationships with your prospective students - undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education - and enrolled students are more important than ever. Now is the time to reinvigorate your relationships across the student lifecyle to build future loyalty and momentum.

1. Set-up a hotline for current students to discuss their financial situation
2. Publicize Frequenty Asked Questions (FAQ's) on payment and financial aid programs you are offering
3. Develop an ongoing and coordinated communications campaign for enrolled students
4. Re-evaluate internal processes and student touchpoints to make it easier to do business with students
5. Focus your limited resources on qualified inquiries and applicants

Regarding new students, many institutions continue to build massive inquiry pools despite the growing stealth inquiry trend. Pre-printed applications, glossy four-color view books, and for non-credit continuing education, an endless stream of program reqistration brochures, produce more student inquiries than institutional people and process systems are designed to handle. Which leads me to my second point ...

Go Green
As part of our corporate global strategy to strengthen customer relationships, we pulled back on mass advertising, trade shows, and travel and re-focused on our customer base and highly qualified business inquiries. In fact, as one of my old bosses used to say, " we shouldn't have to advertise to speak to our own customers."

We shifted our marketing spend into old media technology (the telephone - which didn't cost us much at all) as well as webinars and email. We used webinars to identify and qualify business inquiries, email to nurture the relationship and uncover online behavioral triggers, and the telephone. My goal was to utilize measurable, cost-effective tools that provided additional insight for our inside sales people and account executives to focus their limited time.

How does this apply to higher education?
Six months ago I submitted a test inquiry for my now nine month-old son to a variety of institutions. With little more than a name, an address, and an entry term, we received a flood of print correspondence. Not one phone call.

With the price of commodities (e.g. ink, paper, postage), institutions can no longer afford to take this approach. Now I'm the last person that would tell you to toss out your print pieces and go 100% digital. Print is a premium channel that should be reserved for your most desired and qualified student inquiries and currently enrolled students.

Move beyond lazy student acquisition (e.g. this means buy a bunch of names and bomb away with Fast Applications and view books) and engagement approaches (e.g. an endless chain of letters). How?

1. Segment your student audiences by value to your institution and qualification criteria and define a unique enrollment experience. In other words, a high value student (as defined by your goals and qualification criteria) should receive different treatment than my nine-month old son.
2. Carefully define qualification critiera. Students that self-report GPA and test scores, interests, or goals should move to the front of the line to receive a phone call, a personalized email message, and yes, your best print piece.
3. Use student behavior to define your next communication move. Portal activty or email behavior are great indicators of future interest or concerns about your institution.

Finally, Be Interactive
This doesn't mean launching a blog, podcast, or Facebook profile.

Interactive marketing is the ability to address students, remember what students say, and address students again in a way that illustrates we remember what they told us. So much of what we do today to build relationships is more about pushing more stuff out the door from post cards, irrelevant emails, and letters.

With the economic uncertainty, students and families are hungry for a more trustworthy relationship as well as reassurance going forward. Take this crisis as an opportunity to invest in your best institutional assets - prospective and current students.