Enrollment Managers: What Is Your Rooftop Camper Moment?

My family used to own a camper/travel trailer … one that we towed behind our vehicle for years. With young kids and a couple of dogs, my wife and I really liked the space that it afforded. It was roomy and met the needs. What we didn’t like was the work required to pull it around and set it up.

Even though it had a lot of features, it was ultimately deemed too clunky and cumbersome … and too much for us to handle.

Enrollment Managers

So, we bought a rooftop camper! While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the travel trailer, it offers some significant benefits. It’s light when attached to my SUV, which is all summer long; it holds my family; it sets up in 5 minutes; it essentially has everything we need to get to where we want to go. Come to think of it … it offers a lot of benefits!

This adaptation in some ways typifies how enrollment managers should be thinking about their practice within the office as they face a changing paradigm in the marketplace. For decades we have thought about enrollment as a funnel, with universal levers or influences that can be applied to different stages to get desired results. And that has not fundamentally changed. But what has changed are the tools that can make a measurable impact.

Enrollment Managers

Here is an example: many enrollment managers spent some amount of time in the past few weeks working with the marketing office to develop and execute an updated viewbook or an overview print piece. This publication costs a lot to produce, a lot to send, and usually has an insignificant or, at least, immeasurable impact on enrollment.

Yet, this print piece holds a place in many admission’s budgets — often in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Don’t think for a second that I dislike or do not recommend print mail. In fact, a recent focus group done at Capture Higher Ed showed us that print does indeed hold value for high school students.  But, think about ways to more strategically use these print items.

How does Behavioral Intelligence — marketing automation and predictive modeling— drive your print or travel budget? As you enter the throes of the F’20 cycle and finish the F’19, what is your rooftop camper moment? What items do you need to streamline and optimize your resources to get the same (or better) results?

By Jamie Gleason, Director of Undergraduate Initiatives, Capture Higher Ed