Relationships Matter: Using Data to Increase Graduate Enrollment

In the recent webinar, Relationships Matter: Using Data to Increase Graduate Enrollment, Capture Higher Ed’s Amanda Scott, senior director of market management, and Jack Klett, director of graduate and online initiatives, presented ways graduate enrollment offices can make meaningful connections with prospective students thereby ending ineffective practices like cold-contacting and maximizing the time of their recruitment teams.

To set the stage for the webinar, Klett, who began his career in politics and teaches politics and world affairs at Jefferson in Philadelphia, talked about how our emotional responses to messages often override logic and reason.

“When we apply this to politics, this is why those candidates who illicit an emotional response from voters often perform much better than those who simply outline great 10-point plans,” Klett says. “In the best of times, we respond to inspiration. And in the worst of times, we respond to fear. In no time do we respond to a 10-point plan.

“So, what we want to do today, is share how this concept of human interaction can be applied to our work as graduate enrollment professionals and how data — specifically, human behavioral data — can allow us to make far more meaningful connections with prospective graduate students and, therefore, help us meet our enrollment goals.”

Forging Relationships with Data

The more a prospective graduate student feels a personal connection to an institution or academic program, the more likely that student is to enroll and retain.

The problem?

Graduate enrollment teams often are flooded with names: lists of standardized test takers, professional organizations, vendor supplied inquiries and the organic names flowing in from email, web forms, even the phone. Additionally, there are lists of our incomplete applicants, complete applicants, admitted students, deposited students, even registered students.

There are so many people to connect with and so few people to make the connection.

Capture Behavioral Intelligence

There is nothing groundbreaking about the idea of using information to cultivate relationships to increase graduate enrollment, Klett says. “But it becomes groundbreaking when we’re able to account for virtual behavioral data to shape when and how we communicate, and with what message.”

Check out the webinar to hear Amanda and Jack’s complete presentation, which among other things describes Capture’s marketing intelligence platform Capture Behavioral Engagement (CBE), which was specifically designed for higher ed student recruitment.

By Kevin Hyde, Senior Content Writer, Capture Higher Ed