How to Recruit Online Students – Progressive IDs and Partial Fills

Capture Higher Ed recently completed a year-long campaign to help a large metropolitan research university recruit online students using Capture Behavioral Engagement (CBE), marketing automation designed specifically for enrollment management.

During the campaign, which aimed to target and recruit online students from August 2017 through July 2018, Capture identified 3,225 visitors to the university’s online website, representing 3.23 percent of the university’s web traffic. That’s appreciably higher than the 2.3 percent average identification rate across all Capture partners.

Approximately 60 percent of the identified visitors had a Capture Affinity Index (CAI) above 80 percent, which designates they are highly engaged with the website and are considered active leads. Knowing the CAI of each identified web visitor is valuable for scaling both human and fiscal resources. A high CAI indicates a great target for admissions officer outreach.

Both the university and Capture can scale outreach through dynamic content, email, direct mail, digital content to students who are most interested in the institution, at the time they’re most interested.

Progressive Identification

Capture also ran an effective Progressive Identification Form (PID) on the university’s online pages. A PID form appears on a web page during a visit and requests basic information such as name, email, phone number, etc. Out of the visitors that submitted a PID form, 82 percent of them were not a part of the university’s pool. This means that these were new leads that were generated from the form.

Completed forms also can trigger other pieces of dynamic content. Of the 196 visitors that submitted a Capture PID form, or a request information form on the online website, 171 of those visitors (87 percent) were further served dynamic content after their form submission to influence continued interest in the institution through outlets such as promoting information sessions and application deadlines.

Partial Forms

There were also 240 visitors who partially filled out a form on the university’s online website; Capture was able to identify 180 of them. Why is this significant?

First, since these students had not filled their forms fully, they would potentially remain unknown to the university. However, with 180 of those students now known, their previous web browsing history on the university’s site is available to review, providing the opportunity to get to know these students better.

Do you want to find out how marketing automation like CBE can help you recruit online students? Contact us today!

By Amanda Scott, M.A.Ed., Senior Director, Capture Higher Ed