Ten Tactic Ideas to Boost Your Enrollment

For the show’s season finale, several higher ed pros share their yet-to-be-tried or yet-to-be-popular tactic ideas for YOU to try! From a different way to train campus tour guides to how to use your alumni as walking billboards, get inspired by these simple ideas with potentially big results.

This episode features these smart and resourceful folks from all over, with a combined 75 years of higher ed experience!

• Loren Bass, Strategist at Campus Sonar
• Simon Fairbanks, Head of Student Recruitment Events at University of Nottingham
• Mickey Baines, Partner at Kennedy & Company
• Ashley Budd, Director of Advancement Marketing at Cornell University
• Jen Johnson, Executive Director, Client Partnership at Ologie

Key Takeaways

• Make It Easy to Connect: Use QR codes on business cards or pop-up campus swag shops to connect and engage prospects beyond traditional campus visits.
• Festival-Style Open Days: Rethink your open house by offering compelling, TED-talk-style presentations rather than routine course descriptions.
• Tap Into Alumni Influence: Equip active alumni with school-branded hats and pins to wear at community events, creating walking billboards for your institution.
• Personalized Campus Tours: Train student ambassadors to share specific, memorable stories tied to your brand rather than generic campus facts.

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Episode Summary

A Look Back at Season One’s Best Tactics

Dayana begins the episode by highlighting some of the season’s most successful tactics:

• Jackie Vitrano’s RFI form redesign, which helped gather more prospect data without deterring engagement.
• Jacqueline Rowe’s approach to centralizing social media accounts to streamline admissions content.
• Simon Fairbanks and Nicola Anderton’s eco-friendly, cost-effective micro-prospectus, which reduced printed materials and amplified digital engagement.

Each tactic featured this season demonstrated that success in enrollment doesn’t always require big budgets but instead a creative approach to problem-solving and resourcefulness.

Fresh Ideas for 2024

In this episode, new guests share actionable tactics for institutions looking to engage with prospective students creatively and efficiently:

1. Use QR Codes for Instant Engagement
   Lauren Bass of Campus Sonar suggests using QR codes on business cards that link directly to inquiry forms or application pages. These QR codes ensure that when recruiters are engaging with multiple students at events, no prospective student is overlooked.
2. Transform Open Houses Into Festivals
   Simon Fairbanks proposes reimagining open days to be more like a festival or conference with engaging, TED-talk-style presentations and student panels. By moving essential information like entry requirements online, open days can focus on memorable lectures or interactive demos that inspire prospective students and parents alike.
3. Leverage Alumni Influence with Branded Swag
   Ashley Budd from Cornell University recommends sending hats, pins, or other branded items to alumni who are actively involved in their communities. Recognized community members wearing school-branded items can serve as natural ambassadors, subtly promoting the institution.
4. Enhanced Campus Visits with Student Storytelling
   Jen Johnson from Ology shares that campus tours are more memorable when student ambassadors focus on telling their own stories rather than reciting campus statistics. By sharing personal experiences and naming professors or favorite study spots, ambassadors can make tours feel authentic and relatable.

Ideas from Behind the Scenes

Mickey Baines, a consultant at Kennedy and Company, dives into data-driven tactics to enhance recruitment:

• Personalize Engagement Through Data: Capture motivational questions on inquiry forms to tailor follow-up content.
• Relationship Development with Feeder Schools: Strengthen connections with high school counselors and faculty to make your institution a go-to choice for prospective students, particularly for transfer and dual-enrollment pathways.

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Talking Tactics will be back in January 2024 with Season 2. Until then, keep walking the walk and talking the tactics!

This Episode is Sponsored by Pathify

Meet Pathify —  an innovative higher ed engagement hub that puts students at the center of their college journey. Pathify sits at the center of your school’s digital ecosystem, becoming the single, user experience interface tying together all systems, content, and communications. Their engagement hub elevates the information that matters most and pushes systems like the SIS behind the scenes where they belong, making it simpler for students to discover and engage with the opportunities your institution provides at every step of their higher ed journey, from prospect to alumni. What’s even better, Pathify has a mobile experience that provides 100% parity with the responsive web app, so your campus app is always in sync. Pathify is a platform that EVERY stakeholder on campus  — from marketing, to admissions, to student affairs, to IT, etc., — can get equally excited about. Learn more about how Pathify is uniting strategic units across campus and bettering the entire student experience by visiting Pathify.com

About the Enrollify Podcast Network: 

Talking Tactics is a part of the Enrollify Podcast Network.  If you like this podcast, chances are you’ll like other Enrollify shows too!  

Our podcast network is growing by the month and we’ve got a plethora of marketing, admissions, and higher ed technology shows that are jam packed with stories, ideas, and frameworks all designed to empower you to be a better higher ed professional. Our shows feature a selection of the industry’s best as your hosts. Learn from Jeremy Tiers, Zach Busekrus, Jaime Hunt, Allison Turcio, Jamie Gleason and many more. 

Learn more about The Enrollify Podcast Network at podcasts.enrollify.org. Our shows help higher ed marketers and admissions professionals find their next big idea — come and find yours!