Marketing is a philosophy not a department. Never stray from this question: “How can we create a world class offering?”
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
We have a management philosophy that my business colleague, Gregg, came up with called “Reach within Grasp.” It means we ask ourselves: “If we take on a project, can we finish it?” This may seem like an obvious question, but I’m frequently surprised by how many projects get started, by myself or by clients, that can’t reasonably be finished.
It’s shocking how little effort it actually takes to be more successful than your competition. In this episode, Gregg, Shane, and Tom of Enrollment Resources are joined by special guest Brian Willett to show you how your school can catapult over your rivals through strategic and compounding one percent improvements!
Takeaways include:
Original Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
I have a story about ‘1%’ and how it can be the difference between mediocrity and excellence for a school.
Original photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
The typical approach for EDU digital marketing is centered around building an empirical argument to pursue training. Most marketers (us included) build arguments that rely on factual claims like placement rate, completion rate and graduate salaries to provide proof of the school’s value, followed by a call to action to fill out a form in return for more information about the school. This model is focused on sharpening that argument with hard data.
It’s not a bad approach and most schools do have stats to be proud of, but it does ride a compliance edge. If the data isn’t spectacular (i.e., completion rate or placement rate isn’t solid) or, more likely, claims rely on data that isn’t current, compliance problems arise. It’s easy for a school to overstate performance metrics mistakenly, and easier still for a landing page or website copy that was written months or years ago to get overlooked when new stats emerge.
Enrollment Resources recently compiled data from over 125,000 prospective students who had completed a detailed online survey delving into their goals, frustrations, motivations and current life/work situations. We call this the “Career Training Readiness Quiz” (powered by our Virtual Adviser software). It is designed to do two things: Engage prospective students on the school’s website to help generate additional leads – typically a 30 percent bump in website generated lead flow – and help the prospective student understand if they are a fit for vocational education. Roughly 2.2 percent of unique visitors to a typical school’s website will engage with this survey.
The sample represented about 90 school systems across the U.S. and Canada with a wide variety of programs, including both male- and female-dominated programs.
Our analysis of the results has uncovered fascinating insights into career education prospective students, including where they are in their buying process, their dominant personality styles and how to communicate with them effectively, and the number one motivating trigger driving their buying decisions. Read more
Your pool of leads could be shrinking, and fast. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States unemployment was just 3.9% in April. If your marketing is focused on people looking for work, then you need to take another look at today’s education market.
In this episode, the Enrollment Resources Panel explores alternative ways to fill your Career School’s lead funnel when it seems like everyone already has a job. Click to listen to Enrollment During High Employment Conditions: How to adapt to today’s education market. Read more
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The US has ratified a travel ban on several countries and it appears, by extension, to be making it tougher for students from other countries to feel welcome in the US. For example, the emerging trade war with China: Chinese authorities are publicly considering popping tariffs on students who want to study in the United States. Also, it appears the denial of US postgraduate Working Visas are making it tougher for grads to stay on and work at externships.
If there indeed is a contraction of international students, how will this play out? Listen or read after the jump! Read more
