Generating Leads in Student Recruitment Campaigns: To Gate or Not to Gate Content?
What is a lead?
I’m often told by people working in Higher Education student recruitment, “we need leads”, but what the definition of a ‘lead’ actually is seems to be, well, inconclusive.
Is it a fully completed, fifteen-field form?
Is it a scan of a badge at a UCAS fair?
Is it an email address?
Is it a high intent click, even?
What most of us can agree on at least is that lead generation is difficult. The process of lead generation in Higher Education should communicate what is attractive and unique about the university whilst at the same time gathering data on the prospective student. For this to happen, an approach to lead generation needs to combine branding and marketing.
So, what makes a good lead generation strategy… good?
The debate around whether we should consider students as consumers is a divisive one, but stick with me for a moment whilst I make this comparison.
Let’s say you’re a Property Developer. Someone offers you the contact information of 100 people who could be looking for a new home. This person isn’t giving you 100 guaranteed sales of course, just the opportunity to sell houses in your development.
Should you buy these leads? It depends. There are many markers of lead quality but specifically, it depends on three main factors: how the leads were generated, the strength of details supplied and the recency of the leads.
If we ask 100 people at random if they want a new house, we may get contact information and a ‘Yes.’ But do we have enough information to be able to convert these leads into sales? And how qualified are they as potential homebuyers in the first place?
Do they want to simply ‘win’ a house or have they spent hours searching already on RightMove? What kind of house are they looking for? Is it a family home or a flat for a single person? Do we know whether they have the necessary deposit? Will they be approved for a mortgage?
Without the context and data around the contact information, it’s hard to judge its value.
Data ages like milk, not wine! It will do you little good if these home buyer leads are a year old—they’ve likely put down deposits elsewhere already without your help. The more recently the leads were generated, the better. The same is true for student recruitment lead generation.
Data grab vs value exchange
At Revolution Viewing, we’re in the early stages of developing a student panel. We asked them recently, if you have shared your details with universities already, have there been any times the content you received was personalised as a result? A quarter said yes which is promising, even though at times it can be a bit too subtle and not ‘special enough’ to be noticed. 60% said no, nothing was personalised which feels like a big missed opportunity given how personalisaton is rapidly becoming the default standard for engagement.
Research from global management consultants McKinsey & Company into online shopper behaviour shows that personalisation matters more than ever before.
“The surge in online interactions since the onset of the pandemic has escalated expectations—giving consumers more exposure to the personalisation practices of e-commerce leaders and major brands which is raising the bar for everyone else”, including universities.
The research from McKinsey & Company shows that 71 percent of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions. And 76 percent get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.
Now of course, it’s a much more complicated ‘buying’ process for students considering higher education than it is for an online purchase. A degree is a life-altering, well researched, well considered and transformational decision for most people; the latest trainers or laptop purchase, it is not.
Let’s return to our home buying analogy again for a moment.
Consider which approach would be the most effective:
‘Hi, I hear you’re interested in buying a house. Let me tell you about our housing development’
Or: ‘Hi, Stephanie. I understand you are looking for a three-bedroom, semi-detached new build property with an open plan kitchen and a South facing garden to suit your growing family? Let me tell you about a house we have available that would be perfect for you and is close to really good schools.’
Now, let’s translate this into a student recruitment setting. As a sector, we spend a big chunk of change on data acquisition from third party comparison and listing sites; this activity has its place in the wider marketing mix for sure, but the best kind of leads are those visiting your website. These students already have some basic knowledge and interest in your university, they might not be anywhere close to converting and they may not even be willing to share contact information. And if you lose them, it might be difficult to attract them back.
The Future Student Journey
Imagine you’re a student, you visit a university website and check out their virtual experience. As luck would have it, it’s a Vepple powered site, such as this one perhaps from the University of Central Lancashire and you’re given the option to personalise your experience.
You choose that you’re interested in Nursing and you select your study level as Undergraduate. Your experience is then tailored to your preferences and the content you see is relevant, engaging and exactly what you’re looking for. Information relating to all other courses and study levels (or aimed at other stakeholder groups entirely, as a lot of university websites are) is completely removed from your experience.
Within the virtual experience, you then explore content. You check out 360 imagery of the various labs and facilities, you watch a video of a current student talking about what they love about their course, you chat to an ambassador and get their first hand opinions on what life at the university is like for them; human stories never fail to deliver a lasting impression and can help create the ‘vibe’ which we know is important for student decision making. You might even watch a video from a local NHS trusts the university is partnered with, which helps you to imagine how your studies will help to secure your dream future career when you graduate. All of the content you’ve seen so far is aimed completely at you, what you’re interested in, and what you care about.
You’d then like to watch some on demand content of a recent talk given by an academic you are impressed by. The talk is behind a registration wall, but at this point, you’re happy to register for the platform to access the content. You click on a call to action button, register for the platform to access some gated content and at which point, all of your browsing behaviour is stored in your profile. This data is synced with the university’s CRM giving them a very rich understanding of what you are interested in and care about most as a prospective applicant to their university.
So that’s the student journey, but what does this mean for you in your job as a university marketer?
You can see that nursing applications are down - something which most universities have faced in recent cycles, but it’s typically a strong recruiter for you and so you want to try and buck the trend.
What you now have is a segment of highly engaged mailable data of all prospects who have shown an interest in the subject, clicked on several key bits of content and perhaps you want to focus on those who have also spent at least five minutes on site.
You’re not having to buy leads from a third party to reach this audience, you’re not having to hope that paid media can put you in the front of the right audience. Because crucially, not only have these students shown an interest in nursing, they’ve shown a significant interest in your university.
These are your best leads.
A Case Study
The University of Bradford uses Revolution Viewing’s Vepple platform to engage with prospective applicants. They want to give a personalised experience to showcase facilities and student life content in an immersive and engaging way; it's important for them that it achieves this, but it's also very important that it captures leads for CRM activity.
Earlier in the year, Bradford made the decision to “gate” their entire experience, meaning the student has to register to the platform in order to view the content.
In a single month, this delivered 445 email leads, 78% of which gave consent to marketing. This is a good volume but what is crucial here is that 58% of these leads were completely new to the university and not already in CRM. These prospects were already considering Bradford, that’s why they were on their website and no doubt will have been on other websites and media sites to complement their research too, but without an exceptional and personalised online experience to really capture their attention, these leads may have been lost.
From their initial email campaign sends to this dataset, Bradford are reporting higher-than-average engagement rates across open rates and CTR, showing that the capacity to engage these potential students with personalised content will enhance the chances of conversion and highlights the success of combining immersive experiences with lead capture.
Human learners, not just recruitment leads
Universities have to work harder than ever to cut through and reach their audience, and yet reach really is just the tip of the iceberg. Understanding, nurturing and engaging your audience is where it often gets even trickier.
Just as a personalised home buying experience leaves a lasting impact, delivering content tailored to individual students’ interests and aspirations will set the stage for effective lead generation and play a pivotal role in fostering connections with your future students. Understanding their unique journey can lead to more meaningful engagement and resonate on a personal level; this isn’t just a lead, it’s a person with ambitions and dreams.
This understanding also helps to separate high-quality leads from more generic ones. By acknowledging applicants as learners with unique goals and getting to know them as best you can, and once unlocked, your recruitment efforts can be focused on nurturing valuable leads that extend beyond mere numbers and targets.
Victoria Littler is an Account Director at Revolution Viewing.
