How would prospective students and parents describe the emails, letters, and other communications that your college or university sends out? Does everything look and sound the same – too many facts and figures; too robotic and transactional; too long and too many things to go and do. That’s the feedback they give us in our ongoing focus group surveys.
They also consistently mention the following:
- First and foremost, they want more personalization in all communications (emails, letters, phone calls, and text messages).
- They want emails, letters, and phone calls to be shorter, more direct, and less formal.
- They want colleges and universities to explain the “why” and the “how” better, including why they should visit or apply, and how various aspects of your college/university are truly different than other schools they’re hearing from.
- They want to consistent, authentic communication that predominantly comes from the same person, not a general “Office of Admissions” account.
- They want a mix of communications throughout their college search. The majority of students were comfortable with one letter per month, one email per week, one phone call per month, and one text message per month from a college or university.
- Social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram should show current student “day in the life” experiences from the current student perspective.
Tudor Collegiate Strategies heeds that advice, along with additional feedback straight from your target audience about how they wanted colleges and universities to communicate with them during their search. The end result is a comprehensive student recruitment communication strategy that we call “The Total Recruiting Solution.” It’s giving colleges and universities an extra edge when it comes to getting the attention of prospective students and their parents, increasing their interest and engagement levels, and getting better enrollment results.
Our unique, research-based email and letter campaigns will save you time, eliminate the guesswork, personalize the process, and significantly increase engagement between students and families and your admissions/enrollment team. We will help you consistently deliver impactful, authentic messages that explain and reiterate the different parts of your school’s unique story, along with your value proposition.
Our team understands that every college and university is different, and we pride ourselves on meeting your individual needs.
Here’s how it works. We partner with your admission and marketing/communication staffs to create a year-long master recruiting plan. We conduct survey research with both incoming and current students about their experiences at your school, and we combine that with our database of national research on communication preferences and decision-making factors.
OTHER KEY DETAILS:
- Our personalized, monthly email and letter campaigns cover the entire year with no gaps.
- The focus of your messaging will be a series of topics that students tell us are important to them as they’re trying to figure out which college or university is the “best fit.”
- Our campaigns target both high school seniors and juniors.
- We also create parent and high school guidance counselor communications each month to engage those influencers.
- We craft unique ad hoc messages at various points throughout the year to target specific groups of students (ex. cold inquiries, incomplete apps), and to push specific actions (visit campus, apply, FAFSA completion, deposit).
- We consult with you on how to have more productive phone calls. Part of that includes providing monthly talking points for your admissions counselors that tie in with that month’s messaging topic.
- We provide you with a social media focus each month that includes content recommendations to help you effectively deliver the all-important student lens on different topics.
- Once students start to choose to your school, we provide a separate set of messages for committed students to help prevent “melt.”
- We provide ongoing staff training on how to effectively guide a family through the college search process, including how to close/ask for the deposit. We will teach the admissions counselors how to consistently lead the conversation and be more intentional with their questions.
THE RESULTS?
Our clients consistently tell us that besides high levels of engagement from students and parents like they’ve never seen before, our messaging helps admissions counselors better understand the mindset of students in their territories. They have a much better feel for how and when many of their students will make their decisions.
We’ve helped colleges and universities increase their application numbers, FAFSA completion rates, as well as the number of campus visits in a cycle. And, numerous colleges and universities we’ve worked with have achieved record freshmen enrollment thanks in part to their partnership with Tudor Collegiate Strategies.
But don’t just take our word for it, check out our client stories here.
The next step is to contact Jeremy Tiers (Director of Admissions Services) directly at jeremy@dantudor.com and start a conversation about pricing, and your school’s specific needs.