How to Stop Playing Catch-up with Edtech in Higher Ed Recruitment

There’s no doubt that most of us are tethered to our devices – we use them to do everything from paying for coffee and watching our favorite shows to communicating with each other.

Your prospective students use them even more than we do. They’re substantially more omnichannel than the generations before them, preferring to do even their shopping online! 

That means the way they discover and interact with universities on their higher ed journey is mostly digital – and it’s up to you to create a digital experience that feels personalized and smooth yet remains modern and scalable. 

Things like a social media presence filled with user-generated content and virtual or hybrid events are a good start. But keeping up with edtech trends while also dealing with the little things can get overwhelming fast.

You need a way to scale your digital experience to thousands of prospects while staying focused on the more important things, like recruitment itself. That’s where edtech software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions come in.

At Unibuddy, we get it. Marketers at colleges and universities don’t have time to do everything themselves. That’s why we’ve designed our solutions to integrate easily into and amplify existing recruitment efforts – here’s how.

4 ways Unibuddy eases the pressures of higher ed recruitment

1. Unibuddy is built specifically for higher education

As a recruiter, you know that the higher ed sector is unlike any other. Instead of trying to reach and convert customers, you’re interacting with students who are facing the biggest decision they’ve ever made – and their decision-making process is, unsurprisingly, different.

You need an partner who understands these challenges and can help you provide the right support, language, and experience. Each of Unibuddy’s edtech solutions – Chat, Community, Discover and Events – have been built by higher ed professionals for higher ed professionals.

Related: Push or Pull? How the Future of Higher Ed Recruitment is a Bit of Both

That type of advantage will help you meet recruitment and enrollment goals at the same time. At NYU Tandon School of Engineering, for example, Unibuddy helped increase the likelihood of enrollment by a staggering 85%.

2. Each solution provides invaluable data insights

Having access to important data from the student journey is crucial to your success. Without it, it’s nearly impossible to create content and marketing efforts that are engaging, cost-effective and, above all, relevant.

We get it. That’s why we’ve integrated data mining features into our edtech solutions, including:

• Unibuddy Chat: Using machine learning technology, Conversation Insights analyzes conversations and allows you to see what matters to students. You can even filter and view the most frequent topics by course of interest, country of origin, and time periods.
• Unibuddy Community: Groups are designed by purpose (such as course of study), you can easily see what drives connections between students as well as what they’re most interested in. 
• Unibuddy Events: Post-event reports help you understand who attended your events and how they engaged during it.

The insights you can glean from Unibuddy solutions can and should inform your marketing strategies.

Related: The Higher Education Data You Need to Make Prospective Students Welcome

3. Unibuddy is easy to use

Unibuddy is more than a product – we’re a partner. 

That’s why, when creating our solutions, we focused on making them easy to implement, use and manage. It’s simple from the jump – you’ll be onboarded and ready to go in just a few weeks, and each product is easily embeddable. 

You’ll have immediate access to data insights, which you can integrate into your own CRM with access to Slate, Zapier and more. It’s easy for prospects, student ambassadors and admins as well, all of whom have access via desktop and app.

We’re there for each user every step of the way. Our experts are always accessible, ready to step in to help with any question you might have.

4. Users stay safe

Students who use Unibuddy are there to form friendships, get first-hand advice and ease their transition into campus life. They should be able to do so without fear of harassment – and while most users sign on with the best of intentions, their safety remains at the forefront of all we do.

In creating our platform, we wanted to build a space for users that remained professional yet relaxed and informal enough to drive authentic conversations. To do so, we implemented several moderation tools, including word flagging, thorough verification and a code of conduct that establishes a set of rules for all users.

With the implementation of these safety measures, interactions amongst Unibuddy users have remained overwhelmingly positive: less than 1% of messages have been reported as inappropriate.

Recruitment will continue to evolve as higher ed moves further into the digital world. There will always be a new tool to implement into your efforts – but with the help of a SaaS solution like Unibuddy, it’s easy to keep up with the changes. 

Related: High Points for Higher Ed: Unibuddy’s 2023 Product Vision

We’ve worked with over 130 institutions all over the world to increase interest, deepen connections and boost enrollment rates. Interested in learning more? Book a demo to explore the ways Unibuddy can help you keep up with edtech and get a competitive edge.