The Importance Of Data Visibility Throughout The Student Journey

At Unibuddy, we talk a lot about democratizing information for your prospective students. That is, of course, because it will help them get the most accurate picture of your institution. But our efforts extend to our university partners too.

That’s where data comes in—to underpin the student journey and inform marketing. However, much of the data being used today is flawed: based on surveys and focus groups plagued with methodological problems. That’s why we want to use our peer-to-peer chat platform to generate more authentic insight.

Recruitment 

This is a generation for whom interacting digitally is second nature. Peer opinion—an essential part of their decision-making journey—is no longer restricted to people they know, leading to the demand for insights from those who have already made the journey.

It’s now time to really understand what students need to know, apply it in your marketing strategy to optimize ROI and attract the right students for your institution.

Facilitating student connections is integral, but this perk is sweetened further by these valuable insights you can derive from those conversations. Unibuddy lets you capture them, along with the leads engaging in conversation—AKA your future students.

The messages exchanged on the Unibuddy student recruitment platform provide a rich dataset and, crucially, that authentic insight. These messages reveal what’s really going through prospects’ minds when they’re still just thinking of applying to your institution.

Pre-enrollment

On the topic of personalization, these insights can inform the messaging that will get prospects excited post-application. Truly creating a tailored journey for each student helps create that sense of belonging that will propel them forward in the process. And personalization can only happen if you have data to utilize.

Coupled with a sense of feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information available, there is a real desire for more tailored materials and details. In fact, a survey by Ellucian showed that 87% of applicants’ decisions are influenced by personalized communication.

In 2020 we found huge variation in the topics that matter to prospects depending on the subject they want to study. Although some are to be expected, it’s important to note why they are talking about these areas in the pre-enrollment stages especially.

Mathematical students, for example, are deeply interested in module choices—most degrees are fairly similar, so the differentiating factor for these students is the optional modules available. These are the kinds of questions that will help a student who is already considering your university but has yet to show signs of commitment, make the plunge.

Conversion, yield and retention

Democratizing data into a central space to paint a clear picture of the student journey is integral to converting and yielding more prospects into enrolled students.

When you’re able to identify key moments that influence decision-making, you open up your strategy to a new realm of possibilities for your institution, and in turn, for your students.

Knowing what makes them tick gives you the opportunity to focus on key subjects in your Admitted Students Day sessions and quell concerns that they may still have in the final stages of their decision-making journey. This is one way to both convert and yield more students, as well as reduce summer melt.

To retain those students who have already deposited, you have to keep up the personalized messaging derived from your data insights. It’s all about driving it home with the encouragement to drum up consistent excitement in the long term, especially during these prolonged uncertain times.

Unibuddy x Slate

Through our partnership with Slate, we’re working together to bring you improved CRM functionality and visibility into student data across all stages of the prospect’s higher education journey.

Unibuddy currently provides direct integration with Slate. Slate customers can funnel new prospect data from Unibuddy into the CRM system through a simple API key.

That’s a lot of technical jargon, so what does it all mean?

• A prospect fills out the Unibuddy sign-up form based on the available fields
• This data is pulled from Unibuddy into your CRM as a CSV file
• You can then manually process this data in your CRM

As a Platinum Preferred Partner, Unibuddy will work with the Slate team to build on the existing integration to deliver more advanced data sync between the two systems. This means that in the future, our partners will be able to gain:

• Insights into student engagement across the admission cycle
• Better access to prospect data
• Advanced funnel analytics

To learn more about the Unibuddy x Slate partnership and what’s to come, go to unibuddy.com/SLATE.