Virtual events drive deposits at St. John's University

The challenge: Lack of engagement in recruitment events

For St. John’s University, recruiting their Fall class presented multiple challenges due to the limited number of in-person opportunities available to interested students. After adopting Unibuddy, however, allowed them the opportunity to reach thousands of students who connected with them directly or attended one of their targeted events.

The solution: Opportunities to join events digitally

Corinne Gentile, Director of Enrollment Management Events, describes how Unibuddy helped solve their challenge. “When researching platforms that would best suit our needs for yield events in spring, Unibuddy checked all the boxes. We needed a product that would allow us to offer live streamed presentations, rather than recorded videos—a ‘home base’ where it could all live together to make things easy for our student attendees, and a collegiate look, with campus imagery that was stimulating, yet reserved. And the data… we always need the data.”

The Unibuddy team had already begun building this very product and, after seeing it in action, the staff at St. John’s quickly jumped at the opportunity to partner with us as we rolled out our newest features in beta.

The results: increased communication and event engagement

Both international and domestic students commented about their comfort level at events, since the anonymity with a text-based platform removes the need to begin each conversation with the arbitrary: “This might be a silly question, but…” followed by the generic response: “There’s no such thing as a silly question…“

“Removing the face-to-face might make some feel as if you’re removing the personalization of each event when, in actuality, you’re opening up a higher level of communication.” Gentile shares. In just one academic year, St. John’s hosted 46 events, reaching nearly 7,000 attendees. 49% of their deposited students attended at least one event hosted through Unibuddy during the Fall semesters.

“Studies have continued to show us that this generation craves immediate responses and ‘likes’ and they communicate via texting or direct messaging and imagery on Instagram. Unibuddy is a perfect blend of their world and ours, and it somehow seems to get even better every day.”