Earlier this month, admissions and association representatives gathered in Boston for the 4th Annual EMP Summit, dedicating two days to networking, collaborating and exploring better ways to engage prospective students. Liaison took the opportunity to highlight novel enrollment marketing strategies by presenting its EMP Most Innovative Campaign awards to Franklin Pierce University and Yale University School of Public Health.
Franklin Pierce University’s “Yes-No-Maybe” campaign inspired their EMP Most Innovative Undergraduate Campaign recognition. To drive enrollment, the University started with an email that posed a simple question to students: Are you joining the Class of 2021 at Franklin Pierce University for the Fall 2017 semester? Each answer led the student down a distinct path:
- Clicking “yes” sent students to a personalized URL (PURL) where they could submit their deposit. This answer also prompted a personal phone call from an admissions representative within 24 hours.
- Submitting a “no” led to a landing page that explored why students decided against Franklin Pierce.
- Answering “maybe” led to a page that collected more information to guide future communications from the University. Knowing why a student was still undecided helped counselors mail the appropriate information or follow up with a personalized call to answer any lingering questions.
The data collected through the “Yes-No-Maybe” campaign ensured counselors’ efforts were invested in communication to the right audience: the “yeses” who simply needed to take the next step towards enrolling and the “maybes” who would becomes “yeses” with just a little push, rather than those who had already decided to attend a different school.
Yale University School of Public Health leveraged EMP in a similar way, utilizing the platform’s flexibility to target and personalize email content depending on recipients’ intended programs and interests. Their EMP Most Innovative Graduate Campaign recognition came just a year after the school added EMP to their admissions arsenal.
Through a segmented nurture campaign that featured 79 tracks and 80 emails, Yale increased the frequency of engagement with prospective students while also elevating the personalization of each touch. The campaign’s 90% open rate and 30% clickthrough rate (CTR) proved that prospective students respond to timely, personalized communication. As EMP eliminated the need for manual recruitment emails, faculty focused their efforts on answering specific questions and authentically engaging each prospective student. Similar to Franklin Pierce’s “Yes-No-Maybe” campaign, this campaign collected data about student engagement that will be useful as the School strategizes future campaigns.
Like Franklin Pierce and Yale, your university can increase enrollment marketing effectiveness with EMP. See what’s possible with this complete marketing and communication platform by signing up for a demo today.