capture + Hanover college Case Study
How Hanover College used behavioral intelligence to grow enrollment 17%
in one year
Hanover College is a Presbyterian-affiliated liberal arts institution in Hanover, Indiana, with a close-knit student body and a small, but high-performing, enrollment team. As the oldest private college in the state, it competes in a Midwest market facing one of the country’s steepest demographic declines. Hanover has nearly two centuries of heritage and boasts strong career outcomes, recently rebuilding applicant demand and expanding into new graduate programs.
The challenge
For a college drawing two-thirds of its class from Indiana, a shrinking regional pipeline puts a hard ceiling on the applicant pool. Hanover couldn’t hit its enrollment goal on volume alone. It had to convert the students it already reached.
After Covid, students were applying to nearly twice as many institutions, so every admit was weighing more competing offers, and admit-to-enroll conversion grew tougher to predict. Hanover needed to protect yield in the exact conditions working against it, with a class small enough that a few points in either direction moved the whole year.
The approach
Hanover partnered with Capture to put behavioral intelligence at the center of how counselors work. Rather than spreading effort evenly across the pool, the admissions team built its daily outreach around Capture’s Daily Visitor Reports and behavioral profiles, focusing on the prospects actively engaging with the college.
Capture’s Apply Model sharpened that focus, flagging the likeliest applicants and feeding them into a pre-inquiry email drip campaign instead of letting them sit as cold leads. The same intelligence carried through to individualized yield messaging all the way to deposit. Behind it all, Capture’s inquiry and application-generation ad campaigns and dynamic content kept the top of the funnel full.
223%
Increase in inquiry-to-app conversion
66%
Admit Growth
17%
Enrollment Growth
Hanover partnered with Capture in April of 2023 to drive results for the 2023-2024 cycle. In their first year with Capture, Hanover College saw full-funnel growth and increased velocity.
“I’ve found the Capture team we’ve worked with to be some of the most genuine partners I’ve ever encountered. Capture has provided more fresh ideas and actually built on our collaborative efforts, and I look forward to continued growth together.”
– Brett Eppley, Director of Admissions Communications and CRM Specialist