How to Prompt and Motivate Small Actions by Your Prospective Students

Oct 14, 2022 Graduate Enrollment, Marketing Trends, Undergraduate Enrollment

Several of your prospective students may not be ready to inquire or engage with a counselor, but they may be willing to tell you what areas of study they are considering for a major. How do you nudge them into taking a small action? And how should you reward them for doing so?

This challenge covered in Capture Higher Ed’s recent white paper, 6 Essential Practices for Maximizing Inquiry Generation. Here are a few ways you can encourage your potential future students to take the next step.

• Dynamic Content: Deliver automated, personalized, 1:1 messaging — when students want it — that address interests learned from past visits. Example: Use toasters and popovers to ask for small actions like, “Would you like to receive a viewbook?” or “Register for a virtual tour!”
• Triggered Emails: Send behavior-based, one-off emails that are sent automatically based on a visitor’s action on and interaction with your website and other digital assets. Example: If a senior non-applicant visits more than two Admissions pages, you could send them a triggered email with more information on the admissions process and ask them to apply.
• Digital Advertising: Drive inquiries with a complete digital marketing plan that includes search engine marketing; digital display marketing; customized social media advertising; social, web, and email retargeting; interactive and video ads; and focused landing pages that allow you to influence and encourage prospective students to take important next steps.
• Progressive Identification (PID) Forms: These interactive and dynamic forms not only help identify prospective students they are also great for simple prompts. Example: Serve PID forms with questions like, “Would you prefer an email or a call as a form a receiving info from us?” Or ask, “Can we text you? If yes, what’s the best # for us to reach you?”

New Capture White Paper

As you embark on the new enrollment cycle, generating maximum inquiries from high-intent prospective students is paramount to meeting your goals. Capture’s new white paper, 6 Essential Practices for Maximizing Inquiry Generation, offers strategies and advice that will give your inquiry generation campaigns, efforts, and outreach a much-needed boost in this competitive recruitment climate. Download the white paper here.

By Kevin Hyde, Senior Content Manager, Capture Higher Ed