In this recent blog, we examined three questions university enrollment teams should ask about their work in the transfer marketplace. Staying with that magic number, let’s now offer three essential transfer strategies for getting out in front of this sometimes elusive and highly particular audience.
Transfer Essential No. 1 – Marketing Automation
Some call it the way of the future. For universities attempting to attract more transfers, marketing automation is the way of the now. Marketing automation allows you to:
- Turn anonymous website visitors into transfer inquiries.
- Boost the “speed to lead,” displaying relevant, next-step messaging to your impatient transfer pool.
- Display value messages to transfer prospects early in the pipeline based on pages in their history.
- Promote transcript evaluation appointments, Instant Decision Days, and visit days for transfers.
Marketing automation also allows you to use dynamic content like Progressive Identification (PID) forms specifically for transfer prospects. Across Capture Higher Ed clients, transfer students identified through a PID form apply at 2.4x the rate of other students and deposit at 4x the rate of other students; 26% of students identified through a form go on to deposit.
An example of how such forms can be used: If you have an unknown user (anonymous IP address) on your website clicking exclusively on transfer-only URLs, you can program a PID form to show up to offer more information, take a quick survey (Buzzfeed style), and/or an opportunity for the prospect to give their information.
Transfer Essential No. 2 – More Digital
Let’s face it. An email-only approach simply doesn’t work anymore. Gen Z transfer students spend an average of more than four hours a day on their mobile device. Intentional and precise digital advertising is crucial to attracting these young people.
Digital ads also allow you to target the precise geographical locations of feeder institutions or expansion markets. Students at community colleges are on their mobile devices a lot!
Transfer Essential No. 3 – More Leads
There are some traditional methodologies of undergraduate recruitment that can be applied to increase your number of transfer leads. For one, institutions should consider everyone who was in their funnel the past 2-3 years transfer prospects. Reengage them.
In addition, there’s the National Student Clearinghouse of historic non-matriculating applications and accepts. Institutions are allowed (free of charge) to run applicant and admit lists (non-matriculated) from previous years to find which students attended community college. Many miss this opportunity to re-market to these previously interested students.
Also, Phi Theta Kappa’s (PTK) Connect, a source for pre-qualified transfer leads for recruiters, is a reliable way to add transfer-bound students to your lead pool. You can also turn your social tools into lead generators through social prospecting. This involves using the PID forms on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn to bring transfer students into your website as inquiries.
By Capture Higher Ed’s Team of Enrollment Experts
