BY Anthony Campisi | September 30th, 2021

Email basics – finding ways to stay top-of-mind

Perhaps one of the most important middle funnel activities your school can do is consistently communicate with your leads. One way you can ensure that your school stays top-of-mind is to remain in their inboxes. Heading into the recruiting season, one of the key things you can do to enhance your marketing is to be sure your email campaigns are cleaned up, targeted, and automated.

In this roundup, GPRS offers advice on ways to maximize your CRM, create a plan for email communications, and how to track and automate the process to ease the burden on your admissions staff.

Maximizing your CRM

While some prospects are super-engaged and ready to act right now, there are others who are just starting their search and want to “browse.” So how do you strike the balance of giving everyone what they need, when they need it, but not turning them off? The answer is a structured plan. Even for the hottest prospects, you want to be sure you’re not coming on too strong.

For all prospects, consider a base weekly email campaign, or a communications map that is auto-triggered to send messages every 10 days (following lead entrance into the system). For the active leads, you can layer on a calling or text campaign. By mapping out your communications, considering your audience’s motivations, and varying your frequency, you can find ways to connect with your prospects on their terms. Learn more.

Nurturing your leads

The beauty of most CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems is that they give your school the ability to automatically connect with your prospects over a set period of time via email with no manual labor involved. Using these tools can help you nurture your leads so they feel important and give them the information they need to take action. Here are some creative ways on how to use CRM data to keep engagement high and re-energize prospects that may have fallen off the radar. Learn more.

Automating your email plan

As you plan for the upcoming recruiting year, you’ll want to make sure your email plan is automated, set up for consistent communications, and tailored to your prospects’ needs. This can ease the burden on your admissions staff and give your prospects confidence that they can expect personalized customer service from your program. Learn more.

Tracking effectiveness and ROI

When you’re using an automated tracking system that ties in with your CRM and aggregates all of your marketing and email data in real-time, you can use that information to optimize your tactics throughout your recruiting season. When you can track every program inquiry back to specific marketing campaigns and messages, you can see where they came into the system and how they interacted with your emails after they arrived. This is a great way to match your enrollment data back to your marketing efforts to prove ROI at the end of the year. Learn more.

As you’re refining your email communications, determining the right cadence for connecting with your leads, and working on ways to track your ROI, having a trusted partner by your side can enhance your success. GPRS has worked with schools to create, deploy and optimize their email campaigns. Start the conversation today.

BY Anthony Campisi | September 17th, 2021

Addressing admissions myths in your communications

Business school has always had a reputation of being sophisticated, selective – and for some, even an exclusive club. This perception can serve as a double-edged sword; it’s enticing, yet also a deterrent. For many schools, marketing includes a delicate balance of maintaining your reputation of being selective while also appearing accessible and personal. The good news is that you can address common admissions myths in your communications and your enrollment process.

Recently one of the most highly selective programs in the country published an article on Poets & Quants, “11 Myths About Getting into Harvard Business School.” Regardless of where your school falls on the spectrum of perceived selectivity, you can address prospects that may be intimidated by the degree, the competition, or just business school in general.

Address personal barriers

Many people who are considering a graduate program have similar personal and professional barriers in common, especially for MBA and Executive MBA programs where they may already be in an established career. These include:

• Cost
• Time commitment
• Admissions requirements
• Current job responsibilities
• Family commitments

Prior to prospects entering your funnel, they have questions that you can address in your digital advertising, website, marketing materials and events. Offering direct messaging that acknowledges their hesitations can be done with transparent questions like, “Is now your time?”; or reassuring statements like, “We know you have questions, let’s chat.” Learn more.

Address business school myths

Regardless of how selective (or not) your program is, there will always be those prospects who are too intimidated by the idea of business school to apply. Here are some common misconceptions that can create the perfect storm of doubt in your prospects’ minds:

• It is too hard to get in
• Test scores are the only determining factor
• The environment is cutthroat
• Faculty is not accessible
• The return on investment isn’t there
• A background with a low undergrad GPA or an unconventional career path can be a deterrent

For some of these myths, you can easily add verbiage to your application and admissions pages on your website. You can also employ current students and alumni to give testimonials regarding their application process to give a personal and believable spin on the information you’d like to present. In addition, you can combat the inaccessible faculty myth by including professors at your on-campus events, in webinars, in videos, or in sample classes that provide a preview of faculty interaction. The last thing your prospects want to feel like is “number.” Do your best to combat that feeling with a strategy aimed at transparency and personalization.

Address truths and misconceptions about your school

Let’s face it, certain schools or programs have the reputation of being aimed at specific functional areas – such as finance or operations. There may also be a misconception that unless you are targeting a CEO career path, the program may not be for you. Although those things may not be true, your prospects may believe their success will be limited in your program.

A few things your prospects may be concerned about:

• There’s a certain type of person/background that will fit the student profile
• The program is only for a certain career path
• The application process is too difficult

While you may want to highlight certain career paths, classes, or professors, it’s important to showcase a well-rounded curriculum and focus on how all backgrounds can be successful. This can be done by highlighting alumni with diverse backgrounds and outcomes. You can also find ways to showcase those with non-traditional career paths and how they fit into the classroom dynamics and peer groups. The goal is to show how everyone can belong and that all backgrounds and skillsets are valued.

With just a few additions to your website, marketing materials, and admissions process, your school can be well on its way to myth-busting common misconceptions to open the door a bit wider for your prospects.

If your school needs help brainstorming ways to improve your communications and address your prospects’ barriers in marketing, GPRS can help. Our team has worked with over 60 schools to develop solutions to increase lead activity and grow enrollment. Start the conversation today.