7 Steps to Successfully Grow Your Online Enrollment

internet-marketingi.gifWhen I moved from four years as Director of Residential Recruiting to Executive Director of Distance Learning, I realized I was comparing apples and oranges in the recruiting cycle.  Through this posting you will see bits and pieces of an article written by Marketing Sherpa, Inc. in June 2008 that I participated in. (I could not include the whole article because of copyright laws) Please click the logo above to visit their website.  They have a full range of useful articles and tools.

Here was the challenge I was faced with when I first came into the online industry:
“Adult distance learners are a difficult demographic for colleges to attract. It’s not like targeting high school students within a certain radius and knowing that many of them will be interested in you simply because of your location.” (Marketing Sherpa June 2008)

“Ronald Kennedy faced this dilemma when he became Executive Director, Distance Learning and Graduate Studies, Liberty University, about 2 1/2 years ago. He was charged with increasing the college’s distance learner enrollment, which were about 12,000 students when he took over. At Liberty, adult and distance learners are almost one and the same — 60% to 70% are 30 to 45 years old.” (Marketing Sherpa June 2008)

The recruiting cycle for adult distance learners is so short and quick, that you have to be able to make changes and decisions on the fly. “Adult distance learners also can enroll at almost any time, unlike traditional college students who typically start in the fall. And there’s plenty of competition from colleges like The University of Phoenix, which offers courses to working adults online and in local learning centers nationwide.” (Marketing Sherpa June 2008) It is a very competitive field out there going after the adult learner.

I think a core strength for me, is that I have recruited and marketed to resident students, blended students and the adult learner very successfully. Below are seven general steps I followed when I came over to the distance learning program to start the massive growth cycle. Within 2 ½ years, the below steps have taken our growth from 12,000 students to nearly 28,000 students. In the next 12 months we are looking at growing to 38,000 students.

Step #1. Analyze demographics of each degree program

We had a lot of traffic that we can’t effectively source back to any particular channel,” I believe this is a strong indicator of Liberty’s strong brand identity.

Step #2. Leverage existing brand

Step #3. Target online ads to matched websites

We are targeting a student who is potentially going to take classes online, so there’s already an affinity that they live online.

Step #4. Qualify the leads

Qualifying these potential students was very important because adult learners are expensive leads to generate and nurture. On the back end, we do append some information (lead scoring) to the lead to try to tell us internally who’s most likely to convert more than others, and we’ll gear our strategy in-house to that.

Step #5. Invest in matching services

My team and I also spent some of their marketing budget on a service that matched programs with students to develop more qualified leads. We liked the strategic analysis they were willing to provide on the leads we were getting to help optimize and bring in better quality, as well as analysis they did with SEO and purchasing.

Step #6. Create landing page to capture the information and sell the university

The easier you make that form, the more leads you’re going to get, but there is a balance between quality and quantity. In addition, once you capture the lead, speed wins in this business. We try to contact the student within 15 minutes via phone.

I have set up an extensive “post lead” strategy that continues communication with the student long-term and through many different channels. I won’t get into exactly what they are or how often at this point.

Step #7. Test, test, test… If we cannot measure it, we don’t do it.

I think through doing more target marketing, more demographic type research it’s really paid off in terms of what we’re seeing at the back end as far as enrollments.

Step 7 is key to our success. I will do whatever the data is telling me. The numbers do not lie. I always say to my managers, when they come in with a new idea… “show me the numbers”. They have to be able to back up their decision or idea with the numbers.

Again, the article I participated in is much longer and more in-depth then this one, this is just I high level summary. I would be glad to expand in detail on the 7 steps above, if you email me at kennedy14ron@yahoo.com.

July 19, 2008 · Filed Under In the News, Misc, Online Learning

Comments

2 Responses to “7 Steps to Successfully Grow Your Online Enrollment”

  1. Ben on July 24th, 2008 1:57 pm

    This is great article that would be good for a lot of Church Planters to read, since the principles are simular when it comes to marketting and demographic research.

    Thanks for the insight.

  2. Student Services Impact on Retention Rates | Ron Kennedy | Devotionals and Leadership Articles on November 1st, 2009 6:08 am

    […] enrollment funnel using my articles on 7 Steps to Converting Leads, Need a Boost in Enrollment and 7 Steps to Successfully Grow Your Online Enrollment.  Congratulations, but your battle is only half over at this point.  Here is a very vital piece […]

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