How to Use PPC Campaigns to Enroll More MBA Students

In the competitive space of MBA enrollments—particularly for online programs—you need to effectively leverage every weapon in your digital marketing arsenal to find and enroll new students. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns can help, but only if you comprehend the multidimensional layers of strategic PPC management. From immersing yourself in the higher education PPC ecosystem to mastering the art of ad crafting for maximum engagement, you need to explore the options that will provide the most promise to enhance your campaigns’ performance. What role does audience segmentation play in optimizing your ad spend? How can analytics drive smarter, data-informed decisions in real-time? Check out our comprehensive guidelines to a better PPC for MBAs.

Analyze Higher Education Keyword Competition

MBA keywords are competitive and expensive. To launch effective campaigns, you need to conduct a thorough keyword competition analysis. Pinpoint keywords that are valuable without being adversely competitive and prohibitively costly. That means you need to examine search trends, investigate competitor strategies, and consider the search intent of prospective students. For example, targeting specific phrases like “part-time MBA nearby” or “executive MBA courses” could yield more qualified and affordable leads than the broader “MBA programs.”

Review PPC Cost Dynamics

Cost dynamics play a significant role in shaping PPC strategies. The cost per click (CPC) for education-related keywords is on the rise, making optimized spending essential. Implementing strategies such as dayparting (scheduling ads to run during optimal times) and geo-targeting, while enhancing your Quality Score can help manage costs effectively. By diligently connecting ad relevancy to your landing pages, you can improve your Quality Score and lower bid costs.

Segment Student Audiences for Tailored PPC Campaigns

Audience segmentation helps you understand the diverse needs of prospective students so you can craft campaigns that cater specifically to those needs. For example, the student who continues straight from a bachelor’s degree to an MBA would be one segmented audience. Another might include professionals seeking executive MBA programs. Still another might target international students interested in specific accreditations. Effective segmentation leads to more personalized ad campaigns, which are more likely to capture the interest of the target audience and get the results you want.

PPC Advertising

Craft Strategic MBA Ads for Maximum Engagement

Your ads need to stand out from online clutter. Compelling ads are essential for successful higher ed PPC campaigns. You need visuals that conform to institutional brand guidelines but also push the envelope. And the copy needs to grab user attention with a clear and concise call-to-action (CTA). Your message should also effectively communicate what differentiates your MBA program from all others. Is it your institutional reputation, distinguished faculty, unique curriculum, or program flexibility. And what is the end goal of your prospective students? Consider their aspirations and challenges and how you can help them overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. 

Produce Stellar Landing Pages for PPC Campaigns

A well-designed landing page improves brand reputation, user experience, and conversion rates. It should succinctly provide all necessary information about your MBA program, differentiate your offerings, and include strong CTAs. Visual elements like campus images, student testimonials, and infographics about program outcomes can further enhance engagement.

PPC: A/B Testing

Refining PPC Campaigns with A/B Testing

A/B Testing is a data-driven technique to optimize your PPC campaigns. By testing different versions of ad copy, visuals, and landing pages, you can determine what resonates best with your audience. Some key elements to test include:

  • Headline variations
  • CTA wording and placement
  • Button colors, size, and shape
  • Images and video content
  • Landing page layouts

Set Goals and Leverage Analytics for PPC Campaigns

You can’t produce great results if you don’t set goals, measure conversions, and adjust campaigns based on analytics. By establishing specific conversion goals, such as form submissions, brochure downloads, and virtual or on-campus visits, you can better pinpoint which ads generate interest, applications, and enrollments. Your data facilitates a detailed analysis of campaign performance and offers insights into user behavior and preferences.

Conduct ROI Analysis for PPC Campaigns

ROI analysis connects your PPC campaigns directly to the tuition revenue they generate for the programs you promote. By calculating the cost-per-acquisition and comparing it to the lifetime value of a student, you can determine whether your PPC spend leads to tangible enrollment increases. A full analysis can prove the value of PPC for MBA enrollments and can justify an increased digital marketing budget, that in turn can produce more enrollments.

Optimize PPC Campaigns to Improve Enrollment Yield

Based on your data and analysis, make real-time optimizations to sustain the effectiveness of your PPC campaigns. Continuous campaign monitoring lets you adjust to performance fluctuations or test new opportunities. On any given day, you may reallocate budgets toward high-performing keywords, pause underperforming ads, swap out creative, or modify ad schedules based on user engagement patterns.

Explore Alternate Targeting with PPC Campaigns

Because many MBA programs have geographic limitations, such as in-person classes or residency requirements, geo and local targeting can help you better attract right-fit students to your programs. Even online programs tend to attract students within a certain geographical location. Tailor your messaging to very specific regions, using colloquial language and local references. The more personalized and relevant your messaging, the more likely it will resonate with your intended audience and get them to respond in the way you want.

Integrate PPC Campaigns with Other Digital Marketing Efforts

PPC campaigns perform particularly well when they are part of an omnichannel approach. Use PPC with other digital marketing strategies to ensure brand consistency, cohesive marketing, and maximum ROI. When you align PPC with SEO, for example, you can better optimize spend. Because MBA-related keywords can be so expensive, having your SEO team target longer-tailed keywords that answer user queries can augment your paid efforts. Also, insights gathered from PPC campaigns, such as just which keywords are the most expensive, can help you optimize spend across channels. It’s a win-win.

Navigating the complexities of PPC campaigns in the competitive field of MBA enrollment requires strategic, data-driven tactics that are innovative and client-centric. CloudControlMedia takes that exact approach. If you’re ready to enroll more students into your MBA programs, contact our paid media team today. We can start with a complimentary audit of your existing campaigns and then explain the potential we see in your future. Reach out today.

~Linda Emma, Storyteller-in-Chief

Combating Summer Melt: How Digital Marketing Can Stop the Drip

Summer melt is one of the most frustrating phenomena that colleges face in today’s competitive recruitment landscape. You accept students, they submit their deposits—and then they don’t show up. Not at orientation, and not at the start of fall semester. With estimates of its occurrence ranging from 10 to 40 percent, summer melt presents a significant challenge that can negatively impact your enrollment yield and your institution’s financial stability. But strategic use of digital marketing can mitigate the effects of summer melt, particularly among Gen Z and the emerging Gen Alpha.

Why Do Accepted Students Melt Away?

After a student says yes, accepts their financial aid package, and makes the final deposit that secures their spot, time passes. And between the gap of acceptance and attendance, a lot can happen. For some students, your institution just wasn’t ever their first choice and when they get what they consider a better offer, they grab it. And often, they don’t bother letting you know. Or sometimes, financial reality hits and a student and their family simply decides they can’t afford the cost. But for many students, not showing up in the fall is more nuanced. Particularly for students who are the first to attend college, the runway to a start date can be paved with potholes. Nothing about the process is familiar to the student or anyone in their family. And the guidance counsellors who were so helpful when high school was in session are off for the summer. The documents that are routine components to the admissions process from your perspective can be daunting. Financial aid info, housing applications, placement exam signups, health insurance forms, and other paperwork can be an overwhelming barrier to entry.

Targeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha Students

To effectively combat summer melt, it’s crucial to understand the characteristics and preferences of Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) and Gen Alpha (born 2013 and beyond). These generations are digital natives. They grew up with the internet, smartphones, and social media and they expect seamless, personalized, and instant communication. Digital marketing can meet these expectations, keep students engaged, and ensure that they remain committed to their educational journey.

digital marketing strategies

5 Digital Marketing Tactics to Prevent Summer Melt

Strategic digital marketing provides numerous assets, tools, campaigns, and methodologies to keep prospective students engaged and committed and prevent summer melt:

1. Short Message Service Marketing

SMS marketing is an opt-in service that allows you to text students and stay in touch the whole summer. With an incredible open rate of more than 95 percent, SMS allows you to send personalized messaging that welcomes students to your institution and the college they’ll attend. Let them know about deadlines, documents, and upcoming events. Invite them to log into their student portal. And be sure to include relevant calls-to-actions to keep students engaged.

2. Email Nurturing

Email is another way to communicate and nurture students throughout the summer. Develop segmented email campaigns that provide personalized information and reminders about important dates, financial aid, housing, and orientation. Personalized emails help students feel valued, supported, and part of their new community.

3. Website Chatbots

Your website is your virtual campus and chatbots can be your students’ personal tour guides. Leverage AI-powered chatbots to provide 24/7 info to students who don’t want to call and speak to an actual human. Especially for first-generation college students, they may feel embarrassed to ask questions about financial aid, housing, and course selection. By leveraging data from interactions and applications, chatbots can personalize responses based on the student’s interests, academic background, and preferences. Chatbots give students an easy way to ask questions and stay in touch and offer you insight into what obstacles they may face. Georgia State University implemented chatbot “Pounce” and reduced summer melt by more than 20 percent.

4. Content Marketing

Create personalized, engaging, relevant, and informative content, to build and maintain strong connections with incoming students, address their concerns, and build excitement for the upcoming academic year. From news items and blog posts to videos and virtual tours, tell the story of your institutional brand and remind students why they said yes in the first place. Just a few forms of content to consider:

  • A series of personalized welcome emails from the college president, deans, and student ambassadors
  • Blog posts that highlight student life, campus traditions, and various student organizations
  • Tip list infographics that provide checklists for such college-readiness realities as packing, preparing for academics, and making new friends
  • Virtual video tours of campus that introduce students to the lay of the land
  • Live chats with faculty, advisors, staff, and students that can be the start of personal connections
  • Financial aid webinars explaining financial aid packages, payment plans, and scholarship opportunities
  • Student success stories and alumni spotlights that help your future student aspire to greatness
  • Parental newsletters to keep mom and dad in the loop

kids using social media

5. Social Media Marketing

Build an online community that your future students will want to join by using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Create engaging and relatable content for students and their parents that showcases student life, campus events, and testimonials from current students. Interactive content such as Q&A sessions, live streams, and student takeovers can foster a sense of belonging. You can also use social media to build out a countdown clock or send out reminders for key dates like orientation, move-in day, and the first day of classes.

Measuring and Adapting Summer Melt Strategies

A key benefit to digital marketing is its measurability. Monitor the level of engagement your efforts produce by tracking metrics like email open rates, click-through rates, social media interactions, and website traffic. Collect feedback through surveys to identify the needs and concerns of prospective students and help you refine communication strategies. Adapt and adjust campaigns that aren’t working well and always be willing to try something new.

Do you have a problem with summer melt? CloudControlMedia has strategies for engagement that help you reduce its occurrence. Contact us today and we can discuss customized campaigns for your institution.

~Linda Emma

How to Unbundle from Your Online Program Managers (OPM)

Once considered a salvation and growth engine for colleges and universities across the country, online program managers (OPM) have fallen out of favor and are under increased regulatory scrutiny. Particularly as some of the biggest players in the space show signs of their demise, warnings abound that it may be time to disengage from your provider before their abrupt exit wreaks havoc at your institution. But if you are ready to take the management of your online programs in-house, it’s likely not just the programs themselves that you will need to manage. Because OPMs were encouraged to “bundle” services, your team not only needs to build and develop programs and course materials; it may also need to consider a multitude of other services including recruitment, nurturing, enrollment, lead management, marketing, and data analytics. Are you ready? Find out how to make a seamless transition away from your OPM.

The Rise of Higher Ed OPMs

In the 2000s, with declining enrollments, tightened budgets, and dwindling federal and state subsidies, institutions of higher education were desperate to find new students. They needed to expand their offerings, protect their brand, and bring in tuition and financial aid dollars—fast. For many schools, online programs were a panacea. Tiny New Hampshire College was transformed into a behemoth as Southern New Hampshire University with more than 170,000 students thanks to online programs. But unlike SNHU, most schools did not have the foresight, staff, infrastructure, or expertise to build out full-scale online programs on their own. They needed a partner willing to do some heavy lifting, especially from a financial perspective.

“It made sense at the time because colleges and universities didn’t have the technology to run, service, proctor, instruct and market online programs,” says Christopher Roberts, General Manager of CloudControlMedia. “OPMs brought in new students through what we now know as lead generation and the schools just did not know how to do this. OPMs also bore all the upfront costs so it seemed like a good arrangement.”

woman taking online course

For stressed-out and risk-adverse school administrators, OPMs offered the fastest and easiest way into the online market. OPMs were the easy answer to a complex question. Because OPMs assumed the risk, provided upfront capital, and had the mechanisms in place to bring new programs to market, they allowed schools to quickly build and scale online programs. Schools saw the opportunity to bring their brand and mission to a larger audience and increase revenue without adding staff or making a financial investment.

While institutions often enter public-private partnerships with vendors for services (e.g., food, custodial, IT services), OPM arrangements are distinct in that they are central to the university primary function of education. There has been much recent conversation about whether an outside, for-profit agency should run what’s core to the nonprofit higher education business model. Moral dilemma aside, the popularity of online program managers soared. OPMs grew by more than 130 percent from 2011 to 2015. And in 2016, up to 80 percent of the institutions delivering online programs relied on OPMs

Online Program Manager Contracts

For all their perceived benefits, OPMs came at a steep price. Although schools weren’t paying upfront costs, many agreed to revenue sharing that could be wildly expensive. Some payment structures allowed for the OPM to pocket up to 94 percent of tuition and fees. Contract features also were decidedly structured to the advantage of the OPM and not the institution. For example, some included indefinite clauses that had no set termination date, and many were long-term with auto renew clauses. Even contracts allowing termination often required schools to give notification far in advance of the stop date, some as long as a year before the desired end of the contract. And if a school canceled early merely to switch to a new OPM, it might be held to a quasi-noncompete clause whereby it would be prohibited from signing on with another provider until after the original termination date. There were even contracts that gave OPMs a “right of first refusal” so institutions couldn’t launch programs that might compete with any of the programs originally developed by the OPM. And contracts were not consistent across clients. An OPM offering services to several university partners would often have very different terms, conditions, and payment structures with each of the schools.

Another layer to the OPM contract imbroglio is the tendency toward expansion. Let’s say you sign with an OPM to deliver an online master’s program in data science and analytics. It goes well so you add an MBA, and then later maybe a master’s in nursing program. All have been set up with different contracts, having different terms and dates. Pulling away from a single contract can be difficult, but disengaging from multiple contracts can take years.

“Really as the contracts wore on, universities began to realize they’d gotten into a long-term lopsided deal,” says Chris. “And then when COVID hit, that was a genesis for a lot of these schools to become more self-sufficient and embrace online higher education.”  

OPMs On Rapid Decline

Despite the hurdles of contract extrication, schools across the country are finding ways to flee. And giants in the sector are feeling the impact. Pearson sold its OPM business in 2023, Wiley divested from its University Services, and 2U is barely hanging on

But colleges and universities didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to reexamine their contracts. There were plenty of warning signs that the landscape had changed, from OPM consolidation to shifting regulatory winds that could cause a tornado of repercussions. Those same institutional leaders who didn’t like the risk of going online alone are now afraid of what new guidelines from the Department of Education might mean for third-party servicers like OPMs. 

New government regulations and oversight expected in 2024 could dramatically change how and whether universities and online program managers continue to work with one another. Many of the features that made OPMS the darlings of venture capital and private equity, such as revenue sharing and near invisible audit trails, are bringing about increased scrutiny. Even the bundled service exception that was meant to prevent colleges from paying OPMs based on how many students they enrolled, fell far short of its mark. Now considered a loophole that allowed OPMs to flourish—and gain even more of a stranglehold on the institutions they served—it could be obliterated under new guidelines. 

handshake - breaking up with online program manager

Breaking Up with Your Online Program Manager

Before you cut ties with your OPM, look at your existing contracts. Where do you stand and how can you move forward without disrupting the online foundation you’ve already built? Especially for bundled services, it’s time to think a la carte. You don’t need to rely on your OPM for multiple services such as marketing, recruitment, lead-nurturing, enrollment, program design and management, academic support, and student success and retention. What can you take in-house and where will you need a new partner?

7 Benefits of Unbundling Higher Ed OPM Services

Severing your relationship with your OPM and figuring out how to handle all the tasks they once did may sound daunting. It can be. But for many institutions, the decision has become easier as the pros outweigh the cons. Among the benefits of unbundling:

1. Save Money

Whatever your arrangement with your online program manager, wouldn’t you rather keep your tuition dollars to yourself? Unbundling also allows you to reevaluate the services you actually need without the add-ons that helped OPMs evade the spirit of the bundling exception. 

2. Protect Your Brand 

Unbundling from an OPM gives you back control of your institutional brand. Because OPMs often handled the recruitment process, some companies—and the schools they represent—have been accused of aggressive tactics to enroll students

3. Embrace Transparency

Among the criticisms of online program managers is their opacity. Those long-term, difficult to get out of contracts are only part of the story. Many students voiced concern about recruitment practices that left them unaware that they were speaking to a second-tiered representative of the college and not people from the actual college. Unbundling allows you to be your authentic self while insisting that other service providers do the same.

4. Tap Internal Resources

While the pandemic may have given OPMs a big boost when desperate colleges flocked to them for an easy fix to the online tidal wave, many other schools figured it out. Whether they wanted to or not, instructional designers quickly got courses and programs online. If your team learned how to design and run online programs, now’s the time to give them the power and autonomy to do so.

5. Customize to Your Needs

Although online program managers often touted the customization they offered clients, who knows your institution and programs better than you? Especially in saturated programs like online MBAs, your differentiators are what attract students to your school instead of a competitor’s. Unbundling lets you decide how you build and market programs based on your values and goals.

6. Adapt to the Market

Once you pull away from the bundled services of an OPM, you’re apt to discover how much more quickly you can adapt to the changing needs of your students and your institution. Whether it’s to bring a new program online, modify existing curriculum, or discontinue a program, you can quickly pivot when you need to.

7. Improve Efficiencies

Unbundling allows you to take a more agile and streamlined approach to online program delivery. You internalize the functions that make the most sense for your university, while tapping external partners for their experience and expertise. Choose the service provider that specializes in what you need. And when you pay per service, you eliminate costly extras.

How to Handle the OPM Breakup

Many schools are ending their contracts with their OPMs today because they fear their partner may not be here tomorrow. The transition is likely to take longer than you hope, so the earlier you begin, the less rocky the road will be. According to Chris, there are several factors to consider before you make the move.

“Look at the length of the contract and how well you can proctor the courses on your own,” recommends Chris. “What can you do and where would a partner be a benefit? In the wake of OPMs, many schools have warmed up to trade school marketing techniques like lead generation, speed-to-lead, and target digital marketing. But even though they see the benefits, they need help with the performance-based marketing piece for new student acquisition and nurturing.  That’s where a digital marketing partner makes sense.”

If you’re ready to move away from your online program manager, follow these 5 steps to break up with your OPM:

1. Review Your Contracts

Before you can break a contract, you need to revisit its terms and conditions. And the more contracts you have, the more complicated it can be to terminate them. But if you’re approaching an auto renew date, act quickly to notify your OPM before you miss the opportunity. 

Another reason to review your contracts is to have a clear understanding of exactly what services your OPM currently provides. Most, if not all, of those services will need to be provided by another vendor or internal department.

2. Determine Who Will Control Unbundled Services

Determine the most important services you will manage in-house. For the others, research which partners might possess the appropriate knowledge and skills to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Which of these will you handle, and which will you contract out:

  • Market Research
  • Curriculum Development
  • Instructional Design
  • Course Presentation
  • Program Admissions
  • Academic Services
  • Student Success 
  • CRM Administration
  • Enrollment Marketing
  • Student Recruitment
  • Lead Management
  • Lead Nurturing
  • Data Analytics
  • Website Development

3. Tap Your In-House Resources

Once you decide which functions your team will perform, provide them with the resources and support they will need to be successful. Look for gaps in skills and personnel and either fill them or reconsider what you can handle.

4. Develop Vendor Agreements

As you transfer contractual services from one provider to others, make sure to put in place contracts that are fair and clear, with well-defined terms, conditions, start and end dates. Create policies, processes, and communication channels on how to work with multiple vendors and set clear and realistic expectations with each provider. 

5. Demand Analytics

Whether it’s a nurturing or digital media campaign, a landing page or site development, make sure to examine the results through comprehensive analytics. If you can’t determine how and when a lead becomes a student, there’s a problem. If you can’t connect your early actions to their down-funnel results, you won’t be able to determine a reliable lead flow, your cost-per-acquisition, or your return on investment. 

Are you ready to extricate yourself from your OPM and unbundle the services they provide? CloudControlMedia can take on all your digital marketing needs. Contact us today for an exploratory call.

Linda Emma heads up content at CloudControlMedia, assists with partnership development, and still works in the higher education space.

4 A/B Tests for Email Marketing in Higher Education

Just because something works well for another university doesn’t mean it’s going to work for your school’s email campaign. To really get to know what will appeal to your prospects you need to run A/B tests. What can you test? Well, you can test just about anything in an email campaign from the subject line to calls to action, but here are 4 of the top email marketing variables to A/B test:

A/B Test for Email Subject Line

Email subject lines are probably one of the most common variables to test. This is the first thing that a prospect will see when the email is delivered and can have a big impact on an email’s performance. Some components to consider A/B testing are subject line length and action-oriented words that create urgency. Also, if classes are starting soon, test using a start date against not using one and gather data.

However, with recent mail privacy changes, determining a clear subject line test winner can be tricky. Open rates in today’s email world are inflated with many emails only being opened via a proxy server and not always in a contact’s inbox. Subject line tests still offer valuable data, but make sure to not focus solely on Open Rates. When determining results consider overall email engagement and when looking at the Open Rate weigh the impact off suspected mail privacy opens.

Email Deployment Date

If you’ve always deployed all your emails on the same day consider why you chose that day. Did you pick it because some survey noted it as the best day? Try different days and see what works best for your prospective students. Just because a retail giant has seen success deploying email campaigns bright and early on a Monday morning, it doesn’t mean that’s what’s best for your institution.

A/B Test for Email Calls to Action (CTA)

Once your prospects open your email, you now need to get them to take action – click through to your landing page. A/B testing your CTA can be as straight forward as trying different verbiage such as “Enroll Now” versus “Discover More”, button color, or it can also be location of the CTA within the email. Another consideration can be whether to use a text link or a button. Whichever CTA you opt for make sure it’s compelling and persuasive.

Email Personalization

Who doesn’t like to feel like an email was written specifically with them in mind? Try testing out adding a personalized greeting as straightforward as “Hi Jane!” or dig a little more deeply into your data and include details about a specific campus or program. The more relevant the email is to the prospect the more likely they are to take the action you’re looking for in your email campaign.

The variables you can test in an email are practically limitless. Your prospect list is constantly changing and so should your email initiatives. However, make sure to have a purpose in place for each test and don’t forget to analyze your results so you can adjust your email strategy appropriately.

If you’re ready to implement testing into your email marketing strategy, contact the CloudControlMedia experts today.

Marcy Ansley, Director of Email and Social Engagement

How to Create College Student Personas to Increase Enrollment

Creating buyer personas is a common marketing practice in private industry. It allows businesses to better understand their customers so they can define and target specific audiences for their products. And it works. More than 80 percent of companies that use qualitative buyer personas exceed their revenue goals.1 So you would think higher education would follow suit to attract new students. But less than half create student personas.2 If your school does, you’ll have a competitive edge, but the real reason colleges should create student personas is because they can help you find, engage with, and enroll more actual students.
Here’s how to get started:

student calculator

Pull Demographic Data to Create Unique Student Personas

No one knows your students as well as you do. And it’s not just because you see them every day. It’s also because for years and years, you have collected information about them. From where they’re from to where they landed after graduation, you likely have a mountain of very useful information that tells you who your students were when they enrolled and who among them were the most successful. Information like gender, age, ethnicity, income level, geographic region, and the like, are all data points about the general population of your school and its programs. Use it to begin a composite sketch.

Talk with Real People to Create Pretend Students

Data are a great starting point, but you have real people with whom you can speak. Talk to actual students—current and former. Find out why they chose your institution over another. Where are they from, what do they do? How do they/did they like their experience? Speak to people from Admissions and find out what makes someone enroll. More importantly, find out what stands in their way. Talk to whomever you can who has knowledge of your student body. From teachers and staff to administrators, they may all have insight that you don’t.

Send Out a College Student Persona Survey

Focus groups and surveys allow you to ask direct questions to fill in missing pieces. If you pull most of your data from a customer management system, you may have limited info that was created from a form fill. Send out a survey to fill in the blanks. The information can be used to learn more about your grads and also to build out new campaigns. For example, if you learn that a large population of past students are nearing a place in their careers where an advanced degree might be worthwhile, you have a whole new marketing persona to consider.

Consider the Landscape

Your students and your institution don’t live in a vacuum. You need to understand higher education, the industries for which you prepare students, and the competitive landscape. Take a look at competitor institution assets and advertising. Can you tell by what they produce who their target audiences are? Talk to employers who hire your graduates. What common characteristics do you hear about over and over again?

Create Negative Student Personas

Just as negative keywords are critical in pay-per-click campaigns to filter out traffic you don’t want, negative personas can make sure you don’t waste time, money, and resources targeting prospects that will not convert.

student faces

Sketch Your Student Persona

You’ve collected your data. Now you get to be creative. Start with the majority numbers. For example, if 65 percent of your students are male, make your first student persona a male. And if most of your students are Hispanic, make your imaginary student follow suit. Give him a name, characteristics, aspirations, and obstacles. Make him as human and believable as possible.

And then make another. And another. Ideally, you’ll have personas for each of your major programs. You wouldn’t build out identical personas for Nursing and Technology because those concentrations would attract a different kind of person. If you’re concerned that this exercise might get out of hand—it can—connect your personas around your enrollment goals. For which programs do you need more enrollments? Those are the first up for student persona development.

Get Buy-In from Others

Once you have built your student personas, it’s critical to get everyone on board to their accuracy and authenticity. These imaginary people have to feel real. From the executive team to sales, everyone needs to agree that you got it right. And if you didn’t, make changes. Add, adjust, tweak. Go back to the drawing board if you need to. Without the support of the full team, personas are not effective.

Use Your Student Personas Cross-Functionally

Now that you really, really know your audience, it’s time to speak to them with the same voice and tone across media. That means whether you build an eBook or an ad, a website or a blog post, you speak in a way that your audience understands, relates to, and wants to engage with. When you get it right, you attract the right audience and don’t waste media spend pursuing prospects who won’t enroll.

 

Are you ready for engagement that turns into action? Start with student personas. Don’t have the time to build them? We do! At CloudControlMedia, we know your students almost as well as you do. Contact us today for more information.

 

~Linda Emma

 

1Benchmarking Digital Marketing in Higher Education Report 2021
2Benchmark Buyers Survey Report 2017

How to Build Paid Media Campaigns to Find Qualified Applicants for Your School

By Sam Silverman, Senior Account Manager

Marketing for your school is a lot like recruiting for a job. You’re not just trying to get potential candidates through the door. You want a real-life employee that fits with your company mission and culture. Likewise, in higher education marketing, you don’t just want to drive “leads” and “application submits.” You are looking for qualified applicants who will be accepted to your programs and reflect the successful student body that makes up your college brand.

But how can you find and effectively spend marketing budget on just these types of prospective students and not waste spend on leads that won’t convert?

Start with Paid Media Campaign Parameters

The first thing to do is to create a set of parameters based on your minimum criteria for acceptance to your programs. This makes sure everyone is on the same page as to what defines a “quality candidate.”

Let us say you are looking to enroll candidates to an online MBA program. You will need to choose parameters based on your institution and its unique MBA program, but you’ll also want to consider a few general criteria, such as:

  • Age
  • Years of Work Experience
  • Required Degree (Minimum Bachelor’s Degree)
  • Excluded Degrees (Overqualified Ph.D.)
  • Grade Point Average
  • Previous School Quality
  • Essay Quality
  • Letter of Recommendation

These are all potential criteria from which to find your quality applicants. However, you’ll also want to consider where you need to be restrictive and where you can be a little bit more flexible. How much control you have over this will depend on which marketing channels you utilize.

Where to Be Restrictive with Paid Media Campaigns

Any minimum requirement is a place to be restrictive. From the parameters list above, that would include conditions like:

  • Age
  • Years of Work Experience
  • Required degree (e.g. bachelor’s degree before graduate degree).
  • Overqualified people (CEOs, applicants who already have the degree, etc.)

But how can you include these restrictions in your campaign targeting? It depends on the channel. Let’s look at how this plays out in Google Ads, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

What Paid Media Channels to Utilize with Your Campaigns

Google Ads: You can set parameters for Google Ads based on age…. theoretically. However, a common misconception is that there is full demographic data available for everyone on Google just like LinkedIn and Facebook. This is not necessarily the case. You can say that you don’t want to send ads to 15-24-year-olds, but Google does not know everyone’s age accurately. If you put in this constraint, you may cut off a significant portion of your potential audience. So, while we know you do not want to target a 15-year-old kid, if your option is to have some unqualified candidates in the mix so you don’t miss out on potentially qualified candidates, it is best to choose the former.

Parameters like Years of Work Experience, Required Degree, and Overqualifications—these are all not typically requirements you want to put in Google Ads. These are much better explained through ad copy, landing pages, or even during the application process.

LinkedIn & Facebook: Facebook and LinkedIn are social media advertising channels that are built upon demographic data. Contrary to Google’s keyword and search strategy, these channels use campaign structure that is built around targeting for demographically relevant users.

So, can you use the required degree parameters for LinkedIn and Facebook, right?

Yes and no. Again, the answer is technically yes, but with several caveats.

Facebook users are not always known to give full, up-to-date, accurate personal information on the site. For example, if users do not include their high school, then the Facebook algorithm assumes they don’t have a high school diploma. Depending on users’ publicly available information and privacy settings, accuracy can vary wildly.

On the other hand, LinkedIn users are much more heavily incentivized to have accurate, relevant personal and career information since the site functions as a place to build a professional network. Degrees on LinkedIn are usually relatively accurate. You may choose degree here as to restrict and qualify your audience. That said, sometimes a better way to target than by degree is with “years of work experience.” This allows you to make sure the person has been working for 2-12 years before applying to your graduate school.

So, even if these are great potential ways to qualify students, it’s still channel-dependent on how they can be effectively implemented.

Where Not to Be Restrictive with Paid Media Campaigns

If minimum restrictions are tricky on Paid Media channels, that means that other parameters are even more difficult to incorporate.

  • Application Quality
  • Grade Point Average
  • Letter of Recommendation Quality
  • …anything you have wiggle room on

These are not targeting parameters you can choose on any major marketing channel, but they are certainly considerations for your internal team and should be communicated throughout other parts of the funnel.

You can use landing page to stress the requirements of your program and preferred qualities of applicants. This helps students self-select before filling in the request for information form on the page. Based on their actions—or inaction—your marketing channels will machine learn to find more users like those who convert. So, in a way, even putting these requirements on the landing page is improving your paid marketing channels efforts and efficiencies.

Importance of Paid Media Strategy

At the end of the day, it’s not possible to only market to perfectly qualified candidates with your Paid Media team. However, you should always be striving toward bringing in as many “qualified leads” as possible.

The best thing to do is make both your school and your agency as aware as possible about the program requirements and attributes of your ideal candidate. From there, appropriate learnings and parameters can be put into individual marketing channels that will work together with the down funnel processes of Admissions, culminating in the best crop of students your program can have.

 

If you’d like to learn more about the paid media strategies that help schools find students who start at click and stay to graduation, contact the search marketing experts at Cloud Control Media today.

CRO: How Heatmaps Will Improve Enrollments

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is all about inducing potential students to act once they land on your ads, website, and collateral pages. It may feel great to get visitors and clicks, but without conversions, those actions are just vanity metrics. If you want actual enrollments, integrate data from heatmaps into your CRO strategy. It will help improve conversions that matter, whether the action you hope users to take is a request for more information, a campus visit, an application start, or an enrollment.

CRO and The Enrollment Funnel

Students don’t land on your website with only your institution in mind. Whether they’re looking for a four-year home, a short-term career-training program, a certificate or an advanced degree, they’re on a search. Your job is to show them how what you do aligns with what they need. How can your website and pages grab their attention and urge them to take the action you want?

CRO Basics for Education

You’ve probably heard that search engine optimization can help you build site structure and content to ensure that you show up on search engines. CRO takes SEO a step further. Because you don’t just want to show up in a search. You want likely students to convert; to take a specific action. Small changes in the way you present content, whether that’s an ad, a landing page, your homepage, or even a blog post, can make a big difference in the results you see.

A desired action might be to have potential students fill out a form to request more information. So how can CRO help that occur? By testing various form lengths. Or choosing different colors and styles and placements of that form. Or simply changing out the call-to-action button. Those seemingly tiny tweaks can lead to higher conversions.

Heatmaps for CRO

CRO depends on data to see what works. What will work depends on how you use that data. Success generally comes when you take past experiences, recent data and good instincts and test a new approach to make educated hypotheses about how people will act. But what if you could see how they acted? Not just where they clicked, but also where they scrolled and stopped—and where they dropped off the page entirely.

That’s how heatmaps work.

The most common heatmap is solely about clicks. It tracks where and when users click, which helps tell you what they’re interested in. Let’s say they come to your blog from a promoted post on social media. Maybe they read the post to its end. Or do they click a link within? Or did your content in that post prompt them to click on a program page? Click heatmaps can help you see what works by seeing where your users click. Scroll heatmaps consider how users scroll. Do they make it to the end of the page? Do they even know that they can scroll?

But what if you could see what your users see? Where they look as they look at your pages? Eye-tracking heatmaps don’t actually follow users’ eyes, but they do follow the path of their cursors. Now you really know what they care about—and that’s CRO gold! If their attention is attracted to an image at the expense of your form, tone it down. If they interact with something at the bottom of the page, move it to the top. And if they ignore your form, fix it!

 

If you want users to convert and not bounce, CRO is vital. Find out how to add heatmapping to CRO to improve even great results. Contact the CRO experts at CloudControlMedia today.

 

~Linda Emma

How to Leverage Lead Scoring for Higher Education

Wouldn’t it be great if there were some way to determine whether that prospective student you’ve been courting would actually enroll? A way to weed out the disinterested parties from the blossoms that might truly bloom at your school? There is! When you use lead scoring for higher education, you give the admissions team prospects that are more likely to convert. Those maybes who might become yeses.

What Is Lead Scoring?

In its simplest form, lead scoring assigns a numerical value to each potential student derived from the past behaviors of enrolled students. Usually based on a scale of 100, lead scoring uses a variety of factors to determine how likely prospects are to become students. The higher the number, the more likely. But lead scoring is far from an exact science. Each institution, even each program, can and should have different criteria for what’s important. And while the magic number for one school might be 95, another university might hit admit at 78.

What Are the Benefits of Lead Scoring for Higher Education?

The work your admissions team does to help students make the right choice about your institution is incredibly valuable. So is there time. The better the leads you provide to them, the more productive use they can make of their time. But lead scoring has other benefits.

  • Higher Productivity: When your team is more efficient and productive, it also means that it doesn’t need to be as large. You have finite resources; allot them strategically.
  • Higher Conversion Rates: If the leads that make it through to admissions’ attention are more qualified, they’re more likely to convert to students—more quickly.
  • Shortened Enrollment Cycle: The more quickly you have an answer to that all-important question: will they enroll? the better you’ll be able to plan for everything else that comes in its wake. Programs, courses, staffing, even plans for potential expansion can all be more effectively considered once you know your likely enrollment numbers.
  • Enrollment Forecasting: You may not be able to replicate the success of this semester for the next but lead scoring can help you get closer to that kind of long-term planning. Moreover, if you continually tweak the lead scoring formula, always adding the data that point to success, you can make an all-out effort to stay ahead of the curve and predict the future with some level of clarity.
  • Marketing and Admissions Alignment: An oft-expressed complaint from admissions teams is that marketing sends them unqualified leads. Marketing personnel complain that admissions doesn’t share relevant information that could help them find those qualified leads. When everyone agrees on realistic lead scoring, your team will work together to help you improve your enrollment yield goals.

How to Lead Score

Start with your CRM and your current student body. If you’ve kept track—of course you have—of action and results through your CRM, you have a trove of data points from which to pull. What’s the demographic makeup of your student body? What kinds of emails to which students yield positive results? What kind of student hits unsubscribe? Gather as much information as you can to create student personas that are the best match to your institution.

Next, consider the minimum criteria for entry to your program. Often that revolves around some basic demographics. For example, if you want to enroll an MBA program, your candidates will need to be a certain age and have a bachelor’s degree. Geography will also be a consideration. Sure, you may enroll west coasters and international students, but if 80 percent of your student body is from New England, those New Englander leads are going to have a higher score than the guy from Bangladesh. And who will be able to afford the cost of tuition? These are all lead scoring factors.

The numbers you assign and the weight they’re given will depend on how many factors you consider to be important. And it’s okay if the numbers seem imprecise; not every potential student will fill every blank. However, you’ll want consensus about the scale that works. Make sure to have marketing, sales, and the higher-ups agree on how you’ll score individual leads. Also, include negative numbers. If someone stops opening emails, engaging with admissions, or following you on Facebook, they’re sending you a message; listen.

Here’s an example of one candidate’s lead score for an on-campus MBA program:

 

Job title manager or above +10
More than 10 years’ work experience +15
Lives outside 25-mile radius of campus -15
Opened email +5
Downloaded whitepaper +15
Visited application page +10
Failed to open 3 consecutive emails -10
Followed on Facebook +20
Attend admissions event +30
Total Score +80

With a score of +80, the admissions team might consider this prospect to be a likely applicant; they might also address a pain point, like living far from campus, head-on. Do you offer housing for grad students? Excellent. Offer that as the selling point it is.

Effective lead scoring for higher education can be an important marketing and admissions tool. If you’d like to learn more about how to incorporate lead scoring into an integrated marketing strategy, we’d love to work with you. Give us a call.

 

~Linda Emma

Why Google Keywords Are So Expensive for Higher Education

If you use Google Ads to help searching students find your programs, you’ve probably discovered expensive Google keywords for higher education. And it seems those costs only move in one direction: up.

Unfortunately, if you want to find today’s students, you do need to be online. And while a great website and an active presence on social media are two ways to make an impact, paid search advertising allows you to get noticed by more students, more quickly. However, it comes at a cost.

How Much Do Higher Education Keywords Cost?

How much you will need to spend on keywords depends on your programs, majors, campaigns, geographic reach and more. If you’re advertising for an MBA program, expect to pay a lot. The term “MBA programs” can cost more than $45 per click; “business school,” more than $50 per click. But if you’re advertising for an advanced degree with a more liberal arts bent, the cost goes down. “Online MFA” might be less than $20 per click, and “PhD in English” can come in at a bargain rate of less than $5 per click. And all these mights, more thans and less thans are because the cost of the terms fluctuates. What’s true in June might not matter in September. What your school pays for higher ed keywords may not be as much as another university—or it could be more.

What Makes Higher Education Keywords So Expensive?

To some extent, the cost of keywords is dependent on the basic economics of supply and demand. The more widely in-demand the words are, the costlier they’ll be. It’s also a bit of you-get-what-you-pay-for. If you bid on words that no one ever types into a search bar, they’ll be pretty darn cheap. They’ll also be pretty ineffective.

There are, however, a range of other factors that can lower your cost-per-click. Chief among those are your school’s Google quality score. A good quality score is like a gold star from Google that gives you the perk of a higher ad rank at a lower cost-per-click. Among the factors that influence quality score are your ad performance, your bid history, and the length of time you’ve been using Google Ads.

The relevance of your landing page to your ad is also critical. Does the user find what s/he expects when they click on your ad? Your cost-per-click can also be influenced by your own bids. If you’re willing to pay more and you cap your bids on the higher side, you’ll likely be charged more.

How to Manage the Cost of Keywords

To save on those high-price keywords, build your quality score and bid conservatively to start. Make certain that you structure your accounts well, choose your keywords—and negative keywords—with care and pay attention. Cap your bids and consider turning off campaigns in down times, like holidays and weekends. Check your accounts daily and analyze the results. Then, test out new words, ads, copy, creative and landing pages. There are savings hiding all over Google, but you need to know where to look.

We do! If you want to know how to optimize spend in Google Ads, contact the experts at ClouldControlMedia today.

~Linda Emma

Can an Active Social Media Presence Prevent Summer Melt?

Summer melt is one of the most frustrating phenomena that colleges face in today’s competitive recruitment landscape. You accept students, they submit their deposits and supplemental paperwork—and then they don’t show up. Not at orientation, and not at the start of fall semester.

What Caused this Summer Melt?

There are several factors that lead to summer melt, from cost to competition. Sometimes when students and their parents take a hard look at the numbers, they opt for a more affordable school, or delay enrollment altogether. Or as often is the case, students hedge their bets, placing deposits at more than one school, awaiting that much sought after yes from a first-choice waitlist. There is the disconnect that often occurs from senior year in high school to freshman year in college. Particularly common among lower income or first-year-in-college students, the follow through from acceptance to enrollment can fall off.

Add to all of those scenarios the uncertainties of the pandemic and the term COVID melt quickly supplants just regular old summer melt. These are extraordinary times and this year’s melt is certain to reach global warming temperatures. Many students who thought about crossing the country to attend universities are now choosing schools closer to home. Still others who said yes might be opting for a gap year—not wanting to head to campus amid a whole lot of uncertainty.

How Can Social Media Help with Summer Melt?

If you haven’t already embraced the notion that your future students stay super connected on social media, it’s time to get on board. Not only do Millennials and members of Generation Z communicate with one another on sites like TicTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and even Facebook; they keep in touch with their favorite brands. And the schools they plan to attend.

An active social media presence makes you relevant among your target demographic and allows you to have direct conversations with future students. It keeps them engaged—whether they plan to enroll next semester or next year. Here are just a few ways to leverage social media to prevent summer melt:

Be the Expert You Are

Build a strong social media presence extolling the virtues of your institution but also answering the questions that matter most to your school’s stakeholders. Speak about the programs and majors you have and let future students and their parents know what they need to do to get in.

Have Social Media Conversations

Social media gives you a great opportunity to speak directly to future students. Although you’ll want an institutional voice, be sure your tone matches the social media channel and your audience. And if anyone expresses concerns, take the conversation offline and address them head-on.

Be Mobile-Friendly

Most of your future students will be on your website before they come anywhere near your campus and more than 85 percent of them will be looking at your pages from a mobile device.  If you want to stay on students’ radar, you need to be easy to access from wherever they are.

Build a Social Media Team

The students who are most interested in what you offer aren’t going to stop at your website; they’re going to check out ALL of your social media channels. While you cannot control every hashtag and comment that connects to your brand, you can build a team that promotes all of the good you do. Find students who will serve as great role models, offer them some social media training, and let them paint a clear picture of what your school is all about. After all, you want your applicants to have the best chance at success and a good fit is where it all starts.

If you’d like to learn more about preventing summer melt through social media marketing, contact the Social Media team at CloudControlMedia today.

~Linda Emma

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