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5 step strategy for superhuman student conversion campaigns

According to UCAS, there are over 50,000 undergraduate courses available at 395 education providers in the UK. What makes yours stand out?

Each of the 395 education providers – like you – will have their own strengths, weaknesses, and campaign tagline – that I’m sure prospective students will be able to recite by the time they come to enroll. And don’t get us started on postgraduate!

When it comes to the final leg of the Student Recruitment cycle, it is important to remember that the decision is not always academic. In the final stages of the university decision-making process, a prospective student wants to make sure that the university is the right fit for their personal values and beliefs as well as their academic needs – which is why calling campaigns are so important.

Conversion call campaigns come in all shapes and sizes and often encompass individuals from across the university. Calling campaigns offer students the opportunity to ask an individual linked to the university any questions about the course, university, or city.

Since launching GeckoEngage Call in 2016, we have helped our clients utilize the service for call campaigns of 10 to over 100 people and we thought that it was time that we gave you some guidance to help you create your own.

Step 1. Master the call center campaign basics

During the initial stages of creating your call campaign, take a look at the information you already have from your existing target markets and forecast how many potential segments you may have. Take into consideration, things like:

  • Course of study
  • Mode of study
  • Geographical location
  • Age
  • Dependants

Step 2: Develop student admissions hooks

Chances are your prospective students already have what they ‘need’ to know, so now it is time to investigate what information they ‘want’ to know. Speak to your student recruitment and admissions team and create a list of questions that you think will help you find out what prospective students want.

Using Gecko Form, you will be able to create and send out the questionnaire to your offer holders. This will help you determine who the best person to carry out your campaigns is and what information your offer holders are looking for.  

Circulate the form and further segment your audience based on the results.

Step 3: Match students to faculty

Once you have decided who will be in each segment of your campaign, looms the question: Who is the best person to call?

As a university, you are in the slightly enviable position that you have multiple individuals who are passionate about your courses, university, and city so you have options when it comes to deciding the best people for the job. Remember to put the needs of your students at the forefront of the decision-making process and choose individuals that will satisfy prospective students needs.

Step 4: Schedule a call time

Before you begin your call campaign, it is worthwhile letting prospective students know that you will be calling them and when you plan to call. A great way to let them know is using SMS or email, this gives students the opportunity to opt-in/ out of the call and allows them to suggest a better time if necessary.

Automated emails and SMS messages can be sent out via GeckoEngage.

Step 5: Create a call center script

To ensure that your callers are ready for the call, prepare an information sheet and script beforehand. The information sheet should contain easily digestible chunks of information based on FAQ’s.

And most importantly, the script. The script will help the caller begin the conversation and guide the caller to ask the key questions. If you decide to use GeckoEngage Call to create the script, you will be able to create a responsive form that will adapt based on input that callers can use for each of their calls.

If you’d like to learn more about our Higher Education technology solutions and how they can help your University or College, why not schedule a free online demo?