2. #AMAHigherEd
Agenda
1. The new enrollment funnel
2. Stealth applicants: who, what, where, and do they convert?
3. Strategies to attract & engage stealth applicants
• Social media, student bloggers, & responsive design
• Online reviews - the new referrals
4. Questions/Resources
5. #AMAHigherEd
Increase in Stealth Applicants
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Fall 2011 Fall 2012 Fall 2013 Fall 2014 Fall 2015
% of total applications
37%
54%
71% 71%
61%
7. #AMAHigherEd
Stealth Applicants
1. 62% WU F15 application pool
2. 56% WU F15 enrollments
a. 26% enrollment decision based on online research
b. 10% enrollment decision based on social media
3. 76% Online Applicants (1,283/1,461 apps) generated via digital
campaigns started or completed the application process the first day
they visited our site.
12. #AMAHigherEd
Strategies to Attract & Engage
1. Increase Enrollments Using
• Paid Search & Display Ads
• Social Media
• Student Bloggers
• Online Reviews = The New Referrals
2. Engage with Responsive Design
3. Content Parameters
• Say Something Interesting, Relevant, and/or Engaging!
• Be Informative and Entertaining!
13. #AMAHigherEd
Paid Search & Display Ads Results
Type Conversions
Online Application 1,461
Live Chat 1,472
App PDF 475
Phone Click 107
Email Link Click 296
Contact Us 469
15. #AMAHigherEd
Facebook
January 2009
76,656+ followers
Posting frequency:
1-2 posts per day
Twitter
May 2009
2,997+ followers
Posting frequency:
3-6 posts per day
Instagram
February 2014
3,846+ followers
Posting frequency:
2-3 posts per day
LinkedIN
October 2014
9,911+ followers
Posting frequency:
5 posts per week
Pinterest
January 2015
2,415+ followers
Posting frequency:
5 posts per week
We have created a community of over 95,000 students, alumni,
faculty and staff who regularly engage on social media
16. #AMAHigherEd
80% of our Fall
2015 stealth
applicants
followed us on at
least 1 social
media platform
17. #AMAHigherEd
Student Bloggers &
Social Media
Ambassadors
Problem: We want
to engage with
them, but they
don’t want to
engage with us.
Solution: User
generated content!
User-generated content
is 35% more
memorable and 50%
more trusted than
other types of media
and information.
-Ipsos MediaCT 2014
18. #AMAHigherEd
56% of our Fall
2015 stealth
applicants
followed or read
our blogs (blogs
launched late
September 2014)
19. #AMAHigherEd
Alejandra Villar: Psychology,
Class of 2017
“Reading about students’ experiences
about Woodbury had an influence on my
decision to apply to Woodbury because it
was easier to visualize myself as a
student on campus.”
“I enjoyed reading student created
content more than the University’s. It
was easier to connect and relate to
student material. Though the University’s
content is great, I think that student
created content is more impactful or
influential to current and prospective
students.”
Jocelyn Garcia: Interdisciplinary
Studies, Class of 2019
“We want to hear what the students
say about their experience. It
provides a more realistic point of
view.”
“Student bloggers help a future
student understand what it’s like
studying, living or even eating at
Woodbury from a personal point of
view.”
23. #AMAHigherEd
I love Woodbury. I’m a third-year Game Art & Design
student with a focus on Game Art, and this program
fits me perfectly. It mixes art with the design of
games and programming (not too much programming
thank goodness). Most universities focus on one or
the other, but you get the whole experience here--
and it’s what it’s gonna be like in the video game
industry. The professors are very knowledgeable and
helpful, and have good links to professionals in the
field. Overall, for the experience I want, I wouldn’t go
anywhere else.
Athletics: We do not have a sports team
at this time. We have an on campus gym
which is perhaps the size of a small
Starbucks and basketball courts that
double sometimes as a soccer field for
those who want to play on the concrete
because we don’t have enough grass to
even play catch on.
Health & Safety: The only foreseeable
issue a resident or student with a very
late at night class might have is a
surprise run in with wild deer, mountain
lions or a pack of coyotes. Other than
that, the campus is pretty well guarded
and watched by both security as well as
the students who mostly travel with
another peer or are very alert to their
surroundings.
24. #AMAHigherEd
What are the main take-away points?
Are these points important and relevant to you?
What are you going to with this knowledge?
Wrap Up MadLibs
Notes de l'éditeur
Second oldest university in Los Angeles
Founded in 1884 by F.C. Woodbury
WASC, AACSB, ACBSP, AACSB, NAAB, NASAD
Specialty university with ranked programs in architecture, animation,
Socioeconomic Profile of Woodbury Students
60% are the first generation college.
Ranks 12th in CA in economic diversity.
51.3% are Pell Grant recipients.
82% receive financial aid from federal, state, or university sources.
18.6% international students from 43 countries
What does the new enrollment funnel look like?
How do we keep applications from becoming the new lead form?
Yes! 56% of our enrolled Fall 2015 undergrad class were stealth applicants. Top 5 conversion sources for Fall 2015. Those who apply through our home grown WU application convert at a higher rate than those using Common App. Digital Marketing activities generated first point of contact for ~36% new enrollments F15 (131 out of 361).
(1) Define stealth applicants (2) Best kept secret (3) What do these online behaviors mean for your communication plan?
How should generational behavioral gaps impact how we think about stealth applicants and/or the recruitment/application process in general?
Gen Z – mistrust/always connected/multi-tasking – behaviors very different from older generations that we will see in later slides.
58-71% of your prospective students rely on your website for answers to their questions vs. contacting you directly
86-89% prospective students are using search engines to find your website. Their attention span = 8 seconds and they often multi-task across as many as five screens.
Search engines have become the dominate method for finding college websites (Ruffalo Noel Levitz 2015 E-Expectations Report)
Social Media: There are over 100+ social media platforms with new ones popping up daily. You can’t be on all of them (unless you have a huge social media team!). Noel Levitz data from 2015 showing weekly social media use by Juniors and Seniors-why we are using the ones we are.
We are currently focusing on 5 platforms; it’s Important to pace yourself!
Expansion plans-Youtube strategy, Snapchat experiment
We now have a good sized social media community (close to 100,000); we want to continue growing but focus on engagement.
Are stealth applicants part of our social media community?
We surveyed our Fall 2015 stealth applicants (65 responses).
80% are following on social media-not bad; the other 20% are mostly international students who are on different platforms or not using social media
Problem & Solution: created an SMA & student blogger program to increase the amount of USER GENERATED CONTENT
The SMA’s post across our 5 platforms and accept direct messages from prospective students and parents.
2014 RESULTS: SMA’s created over 1,500 social media posts which generated 22,000 likes, 750 comments. RESULTS: Student bloggers produced over 100 blogs.
We had a slow roll out so we are happy with the 56%.
I wanted to hear a bit more about what our applicants liked about our student blogs so I sat down to interview a handful of the survey responders.
We know they don’t want to be marketed to
We know that they are relating to our student bloggers and their voice
I don’t give topics to our student bloggers-they have the freedom to write about whatever they want which helps the content come across as authentic
Referrals have always been a top converting source.
We harnessed the power of an alumni created review aggregator that helped us to reach out to prospective students, current students, parents, staff, faculty and alumni for reviews that are posted on public review sites that we know our stealth applicants are searching.
No incentives were offered.
Online review behavior-most only post when it’s negative; have to make it easy to post a positive review.
The idea was to make it as simple as possible for people to submit a review.
There were not very many reviews for us-we had never made the effort; this campaign generated 213 new reviews that were posted on various public platforms.
At the end of the review they had the option to make it public and choose which sites to publish it to; Niche, Facebook and Yelp were the most popular choices.
Negative reviews=chance to make things right.
When something bad happens, people talk about it a lot.
Why current student reviews? Peer recommendations are the life blood of most millennial social circles.
Trust is a factor: they don’t trust marketing or even rankings anymore; 21st century students are turning to what they do trust-peer/student reviews.
