
Put your Recruitment Eggs in the Basket-of-High-Returns
By: Laura Sheehan

How Higher Education Websites Can (& Should) Provide Great Enrollment Yield
More is expected of enrollment management professionals these days than is realistic. Not only are we supposed to be experts in traditional recruitment, but we also need to be skilled digital marketers — a field we all know requires constant vigilance, evolvement and expertise.
But what if we didn’t have to do everything? (We don’t). What if the very students we are seeking to recruit told us how best to reach them? (They did). And what if what they said can actually make our work easier and more effective? (It does)!
If you want the greatest return on your recruitment efforts, focus on your institutional website. Recent studies by Ruffalo Noel Levitz and Chegg polled students on their college search process. In both cases, the strongest marketing and recruitment vehicles proved to be (you guessed it) an institution’s website. Of interest:
- 80% of high school seniors cite a school’s website is the most influential resource in their college search
- 78% say it affects their perception of an institution
- More than 80% research a college via its website before they decide to apply (or not)
- 69% expect a website to be “very to extremely useful” in the search process
So, now that we know it matters (more than any other recruitment tool), how do we maximize a website’s recruitment capability? It its simplest form, success comes from putting the user first, from making sure your website delivers what prospects are looking for — easily and without clutter. And that comes from:
- Strategic architecture & navigation
- Lean & motivating text (SEO friendly, of course)
- Simple conversion opportunities throughout
- A compelling design that supports all of the above
- And yes, it better be responsive
As outlined in “How One University’s Website Became Its #1 Recruitment Tool,” a strategic website can yield a large percentage of your students (37% in the case cited). And once built, it continues to attract high-yield prospects daily.
All in all, your website should be working for you — generating and converting leads — and making life as an enrollment management professional a little bit easier.
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- Your School’s Distinctive Success Story: Why & How to Market It
- Inspiring Students throughout the Recruitment Process
- Part 2: Students Say Your Website Can Make or Break Their Enrollment Decision
- Part 1: Students Say Your Website Can Make or Break Their Enrollment Decision
- The #1 Thing You Can Do for Enrollment
- Finding a “Pocket of Potential” in Summer Enrollment
- How Small & Specific Digital Enrollment Campaigns Yield Timely Results
- An Enrollment Management Strategy to Offset the Federal Overtime Rule
- Community Colleges Offer Strong & Specific Value: Tell It & Sell It through Success Stories
- Inbound Inquiries are High Yielding Inquiries
- Is a High Bounce Rate Really Such a Bad Thing?
- Student Satisfaction and the Bottom Line
- Getting a Handle on Your University or College’s Social Media Strategy
- The Value of Content in a Higher Education Website
- Digital Advertising for Colleges and Universities: Don’t be Impressed by Impressions
- Enrollment-Driven Higher Ed Websites: A Recruitment Solution
- The Power of the Human Story: In Enrollment Campaigns & In Life
- Recruiting Adult Learners on Their Terms
- Community College Recruitment: Breaking old Stereotypes via Student Success Stories
- Part III: How an Enrollment-driven Website Can Serve Higher Ed Recruitment
- Part II: How an Enrollment-driven Website Can Serve Higher Ed Recruitment
- How an Enrollment-driven Website Can Serve Higher Ed Recruitment
- The 2016 Internet Trends Report: 4 Takeaways for Higher Ed Recruitment
- What Can Other Colleges Learn from Recent Closures? Staying Current in an Ever-Changing World
- From Enrollment Professional to Parent: My New Insights into the College Search Process
- Does your Higher Ed Website Work For or Against Enrollment? Three Tips to Assess its Recruitment Effectiveness
- Step Up Summer Enrollment: How a Digital Campaign Can Stem Summer Melt & Inspire New Applications
- Looking to Recruit Adult Students? Good News: They’re Telling Us How
- What Can Community Colleges do to Counteract Declining Enrollment? Turns Out Your Institutional Stories are your Best Ammunition
- 5 Tips to Celebrating — and Selling — the Value of the Humanities
- Recruiting a Shifting Demographic: Today’s Minority is Tomorrow’s Majority
- Sure, March Madness Brings an Admissions Bump — If You’re a Big Name DI University
- Higher Ed Recruitment: Can We Help Ease Students’ Stress?
- Countering the Decline: How to Sell Small Liberal Arts Colleges to Gen Z
- Put your Recruitment Eggs in the Basket-of-High-Returns
- Calculate’s Web Recruitment Strategy Recognized at Global Marketing Forum
- Digital Search: A New Way of Finding Right-Fit Students
- 6 Tips to Guide your Decision when Hiring a Digital Marketing Firm
- Content is the Driving Force Behind a Successful Higher Ed Website
- Your Website Isn’t a Project. It’s a Perpetual Work in Progress.
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