Use this guide if:
You want to stop guessing what your prospects want and start knowing
You want to learn which stage of the funnel students are in
You want to use real-time data to personalize the student experience
You’d like to learn what students are thinking and feeling so you can help them move forward in their journey with you
Our recommendations
A snapshot of the student funnel can help you keep a pulse on the evolving needs, sentiment and motivations of your students.
Using the funnel to analyze student engagement:
Track how a student's engagement with your ambassadors changes over time, particularly as they get closer to applying.
Use the new data visualizations in the Analytics section of your dashboard, exported data from the prospect table, or the data synced with your CRM and filter this data by decision stage to help with your analysis.
Use the Conversations chart in your analytics to filter by the student decision stages (Explore, Compare, Shortlist, Apply, Wait, Accept).
As you explore these, take note of the number of conversations happening at the different stages of the decision-making process. You might notice many students chatting in a particular stage of the funnel, for example, in the ‘Shortlist’ stage.
Take this insight and combine it with your conversation insight data and create an FAQ document by stage to help your ambassadors guide students.
Pick a sample of a few students who have self-reported to be in the ‘Shortlist stage’.
Generate conversation summaries for those students. What are they asking?
Use this information to create guidelines, information packs, video or blog content, or one-pagers that ambassadors can use to help students prepare and move forward.
Any information you pass to ambassadors that becomes useful for multiple conversations can be saved by the ambassador into their ‘My Saved Answers’ section, and re-used whenever required.
Use the funnel to understand student demographics, needs and sentiment:
Head to Prospect Analytics in your dashboard, filter the demographic data by the funnel stage you’re interested in.
Understand student nationalities and subject interest areas by stage
Use this to influence the topic, medium, and frequency of content you deliver to a student, as well as the messaging you might use in your own communications.
With this information, we can carve out some segments or even individual students who we know might be in the ‘Explore stage,’ and we can start to think about how we can best adapt the Unibuddy platform, and your wider marketing, to help move them onto the next stage in their journey. Maybe there's an opportunity to simplify the application process, offer them a personalized campus visit, or have a phone call. Or if a prospective student's final decision hinges on their concerns about campus safety, you can highlight your safety measures and resources in your messaging/discussion to address these concerns.
Perhaps you notice that a large proportion of international students are still in the early stages of the funnel, and they’re from a particular country hoping to enroll in your institution.
Using this information, you could mix up your ambassadors to ensure you have representation from those countries or regions. This helps the incoming cohort find someone like them to chat and connect with.
Segmenting your student audience is an easy way to personalize your activity, and each institution will segment their audience slightly differently. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Segment students by nationality, grouping students into regions of the world that you might be targeting as part of efforts to diversifying your student population.
Segment students by the higher-level degree program categories. Students studying STEM versus arts, humanities, and social sciences for example.
Combining these segments with the stages in your funnel enables you to get a granular view of your incoming cohort. With these tools you can now see if STEM students from your target region are still ‘Exploring options’ or much further down the funnel, and ready to ‘Apply.’
Automate marketing using your CRM
Beyond using the decision stage to help you optimize usage of the Unibuddy Chat platform, syncing the self-reported student funnel stage with your CRM unlocks potential for automation.
For example, Unibuddy can sync decision data close to real-time with your CRM (every ~6 hours), enabling you to trigger follow-up email marketing from your own marketing system, tailored to their specific stage.
Combining our decision stage data with the conversation insights and topic data enables you to deliver personalized marketing across your other channels in near real-time for students.
For example, a student may have had a chat with an ambassador in which they discussed a fear of fitting in on campus. This student may have also self-reported that they’re late in the funnel with your institution, close to applying. It could be assumed that a fear of fitting in is one of the final questions preventing that student from choosing your institution. With this data in your Unibuddy platform, you can manually reach out via your official channels to help guide the student to the resources they need - or, with this data in your CRM, trigger a communication that includes the relevant information and guidance to allay their concerns.
Question mapping
Our team spent time with partners and students to understand the distinct stages of the decision-making process. Where schools, colleges or universities typically rely on a four-stage approach, our research found six distinct stages for students.
Here are their questions, thoughts and concerns at those stages:
Explore
In the Explore stage prospects are gathering information about many schools, colleges or universities.
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CompareIn this stage prospects are comparing their options. They have discovered which schools, colleges or universities meet their essential requirements and are narrowing down their options. |
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ShortlistIn this stage prospects have narrowed down their options to a few schools, colleges or universities. They’ve decided which ones go beyond their essential requirements and are worth their time. |
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ApplyIn this stage prospects are preparing and submitting applications. |
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WaitIn this stage prospects have submitted their applications and are waiting to hear back. |
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AcceptIn this stage prospects have received an offer from a school, college or university. |
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