The Prospective Student Journey: Decision Time Converting Inquiries to Applicants

Most marketing touches occur before that initial inquiry. The primary objective is to transition inquirers into applicants and ultimately committed students. When students and their parents are making these decisions, from late junior to senior year, you have more opportunities influence their decision.

Let’s zoom into this critical stage and examine the micro-moments you should be focused on to improve conversion rates. Every tiny increase in your success can net more students in your classrooms.

The first step to increasing the efficiency of your post-inquiry marketing efforts is to assess how many prospects progress from being inquirers to applicants to enrolled students. Note that ONLY 10% of inquiries are making it all the way to enrollment. Therefore, optimization can focus on two things:

1) Getting more inquiries at the start of the pipeline.

2) improving the conversion rates of each micro-moment to get more prospects enrolled.

How do your numbers compare to the national average? Here’s a checklist to help you establish your baseline:

•  What does this look like for your school?
• How many of the people who reach out to inquire begin their application?
•  How many of those who start an application complete it?
•  How many of those students do you accept?
• And how many accepted students express their intention to enroll?

Want to learn more download our student journey whitepaper today!