The Ultimate Guide. for Digital International Student Recruitment. e-book. Electric Medialand Online Recruitment 2014

Transcription

1 Online Recruitment 2014 The Ultimate Guide for Digital International Student Recruitment e-book by: Todd Marcotte Lead Strategist, electric medialand Published 2014

2 Introduction Traditionally, schools have pursued international students in a very physical way. It usually involves a lot of correspondence, vetting via , setting up meetings and then the real cost, flying to locations to showcase their school to prospective students as well as maintaining a presence at numerous tradeshows. Not only is this an expensive process budget-wise, it also takes up a lot of time and is extremely expensive and resource heavy. It should be noted that there are exceptions and in some cases there are venues that require a physical presence although in most cases, with proper online strategy and tactics, institutions can improve their chances of stronger recruitment as well as extend the marketing period well beyond the events traditionally attended and at a fraction of the cost. Many institutions do not achieve the results they aim for and in some cases, invest heavily in. This guide is meant to share lessons learned as well as powerful strategies and tactics that can help you reach better results in your digital campaigns. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

3 1. Case Study Brazilian Student Recruitment Client: Association of Canadian Community Colleges The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

4 1. Case Study - cont. ACCC recruits close to 1,000 students When the Association of Canadian Community Colleges requested our assistance in digital recruitment of foreign students, we were first tasked with an initiative in Brazil. There was a contingent of college representatives going to several Brazilian Institutes of Technology to recruit face to face with candidates and our mandate was to entice prospective students to fill out an online form and/or attend meetings at one of the locations in Brazil. We proposed a bilingual, Portuguese and English, three pronged campaign, with text ads on search results pages, banner ads that tracked people who have shown interest in technology, technical studies and education, and Facebook ads aimed at those in college and technical institutes. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

5 1. Case Study - cont. Real-time Fine Tuning for Optimal Conversion Not waiting or wanting to analyze our digital campaigns posthumously, we utilized tools to see what was happening in real time when prospective students landed on the form pages. We were not happy with the initial conversion rate on form fill-outs. The graphics looked great and spoke volumes without words and the text was convincing and compelling as well, but although the English text ads had huge volume in terms of click through, conversion was very low. Knowing that here in Canada we might very well be enticed by a French ad but would probably prefer to fill out an English form, we thought this might also be the case in Brazil. We decided to provide links from each language s landing page to the alternate language option in the first few days of the campaign to see what kind of data we would capture. Allowing this cross navigation to the other language s form made all the difference and set the pace for the rest of the campaign. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

6 1. Case Study - cont. Education Migration In just three weeks, 65,027 potential scholarship candidates came to the ACCC landing site as a result of our digital efforts and for a very low overall cost per visit. 891 candidates filled out a form. 71 filled out the English form and 820 filled out the Portuguese form. These statistics numerically reinforced our belief that the initial low conversion rate on the English form was a result of our hunch that prospects reading in English would prefer to actually fill out the form in their mother tongue. In the end, the cost per form fill out was minimal. 519 CANDIDATES THAT SWITCHED LANGUAGE 71 ENGLISH 820 PORTUGUESE CAMPAIGN TOTAL: 891 The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

7 1. Case Study - cont. The Numbers at a Glance CRITICAL LIFE OF CAMPAIGN : 3 WEEKS Lessons Learned A great strategy with compelling and creative digital ads will better convert your audience and is key to a successful online campaign, however constant monitoring and data analysis is just as important. Never put your digital campaigns on autopilot. * STRATEGY ADJUSTMENT ENGLISH PORTUGUESE INITIAL GOAL 250 CANDIDATES TEXT 49,379 DISPLAY 2,418 13,231 65, TOTAL CLICKS TOTAL CANDIDATES The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

8 2. Getting Started The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

9 2. Getting Started - cont. 01. Knowing what to say The first step here is to identify your goals. What are you trying to achieve with your content? You might be trying to increase user engagement, boost brand awareness, promote thought leadership or drive leads. Whatever your goal may be, the content must be carefully created and curated to balance what you want to communicate and what your reader will find valuable. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

10 2. Getting Started - cont. 02. Knowing what the audience wants to consume Independent of editorial or marketing goals, understanding your audience is critical to successful content distribution. What are the key barriers they may have that you need to overcome to keep them engaged? Ideation to distribution of your content should be tailored to your target audience. Without this your conversion rate will plummet. For example, when working on the Brazil initiative we knew that video would be more successful at attracting prospective students than a lengthy printed brochure. With this in mind we followed up with a short video on the microsite showcasing Canada and its attributes. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

11 2. Getting Started - cont. 03. The art of great storytelling To build and sustain relationships with your audience, you need to move away from speaking only about features and benefits and embrace true storytelling. Great storytellers have long embraced the fact that the most powerful stories happen in the mind of the audience, making each and every story unique and personal for the individual. They understand that stories are important because they are inherent to the human experience. Stories are how we pass on our accumulated wisdom, beliefs and values. They are the process through which we describe and explain the world around us, including our role and purpose in it. Audiences have always known this and asked for stories; they ve never asked for content. BUT WHY DOES THIS REALLY MATTER? The most powerful way to persuade someone of your idea is by uniting the idea with an emotion and the best way to do that is to tell compelling stories and then circle back to the importance of features and benefits as part of the mix. Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences. - Seth Godin The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

12 2. Getting Started - cont. 04. Google Analytics Browser breakdown and behaviour analytics gathered from the Brazilian campaign. Knowing how and where they spend their time It is important to grasp consumption behaviours. When are consumers interacting with the most content? Do they consume your competitors content? How are they discovering it? Analytics can provide useful insight into these behaviours and uncover valuable trends. Psychographic data is readily available from social and search analytics tools to further assist with this. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

13 3. Tactics The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

14 3. Tactics - cont. Tactics Cost is always a factor when determining approach and tactics. There are a lot of different methods used for distributing content based on channel, audience type and overall recruitment goals, although they can all be categorized into unpaid (earned) and paid distribution methods. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

15 3. Tactics - cont. Search Engine Marketing Everyone is faced with the same challenge when it comes to employing a digital campaign, competition for an audience and clients. Paid advertising can fuel engagement at the launch of a recruitment campaign when your content has not had very much exposure. It is also effective at refreshing and providing additional reach to existing content that has performed well with your audience in the past. 1. Ad networks 2. Paid social promotion The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

16 3. Tactics - cont. Paid Description Examples Tips Ad Networks Pay to feature your ad content prominently in search engine results, banners, or beneath relevant articles Search engine results, banners, or beneath relevant articles, Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Outbrain, OneSpot Ramp up initial engagement at the beginning of a campaign using ad networks Paid via Social Networks Promote your content on social networks based on audience type, business, region, and more Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Always use an engaging photo for Facebook ads. For example, we used an aspirational photo of an African American and Caucasian together for the Franco Africa recruitment campaign in order to connect the intended audience with the ad. Organic Social Networks Deliver content through your personal and professional social networks to increase reach and engagement Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest Don t spread yourself too thin-- select the best channels for your audience, cross promote your content, add social buttons to your site Free Content Platforms Create presentations to distribute content to a willing audience YouTube, Slideshare Maximize presentations for SEO by using keyword-rich titles and descriptive file names Lead Nurturing Build relationships with business prospects through periodic communications Outbound opt-in newsletters with relevant, vertical-specific content Consider using an distribution platform to track, analyse and optimize your content. We use Mailchimp The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

17 3. Tactics - cont. Lead Nurturing and Conversion Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with potential students early in the recruitment cycle with the goal being to develop a relationship before the student is ready to enroll so that when they are ready, you will be their first choice. Lead nurturing starts when a prospect fills out a digital form on one of your platforms. The relationship is curated and maintained through regularly timed communications like newsletters, e-blasts and phone calls, which continue through the recruitment cycle. Easily executed through marketing automation platforms like Wufoo, lead nurturing relies on a series of targeted communications that are distributed based on demographic, behavioural actions and the stage of the recruitment cycle. THINGS TO REMEMBER Optimize your site for your CTA (Call to action) or form and include fields that capture personal student information, needs or interests and contact forms. Your site pages should have a tracking code to monitor user activity, including time spent on your page and bounce rates. Make it easy and in plain sight for your users to find the Contact Us button. Produce and gate only your relevant, high-value content. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

18 3. Tactics - cont. ACCC Microsite 1) We used colour and shapes that were familiar to the audience to promote a comfortable and engaging environment for visitors to the site. 2) We determined that storytelling through video was a strong and engaging way to showcase the client s story in a way that would resonate with the intended audience ) We made sure that the form was front and centre on the page and that it was not hidden. We added prompts to ensure participation and promote better conversion. 3 The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

19 3. Tactics - cont. Data Monitoring for Better Conversion One cannot underestimate the importance of data monitoring, especially during a campaign. Data monitoring allows you to look at data trends and make observations and recommendations based on activity. There are many analytical tools that you can use today to get a better sense of how your content is converting with your audience. This allows you to fine tune and make changes in real time to connect with your audience, especially during a time sensitive campaign. For example, during our Brazil campaign, had we not utilized date monitoring tools like Wufoo, we would not have identified or known that prospective students were going to our English page when searching but felt more comfortable filling out the form in Portuguese. This information allowed us to adjust our efforts and as a result, increase conversion for the client. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

20 3. Tactics - cont. Wufoo 2 1) Notice how you can monitor the browsers being used. This allows you to optimize your page for a specific browser type. 2) Using analytics allows you to monitor entries by day, month or year and pinpoint potential trend spotting days. 1 3) Analytics also enables you to understand what operating systems users are using, including the percentage of mobile use. We can look and say more people are using windows than any other system so let s make sure we are optimized for Windows. 3 The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

21 3. Tactics - cont. Google Analytics Though Google analytics is not able to track actual entries, it does track student engagement with the page, allowing us to understand the overall traffic flow. Here is a typical example of a Google analytics reporting page. Google analytics will allow you to monitor everything from location, demographics and behaviour on the site. 1 The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

22 4. Where do We Go From Here? The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

23 4. Digital Recruitment - cont. International Recruitment The traditional way of going about international recruitment can be fairly expensive and from a budgetary standpoint, not all colleges are created equal. Small and mid-level colleges do not have the same budget as larger schools and must be more selective when determining their recruitment campaign. Digital recruitment can help equal the playing field at a certain level for those schools that cannot have a physical presence at onsite events and help amplify interest and awareness for schools that do attend onsite recruitment events. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

24 6. Glossary The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment

25 6. Glossary ADWORDS Google s main advertising product that offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, cost-per-mile (CPM) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and media ads. SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) The marketing of websites through search engines. Improves a site s search engine ranking through the purchase of paid listings. KEYWORDS A word or string of words typed into a search engine. Once identified, keywords are used as topic generators to create website content. Keyword strategy involves determining which topics are most relevant to a specific target audience and then creating or curating content based on these topics. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) Process that naturally increases the amount and quality of traffic to a website from a search engine. Considers how search engines generate results and utilizes content, links, and tags. LANDING PAGES Pages on company websites that contain a lead generation form. CALL-TO-ACTION (CTA) Prompts on company websites that solicit consumer behaviors such as Download Now, Order Now, Buy Now, or Contact Us that encourage a user to make a purchase or fill out a form. PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) Also known as cost-per-click, is an online advetising model that requires the advertiser to pay the publisher when the ad is clicked. BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS (B2B) Commerce between businesses, such as between manufacturer and wholesaler or consultancy and corporation. BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER (B2C) Commerce between businesses and individual consumers. CROWDSOURCING The process of obtaining services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, particularly an online community. The Ultimate Guide for Online International Student Recruitment