You may already know: colleges and universities need proven student recruitment strategies for general recruitment, student enrollment, and even international student recruitment. While this has always been the case, never before has there been such a dwindling percentage of graduating high school students ready to make college enrollment decisions. With more students, comes more opportunity for you to meet your enrollment goals. 

So where do you go from here? First, you have to understand the importance of modern student recruitment strategies that can increase the number of potential students for freshman enrollment, which we’ll cover in this article. We’ll also provide practical tips for incorporating student recruitment strategies into your holistic student experience.

Why You Need Modern Student Recruitment Strategies

Throughout the pandemic, fewer students and families were able to physically visit college campuses. This placed recruitment teams in a bind, since many recruiting and enrollment activities took place through in-person visits, tours, and events. Even when working with lower applicant pools, it’s vital that college recruiters have the tools and innovative campus recruitment strategies they need to meet targets and keep prospects actively engaged.

Now that higher education has begun to shift into a new era, it’s time for higher ed leaders to incorporate more effective student recruitment strategies. Because more information is available digitally and online, students may have less of a reason to connect in person. 

Although digital recruitment is essential, colleges must also look for ways to creatively re-capture the interest of prospective students. Student enrollment strategies and the college recruitment plan should be practical so that all recruiters can repurpose ideas and answer prospective students' queries in meaningful ways.

6 Student Recruitment Strategies That Really Work

To unlock a successful student recruitment strategy, you should always have a realistic understanding of who your ideal students are and what answers they need. This is the only starting point from which an admissions team should operate.

How you communicate with and relate to your ideal students (and their families) will dictate how well each recruitment strategy works for undergraduate admissions efforts. 

Here, we’ve rounded up some of our top practical tips for recruiting tactics that can be applied in many different scenarios in postsecondary enrollment.

1. Maintain a Compelling Digital Presence

Silverback Strategies released a 2021 report entitled, Higher Education Research: The Parent and Student Journey. Within this report, Silverback found that more than 91% of parents visited multiple college websites during the research process, meaning that it's not only new students who are browsing online. Parents and guardians often assist or support their students with college research.

Because of the massive prominence of online research, colleges and universities must create a strong digital first impression. This means that a school’s website is a primary recruitment tools, and as such, it should not be overlooked. 

What does this mean for recruitment and admissions teams? Encourage your school’s marketing or digital teams to create and maintain a highly engaging, high-converting website. For example, ensure you're aligning content with popular search terms. Recruiters need to be able to access lead and inquiry data quickly and effectively. 

2. Build a Campus Story that Sells (and Attracts Students)

Although colleges and universities aren’t businesses in a traditional sense, there may be some benefit to implementing high-performing business and marketing strategies. An example of this is to create or write a unique selling point (USP), or campus story.

In a college context, this means developing a clear and persuasive story about why a specific school shines above the rest. The higher education landscape is competitive, and students tend to consider many enrollment options. Your college must have a compelling brand story that serves as the “hook” for capturing student interest and advertising what student life is like.

When you have this story in place, ensure that every major player on your team understands it and can communicate it. Since recruiters aren’t the only ones responsible for recruiting students, this means that everyone who interacts with students will be more prepared.

One of the most valuable ways to connect with students in person is to form reliable relationships with other organizations that those same students already know and trust. This can mean collaborating with high schools, local businesses, mentorship groups, or community organizations. 

The more visible colleges and universities can be, the more likely it is that students will see, know, and recognize representatives from that college. Additionally, strong partnerships make it easier to host enrollment or recruitment drives and events throughout the student journey.

Get creative when it comes to leveraging community partnerships for the greatest impact. When implemented correctly, your school will not only benefit from greater recruitment exposure, but you may also gain positive public relations (PR) in the process. 

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Even though more students and parents are willing to tour and travel on campus when compared to the past few years, hybrid and online events have earned positive publicity. By scheduling virtual tours, webinars, info sessions, and other events, you can provide greater flexibility to busy future students. 

Virtual events are also appealing when recruiting those students who will most likely stay enrolled in online programs throughout their time at a university. 

Since virtual academic offerings are now extremely popular (and part of most students' normal lives), recruitment initiatives that cater to online interests may inspire prospects and have multiple benefits for your admissions and recruitment teams. 

5. Leverage Student Generated Content for Online Marketing

User-generated content (UGC) is marketing content created by your ideal audience member, or in this case, the ideal prospective student. To produce user-generated content for recruiting purposes, it may be helpful to leverage current students or student ambassadors.

Up to 86% of millennials believe that strong user-generated content proves the appeal of a brand. If your school has students that are willing to testify to great experiences, these messages are more likely to communicate value and reliability than the public branding messages that can be found in other locations.

User-generated content can boost your recruitment activities on a number of different platforms. For example, you might aim to incorporate first-person student accounts in social media posts, on your website, or throughout targeted email sequences.

Building trust and rapport with future students is one of the most important recruitment strategies you can incorporate this year to drive real brand benefit. Transparency and honesty matter when it comes to the major questions that students have prior to enrollment. This includes:

Clear financial, aid, or scholarship opportunities

Honest campus life and cultural information

A school’s transparency foreshadows what a student can expect post-enrollment. It’s therefore crucial that your recruitment strategy is one of honesty and accountability.

Most students want their recruitment experience to align with the realistic experiences that they can expect once they’re actually a student. When these experiences match (and are positive), students are more likely to recommend your college or university to others.

When you’re in a place of increasing your student recruitment initiatives and results, you need practical tools that allow your institution to scale. A powerfully-built student engagement CRM or platform can help you automate your personalization methods for future students.

Practically, this looks like delivering tailored messages to future students at every stage of their enrollment journey. It also means delivering timely instructions and touchpoints right when students are looking for them.

By connecting the dots and having all of the data at your disposal, you can improve the recruiting experience and make a lasting impression.

Gen Z expects brands to communicate with them like they know who they are. Why should colleges and universities be an exception?

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Create a Recruiting Strategy that Yields Results

In a highly diverse, competitive higher education market, you need recruitment strategies that include relevant information and start working from day one. While there are many factors at play, choosing credible strategies and following through can boost student numbers and have a positive impact on your campus.

Book your Element451 demo to learn more about taking recruitment back into your own hands in an increasingly competitive crowd.

6 University Student Recruitment Strategies That Work

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