Year after year, educational institutions have the same objective: to attract and attract students.often student retention , and between us, this is a big mistake!
Although much is said about attracting and attracting students, one of the biggest challenges of the educational system is to ensure that students remain in their institution.
Just to give you an idea that the problem is serious, the National Institute of Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep) carried out a survey and identified that more than half of the freshmen end up dropping out or changing courses in the middle of graduation.
If you work in educational marketing, you know very well what the education system is and that these alarming numbers reflect what many institutions face on a daily basis.
The reality is that, whether due to dissatisfaction, financial difficulty, or inadequacy, thousands of students choose to withdraw from their courses, and the big question is: how to avoid this evasion? The answer lies in retention strategies!
Read on and find out in this post:
- Beyond enrollment: what is student retention?
- Why invest in retention strategies in educational marketing?
- How to analyze the satisfaction of my students?
- What are Kpis?
- How important are these performance indicators?
- Which kpis to analyze to prevent student dropout?
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Customer Effort Score (CES)
- Student
- Attendance Fail
- Student dropout rate
Let's get reading!
Beyond enrollment: what is student retention?
There are those who believe that the role of educational marketing ends after turning a lead into a ticket, but this is a big myth!
The truth is that, after increasing enrollment and attracting more students, there is still a lot of work to be done. You need to follow every student's journey so that he or she continues to be part of your institution, and that's where retention tactics come into play.
In practice, student retention refers to actions aimed at ensuring that students remain at your institution, that is, enroll and earn a diploma at your school.
In this process, retention strategies need to be carefully planned, taking into account the difficulties, needs and dreams of your students.
Why invest in retention strategies in educational marketing?
Retention strategies can be a great way to add even more value and recognition to your educational institution. By investing in the relationship with your tickets and having satisfied students, you can have great propagators of your brand.
Students can make referrals, share with friends and attract more tickets to their school or university. But watch out! With the lack of investment in retention strategies, this can also have the opposite effect, causing students to have a negative view and make bad publicity about your institution.
In addition, by investing in student retention, your IE has a much lower cost compared to recruitment strategies. According to a survey done by the American Marketing Association in conjunction with Marketing Daemon Quest, retention strategies can be five to fifteen times cheaper. A great savings, isn't it?
Once the importance of retention is clear, I imagine you're asking yourself "how will I know if my student is really satisfied?". This is a common question for anyone investing in educational marketing strategies; Next, let's dive into this topic.
How to analyze the satisfaction of my students?
Nothing better than having satisfied students, right? Whether at school, at university, or on a course, every institution wants to see its students happy and with a positive view of them.
But to know if your students are having a good or bad experience, you need to measure their satisfaction, and in that case, kpis can help you!
What are Kpis?
If you don't know what kpis are, don't worry. Next, we will explain and present some indicators that can help you in the retention process, agreed?
The KPI or Key Performance Indicator is a key performance indicator focused on measuring your strategies. In short, it is a way to assess whether your tactics are achieving the result expected by your institution.
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How important are these performance indicators?
By using the right KPIs to measure your tactics, it is possible to identify if you are on the right track, if your students are happy or if they are dissatisfied and it's time to change your strategies.
With your marketing team constantly evaluating this satisfaction, you have time to work around the situation and prevent student dropout.
In addition, by analyzing these indicators, you can not only monitor and diagnose, but also manage your school performance both in general and for a specific goal, thus optimizing your strategy.
Which kpis to analyze to prevent student dropout?
Now that you know what Kpis is, it's time to find out which indicators to analyze for student retention. Below, we list five KPIs that are essential to measure the satisfaction level of your tickets.
1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
The NPS or Net Promoter Score is one of the main indicators of retention. The purpose of this kpi is to measure customer satisfaction. Through it, you can identify what the student thinks about your institution and what are the chances of him being a propagator of your brand.
In practice, to find out the NPS result, it is necessary to send a strategically planned questionnaire, in which the student will evaluate his institution with grades from 0 to 10.
Another way to assess this satisfaction is through data analysis. With an expert in Big Data and analytics, your digital marketing team can examine the large volume of data collected, identify the behavior and sentiment of each student and find out whether or not they are satisfied with your educational institution.
2. Customer Effort Score (CES)
The Customer Effort Score is another Kpi that is critical to analyzing student retention. Unlike the NPS, which measures the likelihood of a nomination, the CES measures a student's effort to interact with their school or university.
Imagine the following situation: a student was having difficulty completing the registration for a certain activity whose deadline would end in two days. He tried to contact his institution via WhatsApp, but was unable to get a response and, therefore, decided to send a message to all communication channels. Only two days later did the student get a response by email.
Can you notice the effort the student had to make to get an answer? In this calculation, the account is easy. The more work a student has to interact or solve a problem with their educational institution, the greater their level of dissatisfaction.
To assess this effort, it is necessary to submit a survey after the student performs some action. For example, in the fictional scenario above, after you have your questions answered, you can send a satisfaction survey to give your feedback about the service.
3. Attendance
Students who are dissatisfied, discouraged or who are facing a problem tend to be absent constantly, so it is worth keeping an eye on the attendance indicator.
By tracking this kpi, your institution can analyze which students have been absent or late the most and in which subjects this has occurred. With this in hand, it is possible to identify the problem and work around the situation.
4. Failure
rate Another way to track the students' experience within your institution is through the failure indicator. It's time to analyze grades and failure rates by subject.
As well as lack of attendance, low grades and failures can show that students have had difficulty adapting to their educational institution.
5. Student dropout rate
How many students did not opt for re-enrollment and left your university or school in the last year? If you've never asked yourself this question, it's time to face the numbers and find the answer.
One of the main indicators, the dropout rate, can help you to identify the number of students who chose to drop out during the course. If you have more students leaving your IE than graduating or enrolling, that's not a good sign! There is something in your strategy that needs to be rethought.
In fact, starting with your tactics in the digital environment can be a good way to retain students. After all, if you need to be present where your students are, know that most of them are online on social media, speaking good or bad about your institution or even being attracted to other universities.
And while we're talking about your presence in the virtual world, we can help you position yourself online. Go to our website and contact us!
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