Personalized communication, individualized conversation and a unique, positive and memorable experience. How can an educational institution be able to offer all of this without knowing the profile of university students well?
Demographic information, such as age group or gender, are no longer enough to segment and define a target audience and, based on that, to develop efficient strategies for attracting and retaining students. It is necessary to seek information that really allows the institution to know everything about its students.
What you will see in the post:
The revolution when defining target audience;
The importance of knowing the profile of the university student;
Good reading!
The revolution when defining target audience
"Young people, aged between 17 and 24, who have completed high school or will soon complete it, with a family income consistent with the institution's average monthly fees".
This is a definition created just for the exchange of ideas in this post, bearing in mind a possible profile aimed at attracting new students interested in an undergraduate course. Sounds good enough?
It is very likely that you already know that this definition ― and any other that follows this line ― is too shallow and generic. Technological advances and their impact on society allow and demand more advanced segmentation and, consequently, lead to more accurate information about the real profile of this public.
That is why it is necessary to identify behavioral aspects that allow gathering enough knowledge for an institution to really know everything about its students: their preferences, demands, interests and difficulties, among other aspects that pervade much more by human subjectivity and the contextual reality of each person. rather than demographic censuses.
The importance of knowing the profile of the university student
The aforementioned "revolution"when defining target Audience is what gave rise to the concept of persona, a representation semi fictional, based on real information from students at your institution.
Knowing the university student profile is what allows an educational institution to define the personas with whom it relates and wants to relate. But why is this important?
Because people in general, and especially the new generations, are getting used to a society in which personalized treatment and offering a memorable experience throughout the entire relationship with a brand are powerful differentiators. And that's what your students and future students want.
If your educational institution does not know the profile of university students well, it will not be able to connect with them, communicate with them, develop marketing strategies that generate results, nor win them over and retain them.
See too:
- The education purchase funnel has changed: learn how to benefit from the new opportunities;
- CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization: what it is and how it works;
- Students Retention and Acquisition: who to do it? Learn with the best!
How to find out everything about your students
If you've come this far thinking that perhaps your educational institution knows a lot but not enough about its students, the way to improve this situation is to identify valid ways to gather relevant information.
And it is possible to do this through different tools, such as CRM software, marketing automation, Business Intelligence and Web Analytics, for example.
Keeping different communication channels open and analyzing the issues raised, as well as your students' reactions to each situation or shared content is also important. It is strategies like these that will improve your knowledge of the university student profile and increasingly target the specific public of your institution.
Do you want to discover more ways to learn about your students' profile? Understand how technology can help you to collect information and relate better with your audience!
Portugal