More than enrolling students, an educational institution must promote actions aimed at retaining students.
Obviously, the financial crisis added to other variables, such as the lack of preparation in high school, lead to the withdrawal of a higher education diploma.
However, there is a portion of responsibility that falls to the educational institution, such as quality infrastructure, curricula aligned with the labor market and qualified faculty.
It is also up to the Educational institution to go beyond enrollment and develop a quality relationship with the academic community. This is where educational marketing comes in.
You can check it out in this post:
- Why invest in student retention?
- How to retain students with educational marketing?
- Know your students
- Onboard new students
- Use (and abuse) of technology
- focus on experience
- Use data to your advantage
Good reading!
Why invest in student retention?
In the educational market, there are several institutions that prefer to focus only on attracting students, leaving retention in the background, and, between us, this is a big mistake! As a consequence, these universities encounter, along the way, a major problem: the dropout of countless students.
With enrollees-focused marketing strategies, you have the ability to bypass the truancy, improve your results and build student loyalty. Not to mention that, with this loyalty, you have good propagators of your brand, which can attract new students to your institution.
Furthermore, by investing in retention strategies, you can save not only time, but also efforts and financial resources.
Philip Kotler, known as the father of marketing, said:“Keeping a customer costs 5 to 7 times less than acquiring a new one”.And this statement is the purest truth, investments in attracting students are definitely higher than investing in the loyalty of newcomers.
But of course, this whole process does not happen overnight. If you want to know how to retain students with educational marketing, continue reading this post and discover five ways to apply it to your strategies.
How to retain students with educational marketing?
Most of the school community uses educational marketing to attract and convert students, but forgets to apply it to retention strategies, which are even more important.
The role of educational marketing in student retention is to motivate, engage and build loyalty, therefore, there are several actions you can implement. Check out, now, five practices to retain your students:
- Know your students;
- Integrate new students;
- Use (and abuse) technology;
- Focus on the experience;
- Use the data to your advantage.
Read too:
- What is a communication guideline and how does it work? Check out;
- Inbound Marketing: 7 metrics to track and optimize;
- 5 good practices of relationship flow with students.
Know your students
The first step in building student loyalty and developing assertive retention strategies is to really get to know your students. In case you don't really know the profile of the freshmen at your educational institution, it is very likely that you will have difficulty creating a connection and a more solid relationship.
At this point, it is worth mentioning that your student's profile is not limited to the view that your faculty or collaborators have about your freshmen. There is a huge difference between who color who your student is and who really he is.
To really know him, seek information such as: age group, economic power, goals, difficulties, interests and professional dreams. Analyze different aspects of the student and try to generate solutions for their possible problems.
If necessary, do some research or invest in the production of questionnaires to learn more about your student's profile. Remember that, by knowing who your students are, you have the possibility to invest in actions for satisfaction and motivation, and consequently, to achieve the long-awaited loyalty.
Onboard new students
Even in college, the first day of class is often difficult and generates anxiety in students, whether newbies or more experienced. A good practice that your educational institution can adopt is an inaugural class.
This moment is for students to get to know the educational institution, professors and administrative staff, and can be a way to make students feel part of your university.
The inaugural class is usually a relaxed meeting, with the presentation of the HEI, the course coordination and the main resources that students will need throughout their academic trajectory.
Use (and abuse) of technology
The internet brings excellent online interaction tools. And the relationship is fundamental in the retention of students. Therefore, create unique applications for your institution in order to keep students connected 24/7 to your brand.
Offer basic services online, such as timetable consultation, communication with the secretariat or course coordination, requests for statements and other documents.
The practicality raises the level of satisfaction of the students and makes them feel well taken care of. In addition, through the app, you can monitor your students' behavior and learn more about them.
And since we're talking about the internet, you can also use social media as an ally in this retention process. Being present in the digital environment can be a way to be more accessible and connected to students within the largest communication platforms.
focus on experience
The university experience can go beyond the contact between professor and student in the classroom. The faculty can invest in other ways to promote a unique experience, such as business incubators, scientific initiation projects, awards and competitions.
Events are excellent for bringing your students together around causes your HEI believes in, promoting citizenship and social responsibility actions.
More than professionals, you must train citizens who are aware of their duties and rights towards society.
Use data to your advantage
The use of tools like Big Data, Business Intelligence and Marketing Automation brings numerous data that can be used in school management to retain students enrolled students.
In the administrative-academic field, you can detect behavioral patterns and identify if the student tends to drop out of the course, for example.
Faced with this possibility, you can trigger marketing strategies to retain it. Incentive actions, content that offers solutions to financial or personal problems, discounts for attending classes or performance in disciplines are some of the options.
Did you like the content? Now it's time to put it into practice! If you want to start investing in educational marketing and change your results with effective retention strategies, get in touch with our team of experts.
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