Student recruitment marketing: the funnel from inquiry to enrollment

Why the middle of the funnel matters most

The pool of students is contested. The National Center for Education Statistics' Fast Facts on postsecondary enrollment put undergraduate enrollment at 15.4 million in fall 2021, 15 percent below fall 2010, with a projected rise to 16.8 million by 2031. Each prospective student compares several institutions in detail, and most of the loss happens between the inquiry and the completed application, when a student has shown interest and is waiting to be convinced.

That is where recruitment marketing works: not in buying more inquiries at the top, which is the easy and expensive part, but in converting the ones you have. A funnel that doubles its inquiry-to-application rate has doubled its results without a dollar more of ad spend.

Stage 1: Capture the inquiry with the fields the follow-up needs

An inquiry form that asks only for a name and an email produces a list nobody can act on. Ask for what the follow-up needs and no more: name, email, phone with a separate consent box for texts, the program or programs of interest, the intended intake, the student type (first-year, transfer, graduate, adult, international, online) and, for anyone who may be under 18, a date of birth so that parental involvement can be arranged. Say plainly what you will send and how often, and record the consent with the date. Every paid campaign, event sign-up and visit request feeds the same form and the same record, so that a student who inquires twice is one person.

Stage 2: Reply within a day, from a person

The first reply sets the tone. Send it within one working day, from a named admissions counselor or program contact, with the specific information the student asked for and one next step: an information session, a visit, a call. An automated acknowledgement within minutes is fine; a human reply within a day is the standard. Log every inquiry with its source and program, and track reply time as a funnel number, because a student who inquired at four institutions shortlists the ones that answered.

Stage 3: Follow up by program, with answers

The follow-up series is where most institutions send brochures and lose students. Send answers instead, by program and by student type: what the program costs and what aid is common, with dated figures; what graduates do; what a week looks like, in a current student's words; the admission requirements and the deadline for the student's intake; how to visit or attend a session; and how to start the application. Four to eight messages over the weeks before the deadline, each with one question answered and one next step, then deadline reminders.

The law applies to every one. In the USA, the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide requires accurate header information, a truthful subject line, identification as an advertisement where the message is one, a valid physical postal address, a way to opt out and an opt-out honored within 10 business days, with penalties up to $53,088 per email; messages whose primary purpose is transactional or relationship, such as an update on an application the student has started, sit outside the opt-out rule, so keep the two kinds separate. In Canada, CASL requires consent before a commercial electronic message is sent, which the inquiry form's consent box provides if it is unticked by default and recorded. General information, not legal advice; your counsel has the last word.

Texts, calls and students under 18

Text messages are the fastest way to reach a student and the easiest to get wrong. Send them only with a separate, recorded consent, keep them short and about something the student asked for or a deadline, and stop on the first request. For students who may be under 18, involve a parent or guardian: send the substantive messages to the parent where you have their consent, keep the student's messages to logistics, and check your state's or province's rules on marketing to minors before any campaign aimed at high school students. Platforms also restrict advertising to minors, which our pillar guide notes under paid campaigns.

Stage 4: Events, visits and the people students meet

An information session, a campus visit or an online open house moves a student further than any message, because they meet faculty and current students. Plan events by program and intake, invite from the follow-up series, confirm and remind, and follow each event with a personal message from someone the student met. Record attendance as a funnel stage, because students who attend apply at a different rate from those who do not, and that difference tells you how much an event is worth.

Stage 5: Help students finish the application

Applications started and not finished are the cheapest students to win. Track them by program, send a plain reminder with the missing items and a named contact, offer a call for anyone stuck, and make the deadline and the fee waiver, where one exists, impossible to miss. Keep application-status messages transactional and separate from marketing, so that a student who opted out of marketing still gets the reminder about their own application.

Stage 6: From offer to deposit to first day

An admitted student is comparing offers, and the institution that makes the next steps clear and personal wins the deposit: a plain statement of cost after aid, an admitted-student event, a message from a current student or faculty member in the program, and a clear path to housing, registration and orientation. After the deposit, the hand-off to enrollment and student services should feel like one institution, not a new set of strangers; the first-term retention number tells you whether it did.

Paid campaigns inside the funnel

Paid search on program terms and paid social to the audiences the platforms allow feed the top of the funnel, and they should be run by program with a landing page and a budget each, so that spend moves from a full program to an empty one mid-cycle. Google's help on budgets notes that a month's charge is capped at 30.4 times the daily budget, which makes a program's monthly test budget easy to set. Count the inquiries, applications and deposits each campaign produced, not the clicks. Our paid social page covers the campaigns we run, and our email marketing page covers the follow-up flows.

FERPA, from the day they enroll

Once a student enrolls, the U.S. Department of Education's FERPA overview applies: parents have rights over their children's education records, including some control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information, and those rights transfer to the student at 18 or on entering a postsecondary institution at any age. Recruitment data about prospects is not an education record, but the moment a student enrolls, what you hold about them is, and marketing to current students or using them in stories and photos needs the registrar's involvement and the student's consent.

How to measure student recruitment marketing

Measure by program and intake, monthly: inquiries by source, reply time, follow-up engagement, event attendance, applications started and completed, offers, deposits and first-day enrollments, with the rate between each pair of stages and the cost per enrolled student by channel. The stage with the largest drop is the next thing to fix. Join the marketing platforms to the admissions system by program and by person, because a funnel measured in two systems that do not match is not measured. Our guide to social media marketing for schools and universities covers the channel that feeds the top of this funnel without ad spend.

If you want it built with you

PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. Our campaign service and follow-up flows service pages cover the campaigns and the flows, built with consent and tracking in place, and our education industry page list the sectors we work with. For edtech companies selling to institutions and learners, see our guide to edtech marketing strategy. This guide is general information, not legal advice; the rules of your country, state and province apply, and your counsel has the last word.

Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.