Evaluating Student Recruitment Success: The Metrics That Matter

Do you know what kind of metrics you should take into consideration throughout your student recruitment campaigns? If you don’t have marketing experts on your team, it can be difficult to identify the numbers that matter. Not to mention that in addition to measurable results, there are dimensions of performance success that are quite subjective. So, what should you be looking at while driving your prospective students down the funnel? How to optimize the journey towards the ultimate goal of enrolment?

Here are some tips on each step from the ETN Focus Marketing team:

Step 1: Awareness and opinion of the studying abroad in general, studying abroad in particular countries, studying abroad in a specific country

Important metrics:

• Views on social media platforms of the university
• Unique fans on social media platforms of university and websites related to topics
• Viewers who saw the content about studies abroad on television/radio/online services
• Number of social conversations (i.e. trending hashtags related to adequate keywords)
• Engagement statistics (how many people shared the content, commented, liked it or showed other forms of appreciation)
• Number of articles on the topic online in different languages
• Current trends in study abroad: how many students are going abroad, from where and to which countries?

Step 2: Considering studying abroad and making a preference to study in the particular country

Important metrics:

• Number of people who visit your website and focus on the particular articles representing economic, cultural and other topics
• Number of downloads of your free ebooks and other exclusive content
• Subscriptions to your mailing list (as well unsubscribes!)
• Number of people who sign up to your online courses
• Positive reviews about the university on social media and other websites
• Number of students who are willing to become (or decline to be) alumni ambassadors and agree to be filmed or share their opinion on the university for websites, video clips and other spaces.
• Current trends in travel: what kind of countries are currently considered to be very interesting, safe, entertaining or generally have great features?

Step 3: Enrolling at the institution

Important metrics:

• Applications submitted after deadlines
• Applications from a specific country
• Poorly written applications
• Number of students that get accepted to the university but do not study after all.

All of these statistics will bring a more holistic view about your current situation. Furthermore, they will provide insights how to cater to the needs of students that can be a good match for your institution.

Of course, the list is not complete – there are even more details to consider, but those depend on particular situations and particular institutions.

Analysing those metrics will help you identify what parts of your current communication and recruitment strategies you could improve, so you can see your target students turning into actual enrolments as soon as possible!

What are the metrics you follow in your student recruitment efforts? How do you measure your success? We will be happy to learn about your experience!