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Harness the Power of Sophomore/Junior Search

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The following is excerpted from a blog by Spark451, a Jenzabar Company. 

Working in higher education right now can feel like the floor is lava and you’re not sure where to stand. With institutions rethinking pricing strategy, an increase in faculty and student burnout causing schools to refocus on supporting the mental and physical health of their communities, and outdated marketing materials that don’t match updated brands, it’s time to rethink how you plan to communicate with a new crop of eager young minds.

It All Begins With an Effective Sophmore/Junior Search

In our recent College-Bound Student Survey for the Class of 2028,60% of students indicated that they began to look seriously at college before the summer entering their senior year.

Building early brand awareness is the foundation upon which you can expand your funnel and attract a wider pool. Being familiar with your institution is a prerequisite for students’ curiosity: When surveyed, almost 40% of the Class of 2028 said they would not open an email from a college if they had never heard of it. So, how can you make sure they’ve heard of your institution — and know how to feel about it?

Step 1: Figure Out With Whom You'd Like to Connect

What kind of students do you want to enroll? Where are they? What are their interests? Answering these questions might seem like a daunting task, but using tools like Spark451’s Purchase Modeling and Predictive Modeling can help you prioritize where to invest your budgets and efforts. By analyzing your institution’s historical data and comparing it with national enrollment trends, we can help you make a strategic name purchase, and then, assign a score to those names ranking the likelihood of their enrollment.

Step 2: Plan for Where You'll Reach Them

Multi-channel communication plans are the most effective tools for building brand awareness. To start, introducing yourself through digital media is an excellent way to gain passive engagement. Having a presence on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat — or even better, running ads on these channels — is an excellent way to be noticed and remembered.

Of course, email will be the primary vehicle to tell the story of your institution and what it has to offer. 98% of students noted that they used email for their communication during their college search, with mailed materials (68%) and texting (65%) coming in as the next most popular channels. Reflective of this, students ranked email as their preferred communication method, with traditional mail coming in second and texting coming in third. (Also, 37% of respondents noted they were OK with receiving texts anytime!)

Once you’ve established which channels you’re going to cover, it’s time to lean on your admissions counselors. High school visits and college fairs are the best time to connect with sophomores and juniors in their natural habitat. To get the most out of those visits, pair data insights from your communications with the student names you purchased (and potentially scored) to get a better idea of where your team should be traveling. And don’t forget to equip your counselors with a list of students from each school who have received and/or engaged with your communications. Doing so will help them make personalized connections and leave a good impression on the students you’re looking to recruit — a recipe for success! (When was the last time you updated your giveaway and travel materials? We can help with that, too! Read more about that here.)

Another way to build relationships is to offer specific on-campus visit opportunities for sophomores and juniors. After all, 28% of the students we surveyed indicated that they knew their chosen school was right for them upon visiting campus, so any way you can get students to your campus will likely result in a boost in enrollment. A “Tips for College Admissions” workshop could be a great way to garner interest from sophomores and their parents/guardians. For juniors, focusing more on your campus, scholarships, academic opportunities, etc. may be more appropriate.

For steps 3-4, you can read the full article here!

 

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