In last week's blog, I wrote about the 7 common content mistakes causing leaks in your conversion funnel. This week I've changed gears to talk about some common leaks caused by internal processes.
That's not to say that technology and systems aren't important, but we have found that all too often technology is seen as a silver bullet solution to conversion, which fails to deliver its full potential because the supporting processes have not been optimised.
Addressing the 6 issues listed below will help create a high-performing conversion funnel to drive your recruitment process.
1. Objectives and KPIs are NOT aligned across teams.
All too often the various functions involved in the end-to-end conversion journey operate with unique objectives and KPIs related to the internal efficiency of their function, rather than the external benefit of the prospective students.
Often representatives from Marketing, Recruitment, Admissions, Finance, IT, and the Faculties are involved in the end-to-end conversion process, with each team operating to their own functional objectives and KPIs.
This can generate gaps and breakpoints in the prospective student experience, which in an increasingly competitive environment can hand the advantage to competing institutions, who better meet the prospects' needs at that point in their journey.
Facilitating the development of shared objectives and KPIs for everyone involved in the end-to-end student journey can transform the student experience, closing gaps and eliminating breakpoints to improve the conversion rate.
This should include course, country, and activity priorities as well as key messages, spokespeople, and touch-points to compliment volume targets and conversion rates for each stage of the process.
2. Systems and data are NOT integrated across the end-to-end student journey.
A lack of system and data integration throughout the end-to-end student journey can cause leaks if not carefully managed. Separate marketing CRM databases, agent databases, admissions systems, student enrolment systems can all cause breakpoints in the data flow, causing leaks in the conversion funnel.
Conversion is like a relay race and requires a smooth transfer of data from system to system to avoid dropping any students. Identifying gaps in data transfer will identify a leak from the conversion funnel and an opportunity to improve the conversion rate.
3. Cross-functional roles and responsibilities are unclear.
Each function involved in the student's conversion journey naturally focuses on delivering their institutionally-driven priorities. This can create uncertainty in who's responsible for certain steps in the conversion funnel.
Typically it's clear who owns the key activities of a successful progression from the end-to-end process. But it can become less clear who owns the follow-up activity when things don't go smoothly. For example who's responsible for following up with unsuccessful applicants to see if there is another course or entry pathway that might better meet their circumstances?
4. No conversion dashboard and regular cross-functional review.
2020 has reminded us all that the market can change rapidly. From changes in demand for different courses from different countries to competitor activity (e.g. increasing agent bonuses and student scholarships), a lot can change in a few months.
Even a successful conversion funnel can't be left on "set and forget", it needs to be reviewed each month cross-functionally to see how it's performing, what's changed, and where there are opportunities to improve.
The development of a shared dashboard (see point #1), enables everyone involved to focus on the key issues and understand their role (see point #3) in constantly improving the process.
5. Student feedback is not sort throughout their journey.
We hear many tech companies talk about their customer obsession in the press, but how many higher education institutions are constantly checking in with their prospective students throughout the conversion journey?
While lost student surveys at the end of the process are helpful, their results are retrospective and fail to identify timely improvements throughout the year. Seeking feedback at each stage of the process can create a valuable source of feedback to help you create a student preferred conversion journey for your institution, (reducing the reliance on price discounting).
Were they able to find the information they wanted quickly and easily on the website, did the event they attended answer their key questions, do they have further questions they would like to ask? Knowing the answer to all of these questions would enable you to strengthen your conversion engine.
6. A touchpoint other than the main website acts as the source of truth.
With prospective students engaging with so many interactions and touch-points during their conversion journey, it's hard to ensure each touchpoint is optimised with the right message, for the right student, at the right time.
Creating a single source of truth is critically important to ensure that whether it is a webinar, email, or collateral, the student is being presented with the most engaging message for the stage of their journey by a broad range of people from different functions.
Because a website can be easily kept up to date, it's the perfect format for the single source of truth, easily shared cross-functionally.
We use global best practice frameworks and our cross-industry experience to bring fresh thinking to increase higher education conversion and enrolments.
We would welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can help you to fix the leaks in your conversion funnel and drive enrolments.
After all, there is no point in generating leads if you can’t convert them.
John Chatterton
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