avoiding the transfer trap: best practices for transfer student engagement

Avoiding the Transfer Trap: Best Practices for Transfer Student Outreach & Engagement

Introductions & BackgroundTransfer Research Findings

Best Practices for Brand Building, Capturing Interest, and Engaging Prospects

Today’s Agenda

connects with students from high school through college Scholarship

Matching

College Counseling

Career Discovery

Internship & Job Matching

Rent or buy [e]textbooks

Transfer & Grad School

Matching College

Matching Flashcards & Test Prep

HIGH SCHOOL COLLEGE POST COLLEGE

Tutoring Study Tools & Tutoring

Confidential Material – Chegg Inc. © 2005 - 2015. All Rights Reserved.

75% of U.S. College Bound High School Students 50% of U.S. College Students

15M+ Students* reached

52/48 % Female/Male

700,000+ Social media followers

*U.S. College Bound High School & College Students Source: Data as of December 2014. Other sources include Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Chegg Reaches

9M Monthly visits

71% 18-24

10 minutes Average time on site

Chegg by the Numbers

Qualified students with an active and demonstrated interest in your school

Best-fit matches who are actively searching and need to hear from you

Chegg has the largest opt-in database of students actively researching schools.

Over Half current college

students in the US (1/3 enrolled in a community college)

#CheggTransfer

Current recruitment practices

Ad agency Fairs Community College visits

Website Traditional list buys #CheggTransfer

Survey Methodology

•  Survey conducted in February 2015 among random sample of Chegg students enrolled at a community college

•  Total respondents = 668

#CheggTransfer

Demographics of Respondents

40% 14% 27%

9% 1% Caucasian/White African American/Black Hispanic/Latino

Asian & Pacific Islander Native American

Ethnicity Breakdown

Time Commitment Gender Breakdown

36 States Represented

67% 33% female male

8% More than 1 Race

25% 60 or more credits earned

71% enrolled full time

70% enrolled at least 2 years

#CheggTransfer

Why Community College?

#CheggTransfer

Why Choose Community College? Why did you choose to attend the school you are

currently attending? (select all that apply)

Cost

I wasn't ready for a four year school

I was not accepted to my first choice four year school

Wanted to be close to home

Other (please specify)

#CheggTransfer

Financing

0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0%

Work/study program

Military benefits

Scholarship

Student loans

Grant (e.g. Pell grant)

My parents/other family members are contributing

I am working and contributing my own income

Financial aid/FASFA

How are you currently paying for college?

#CheggTransfer

What are your Goals?

0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0% 100.0%

Earn a certificate

Learn a new skill/trade

Fulfill requirements to apply to a graduate program

Establish a good GPA (since my early college GPA was not strong)

Fulfill my general interest in learning/continuing education

Establish a good GPA (since my high school GPA was not strong)

Receive my AA/AS Degree

Fulfill requirements to transfer to a 4-year school

What are your goals at your current school?

#CheggTransfer

What does this mean?

•  Students understand that community college can be a great way to save money on their education

•  The majority of students enroll at a community college with plans to finish a 4-year degree •  Make the transfer credit process as easy as possible!

TIP: Focus your recruitment messaging on affordability and “finishing what you started” to show students that their hard work WILL pay off!

#CheggTransfer

Transfer Plans

#CheggTransfer

Intent to transfer

8/10 Respondents who are likely to

transfer in the next 2 years

66% Students who are unsure

where they want to transfer to

#CheggTransfer

Half of respondents began considering transfer opportunities before even starting at their current school, 61% knew they’d transfer before enrolling.

#CheggTransfer

Transfers are Secret Shoppers

50% of transfers will not identify themselves to colleges before applying

Sources: Building Your Transfer Outreach Action Plan, Chegg, 2015

Half of transfer students are planning to apply to between 2-4 schools, 1/3 know the one school they are applying to.

#CheggTransfer

71% of students plan to transfer to a school in the same state as their community college, nearly 1/3 planning to stay in the same city.

#CheggTransfer

Information gathering

#CheggTransfer

Ways students expect to get info

0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0%

Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)

Friends/Family

College fairs

Brochures/mail from colleges

Advisor at my current school

College review sites (e.g., Niche, Chegg, US News)

Visit the campus

School specific websites (www.schoolname.edu)

Online search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo!, Bing)

Online sources are top resource for prospective

transfer students

#CheggTransfer

Most Valuable Resources

potential transfer students prefer doing their research online

Compared to respondents preferring to receive information

via direct mail

VS.

#CheggTransfer

Resources being used

•  74% of students use search engines like Google to start their search, bringing them to college search sites and your .edu

•  The top “offline” resource for college information continues to be the campus visit (not college fairs)

•  About 1/3 of students expect to get information about possible schools to apply through brochures

#CheggTransfer

Recommendations

•  Employ a strong digital recruitment strategy focusing on building your brand as well as engaging students with a demonstrated interest

•  Own your backyard – Most students are going to finish their 4-year

degree in the same state and/or city as their community college

•  Shift the resources spent on outdated tactics like community college fairs to digital channels used by students today

#CheggTransfer

Recommended Strategies

Inquiries and Matches Connect with students who are researching your school

and schools like yours at the height of their interest.

Qualified students with an active and demonstrated interest in your school

Best-fit matches who are actively searching and need to hear from you

Chegg has the largest opt-in database of students actively researching schools.


Chegg Cloud

Inquiries

•  Reach 8/10 college-bound students actively researching schools across the web on the most popular college search sites.

•  Focus resources on students who have actively “raised their hand” an expressed an interest in you.

•  Respond to students at the height of their interest, not when they have to take a standardized test.

Cloud Connect students who have raised their hand to be

contacted by your institution.

18 sites & apps and growing!


Chegg Match+

•  Identify and reach students who have not yet indicated an interest in you, but based on their profile and schools they are interested in should be.

•  Recruit students with “more than a test score” and use real-time web behavior and consideration sets.

What if we could harness the behavioral data from students as

they search for schools to find the perfect matches for

your school?

Chegg User Behavior Data

Chegg CloudData

Science of Match+

Sophisticated algorithms analyze millions of data points submitted by students and collected during

their visits to our network to identify those that are the best fit

for your institution.

AcademicPerformance

GradYear

Geography

Transfer Match+ fined tuned to meet your admissibility criteria

Gender

Behavioral Interest in

Similar Schools

Retargeting Reach students minutes after they express interest

in your school.


Retargeting •  Reach students minutes after they have expressed interest in your school.

•  Reinforce your brand across the web, focusing impressions only on students with an interest in you.

•  Create clear calls to action to engage, inform, and remind your prospective students.

introducing a new way to reach students minutes

after they begin the admissions process.

Retargeting

The Undecided Student

Location-Based Mobile Advertising

Introducing a New Way to Reach Students On-the-Go

Students are always in motion. Your targeting should be too…

Recruit students through location-based mobile targeting that focuses on real-time activity and the highest engaged areas.

Dynamic geo-fence focuses media on the locations that show the strongest performance.

Standard Geo-fence Chegg Geo-fence

Reach Students at Specific Locations

2-YEAR SCHOOL

CAMPUS CENTER

COLLEGE LIBRARY

Mobile media is optimized to reach students based on their location history.

Create a Unique Student Profile

Mobile banners and interstitials drive to the brand’s mobile site or a custom branded landing page.

Custom landing page features dynamic content aligned with the student’s location.

Driving Directions

Dynamic Maps

More Info

Click to Call Video

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Sample Network

Recruit Students On-the-Go with Chegg •  Reach transfer students on 2-year

campuses •  Target high school students in

specific markets •  Connect with students as they visit

your campus

Ad agency Traditional List Buys

Community College Visits

Fairs

website

Efficient Outreach

#CheggTransfer

Download the OrangeNotes!

http://edu.chegg.com/downloads

Save Time

Save Money

Recruit Smarter

avoiding the transfer trap: best practices for transfer student engagement

Education