Sqore®

Student MarketingReport 2017 Insights in student decision-making

It’s time to understand students’ decision-making process We know that students start to think about the

next step in their academic careers as early as two years before they plan to actually start their studies. But the most intensive stages of the decision-making process begin around a year before. And that’s when universities can really insert themselves into the process and win over the prospective students they need.

We also know that:

• Most international students start to seriously consider graduate

programs abroad a few months before starting their last

undergrad year.

• Research* show that students select a program first, and then a

country and a university to attend. Additionally, program rankings

are more important to students than institutional rankings or

fees.

• Prospective students want to interact with schools that they’re interested in on visual social media sites, and overall want to see

visual lifestyle and student experience content.

To increase ROI, it’s key to understand students’ decision-making

process, and to know what type of messaging through which

channels will have the greatest effect at each stage of the process.

The universities that get this right are the ones that are meeting their application targets and enrolling the best students.

Read on for a quick guide to understanding students’ decision-

making process, and how to make those insights work for you to get

more out of your student marketing efforts this year.

Happy reading!

* http://services.intead.com/blog/beyond-the-data-influencing-international-student-decision-making

Mark HughesUniversity Sales Manager

Mark Hughes has 8 years of experience partnering with universities and colleges from across the globe to help them meet their admissions targets year after year. He has in-depth knowledge of the keys to successful student marketing and is passionate about connecting the best students with the right schools.

Sqore® Student Marketing Report 2017

How to get started When you start to understand when and how your prospective

students are making their decisions about which institutions to apply to, you can use that information to structure a marketing plan

that makes the most out of content investments that you’ve already

made and steers your advertising budget to the right space and

message at the right time.

Here are four quick tips to get you started.

Showcase your program first. Leverage program-specific marketing early in the process.

Advances in digital marketing, social media and online advertising

make it possible for you to be highly specific in who you target. By

narrowing your targeting to focus directly on students who are

interested in a particular university program or field of study, you get more out of your advertising budget and achieve higher ROI in

your marketing.

Use your visual digital content to connect with prospective students. How do you turn content investments into more applications in 2018?

If you’re like many other forward-thinking universities, you’re

making significant investments into digital content to showcase

student life on campus and give prospective students a reason to

apply. The trick is to present visual digital content at the right stage

of your prospective student’s decision-making process, when

they’re interested in one of your programs, and want to know more

about what it’s actually like to live and study at your university.

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Sqore® Student Marketing Report 2017

Get prospective students’ undivided attention. Position yourself in a space where you get the target audience’s full and undivided attention and then give them a real picture of what it’s like to attend your university and live as a student in your town.

This is when you turn investments in content, such as videos that showcase student life, into actual applications and enrolment.

Students today are bombarded with messaging from hundreds of

institutions. Focus your marketing budget on those online spaces

where prospective students spend a significant amount of time

interacting with only one school at a time.

Don’t relax until classes start. The student recruitment process doesn’t end with an offer of admission.

Depending on when your application deadlines are, prospective

students may be enticed to apply to - or to accept another offer of

enrollment - long after they have accepted an offer from you.

Which school a sought-after student will actually attend, depends on how the university develops and nurtures the relationship they

have with a student after an offer of admission.

This is the time to stay top of mind and build your student’s

excitement about the opportunity to attend your institution.

Get started today and let Sqore work for you throughout your next admissions cycle.

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This is Sqore® Maximize your student marketing ROI with innovative digital solutions.

Connect with us and start using Sqore®

to spark a connection with prospective students and lead them through the

decision-making process.

SqoreBrännkyrkagatan 14A11820 Stockholm, Sweden

hello@sqore.com

How Sqore® works Build your brand and attract the best students.

Engage prospective students in a challenge (a light and fun assessment test) on Sqore.com.

You choose how to structure your challenge and we’ll support you with our bank of Oxford University Press questions. Choose between “branded” multiple choice questions about your University or skills-based questions within the program’s subject area, and open-ended questions that let candidates demonstrate their motivation or problem solving approach.

Offer an exciting award, such as a scholarship or travel grant to the top-performing candidates.

Prospective students get to show you who they are and what they can do, and you get to showcase your University and study destination in the process. It’s a quick and easy process for candidates, but they will still spend around an hour interacting with only your school without any other distractions.

Let Sqore do the marketing for your challenge.

A user base of 800,000+ skilled candidates, 90,000 social media followers, and 1200 international marketing partners.

You’ll have a lot of participants in your challenge.

Sqore’s back-end makes it easy to identify top performers and invite them to take the next step and submit an application to your institution.

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