How a small public University improved enrollment by breaking down internal operating silos, March 2009

Due to the sensitive nature of research findings and the political nature of schools, the names and location have been changed.

The School: A Small Public University

This University has a main campus, satellites, and approximately 10,000 students. It is located in the Western U.S. and is probably typical of most small Universities or large Community Colleges in North America. This school, while a secondary player in the region, has a great reputation with the student population as delivering high quality education and being progressive in student services.

The Situation: Budgets cut and no one wants to talk about it.

The North American economy was starting to decay in 2008, Nancy B, the Director of Marketing for our case study school was worried. While the number of leads coming into the school was decent enough, she knew there was probably a trough ahead.

Those who controlled the budgets ‘from up above’ were making noise about tightening budgets. Block funding sources were talking about something new – revenue claw backs if enrollment targets were not met. Nancy started getting this pit in her stomach as she realized, the nature of the funding squeeze and claw backs was going to change her business model to that of a for profit college by proxy. Her school ‘had’ to perform in terms of enrollment targets or operating budgets for programs would start to contract, FTE’s would be lost and the quality of the offering would eventually degrade.

To make matters worse there was a general culture of non-communication among Marketing, Admissions, and IT departments, even though the fundamentals of Enrollment Management require these three groups to work closely together. Nancy was on her own. How could she help prevent a possible decrease in Enrollments, or at least keep them stable?

Nancy started looking for an objective set of eyes to assess the problem. She started downloading information on new and improved ideas for enrollment management.

Enrollment Resources piqued her interest, and she downloaded their free white paper on “Marketing Secrets of Top Performing Schools”. Nancy says Enrollment Resources is the only company whose website she visited that called her and asked if they could help. One other company did call, but only tried to sell her product. In her words:

“Enrollment Resources was willing to talk to spend time and listen to what I perceived to be the issues of the day at my school; to find out more about the University without requiring a contract right away. They showed interest in the school.”

The Process: Get back in touch with Reality

Nancy wanted an assessment of the University’s enrollment management process from a strategic marketing point of view. Enrollment Resources, in her words, “spent a lot of time in conversation with us, and put together matrices that provided benchmarks on marketing activities the University was undertaking and how that mix of activity compared against industry best practices. ER also ran a mystery shop, to see how well we were getting our message out and how responsive we were to servicing leads. We also ran a Refer-ability survey, to see if graduates were willing to refer others. Much of the information gained from the surveys validated my thoughts, but it was really helpful to have solid numbers as proof. Now we have a solid action plan.

The Findings: Operational Silos Costing Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

The students are incredibly loyal and big fans of the school and are pleased with the standards of education delivery. Volumes and quality of lead generation was working pretty well, although had room for improvement. However, issues surfaced that would quickly need some attention:

• Marketing needed more control over the website in order properly target messaging and build, over time a stronger, more coherent online brand image
• Advertising effectiveness needed to be measured more accurately and in a more timely fashion
• The Admissions process needed to tighten up in several specific areas so as to create a deeper customer service culture
• Marketing needed access to enrollment management Key Performance Indicators in order to understand lead sources and where in the admissions process conversion rates suffered
• Program leaders did not attempt to systematically develop relationships with Prospective Students who were slow in making decisions (stale leads). Transactional vs. relationship and community building culture
• $732,000 within the Enrollment Management process was identified by Enrollment Resources as either being wasted or revenues were left on the table due to inefficiencies, mistaken efforts, or missed opportunities

The Benefits

After only two weeks since the submission of the Enrollment Resources scanning document, operational silos are starting to break down in favor of the four major areas within the Universities Enrollment Management group, Admissions, Marketing, I.T. and some Academic Department Heads. There is an opportunity for the stakeholders to work more closely, developing a seamless and effective system from lead generation through to lead conversion and student retention.

Armed with the findings generated by Enrollment Resources, the VPs of the involved departments are now collaborating, in turn creating the University’s first inter-departmental Enrollment Management strategy and action plan. Making use of the identified opportunities for improvement culled from the Enrollment Resources Scan, Marketing, I.T. Admissions and some Academic Department Heads are now working on one issue from several directions, sharing information in the process. If this new culture of collaboration continues, spin off benefits will continue for years.

Working with Enrollment Resources: In Nancy B’s words

“They’ve been great. They had a lot of ideas, and a lot of background. They’ve already been down this road with so many other universities. They showed you some new things you hadn’t thought of before. Everybody there is really open, FULL of ideas, so many ideas!! They have a great grasp of the global perspective, from the overall vantage point of the whole University.

For the cost of doing this – and it’s not excessive at all, well within a very small budget – the outcome will more than pay for itself.”