3 Ways to Engage Families & Minimize Melt
Optimize Yield. Make Your Class.
Encoura’s newest predictive model, Yield+™, is a machine-learning admit-to-enroll model that identifies opportunities to improve yield performance. Identify students who will enroll with additional support from admissions staff.
TRANSCRIPT – click video above to watch.
Hi. My name is Chris Tyburski, vice president for higher education consulting here at Encoura, and I'm bringing you today's enrollment.
Our Eduventures research shows that both parents and students agree—parents and families play a critical role in the college decision making process. They think a little bit differently than students do though, with a lot of their focus being on cost and reputation.
So let's talk about how you can engage families effectively to make sure that the students you're recruiting end up in your classes this fall.
Here are three quick bullet points to get you started communicating with families for maximum effectiveness.
First, collect their contact information as early as possible so that you can get ahead of your competition in communicating with them. If you don't have it already, create an RFI form for parents on your website, and continually make sure that you are prompting the student to get their parents' information to you.
Second, create a distinct communication plan for parents and family members separate from the one that you're sending the students.
And three, make sure that that communication plan is filled with content specifically tailored to parents' questions and their preferences. Things like reputation, cost, important next steps, make sure that they understand that you are there to support them and don't leave them with any questions in their mind about whether or not you're the right choice for their student.
Parents and families are critical in recruiting students. So no matter where you are in the recruitment process, make sure that you are collecting parent contact information, creating a specific communication plan for families and parents separate from that of your students, and make sure that you're getting the right messaging for parents at the right time.
Make them trust you, make them feel supported, make them want to send their students to you. Good luck.
