While lead scoring could be an effective tool to streamline the student conversion process, it is a “challenge to do it well” and “involves investment in people, process, and the platform to underpin it”.
During a webinar on converting student prospects by Keystone Education Group, panellists discussed how lead scoring could help build “more effective student communication” strategies – provided effort is put it to make it work.
“We’ve really been refining and honing our approach to lead scoring to ensure that those students with the strongest propensity to enrol are nurtured in a way that meets their needs and demands,” said Jennifer Parsons, product and partnerships director at UniQuest.
“Really, everything in the school should be informed by data and importantly, from the very first touch point – so how a lead is generated will impact on that student’s likelihood to go on to enrol,” she explained further.
While other panellists did agree that lead scoring could be a good way of keeping track, it was also pointed out that it cannot be focused just on the practice itself for maximum impact.
“Really, everything in the school should be informed by data”
“It’s not just scoring; it’s what you do with the score and how you respond to it is absolutely critical, because there’s no point in just scoring – it’s what exactly you’re doing to score, and how you are adjusting it and linking it to the enrolments,” said CMO at QA, Nick Miller, also participating on the panel.
Miller went on to say that it is essentially down to more contact, and using resources wisely – namely, lead scoring at the top of the funnel.
“If you want to get into the detail, then lead scoring and looking at your data, your own conversion rates is really critical. We look at them by region, by program and by university partners, because some partners have different rates to others,” he added.
When asked about the difficulties that arise with factors such as English language requirements, and about the idea of possible disregard for leads with low scoring, Parsons insisted it is a matter of “dealing with them differently”.
“You have to have an understanding that maybe those ones that have a lower propensity to enrol… you use more mass communication tools with them and perhaps you’re trying to engage them through email marketing,” she explained.
“If the student hasn’t provided huge amounts of communication details, maybe not as qualified, it’s really the interactions you have with that student that will mean you understand how qualified they are.
“Quite often, once you engage them, you realise that actually they’re just early on in their consideration journey,” she added.
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