Your KPIs are wrong: Why higher ed. recruitment campaigns need the 1-2 punch of demand generation & capture.

For your prospective students’ attention, you’re always competing: with their TikTok feeds, their group text messages with friends — and your competitors’ recruitment campaigns. To get their eyes on your efforts, and then to have your message resonate enough to compel them to engage is… a feat.
You likely turn to customer relationship management (CRM) data to help you keep track of which channels are successes, so you can funnel your budget to the ones that are contributing the most to recruiting metrics.
But if you’re solely relying on your CRM to tell you what to do in your next campaign, stop.
Using derivative data from your CRM to inspire and inform your digital approach is only half the equation and it unfairly favours the channels that are the final touchpoint for a prospective student. The other half of a great recruitment campaign considers all other touchpoints and requires a more qualitative approach to measure.
Whether you’re recruiting grad students or enticing incoming freshmen, you can’t afford not to have a well-rounded recruitment strategy. In today’s ultra-competitive higher ed. landscape, you need to reach — and stand out to — every prospective student you possibly can, on their preferred channels. Once they know who you are, it is critical to speak to their recruitment moments of intent and provide an amazing digital experience to deliver the information they need.
Demand generation and demand capture to the rescue! The ideal framework for full-funnel student recruitment campaigns.
As mentioned, CRM data unfairly favours demand capture tactics like Google Search, but this audience only represents a small fraction of an institution’s total addressable market. Demand capture considers about 10% of your prospects, The ones that are likely already convinced. By also leaning into demand generation you can reach a bigger audience earlier in the game when you have a chance of capturing their hearts and mind to convince them you’re The One. You’re casting a wider net sooner in the fishing trip and therefore netting bigger results, and yes, we’re coming over for dinner.
In this white paper you’ll learn:
- Why a combo of demand generation and demand capture works.
- The keys to effective, engagement-driving demand generation.
- How to get the most out of your demand capture efforts.
- How to measure your demand generation and demand capture success.
- Why you should pay attention to “dark social” or, the qualitative data no CRM can capture
- …and more.
Access now.