Encoura

Search and Shape Your Class

Level 1: What Is Search?

Audience: Those new to enrollment


Level 2: Evaluate the Effectiveness of Your Current Student Search Strategy

Audience: 1-2 years of enrollment experience


Level 3: Solidify a Search Strategy That Grows Your Enrollment

Audience: 2+ years of enrollment experience


Level 4: Shape an Incoming Class That Achieves Your Institutional Goals

Audience: Seasoned enrollment leaders


Level 5: Lead Your Institution To Excel in Your Markets

Audience: Expert enrollment leaders

Is your institution ready to maximize your search strategy and become the leader of your markets? This action plan empowers enrollment leaders to quickly and easily understand everything from the basics of student search to how to masterfully outshine your competitors in their own markets. 

Whether you’re a new enrollment professional or more seasoned, we’ve got you covered. Using the table of contents above, start at the level that best suits where you’re ready to glean new strategies.

Level 1

What is Search?

What Is Search?

Every enrollment strategy starts with one question: Where do I find students to build my class? The answer begins with search.

Search is the process of identifying and connecting with students who may be a good fit for your institution and more importantly, search can empower you to stop guessing and start recruiting with purpose – using data to reach the students who matter most. 

The first step? Acquiring student names. 

How Do I Acquire Names and Does It Work?

Prospective student information is collected through college planning assessments, surveys, and academic platforms. These records can include key information like academic interests, geographic location, and graduation year. Search providers make this data available to your enrollment and marketing teams, so you can reach out before students even apply.

But not all student data is equal and the more informed you are about the process, the easier it will be to find the right names for your school. Things to keep in mind when acquiring prospect names:

  1. Data quality matters. You need to know how students got into the database, what permissions they’ve given, and whether the information is recent and reliable. 
  2. What are you getting? It sounds simple, but be sure you are receiving all the details your marketing team will need to run successful campaigns.

Tip: Ask how often the database is updated and from what sources. 

Encoura’s Combined Data Set is continuously updated and contains nearly 8 million student profiles – sourced from our college & career planning program, Encourage®, and ACT® – to search and shape your best classes year over year. This allows you to spend your budget on students who are more likely to engage.

What Happens After I Acquire Names?

Once you’ve acquired names, the work begins. You’ll load the data into your CRM, begin marketing campaigns, and start recruiting. The challenge is knowing who is most likely to engage and ultimately enroll. That’s where tools like lead scoring and interest signals like email clicks, Request-For-Information (RFI) form completions, and “Learn More” requests come in.

Smarter Search With Predictive Modeling

Many institutions start by relying on historical data to prioritize names. But to really get a full picture of your prospects, predictive modeling can take your data to the next level. Encoura uses a machine learning-based predictive model to score every student in our database based on their likelihood to enroll at your institution, not just general behaviors.

This model allows you to:

  • Acquire smarter (see predictive score band volumes before you acquire, not after, so you can spend your budget on students most likely to enroll)
  • Focus resources on high-potential students throughout the funnel
  • Optimize your campaigns – for example, sending a postcard or digital ad only to high-scoring students or tailoring incentives to drive action

For a quick breakdown of predictive modeling, check out this short Enrollminute™ video.

Source: Monthly Enrollminute With Chris Tyburski

Ready To Take Action?

Search is your gateway to building a stronger enrollment funnel – but not just by doing more. By using the right data and insights, you can take control of your enrollment strategy from the jump. At Encoura, our Combined Data Set and Smart+® Predictive Model make that possible.

Now that you have a solid understanding of how student search works, continue on to level two in this action plan to start evaluating your school’s current strategy.

Page Divider

Interested in Smarter Search?

Learn more about our Smart+ solution and how our Combined Data Set can help you connect with the right students from the start.

Search Smarter

View the full “ Maximizing Your ROI on Search Part II: Bringing Search In-House” webinar here.

(If you have low bandwidth for search or marketing, you can still bring your search in-house by running automated continuous search or teaming up with a consultant. Encoura Regional Directors and Enrollment Consultants have decades of search experience with proven success!)

What Other Search Strategy Options Should I Consider?

Whether you decide to bring search in-house this year or continue partnering with an outside vendor, there are some small strategies you can implement for a big impact.

Leverage Predictive Models

We’ll get into more details about predictive model options at Level 4, but one of the most effective ways to save time and money while strengthening your funnel is to use a prospect-to-enrollment predictive model. This technology works as a filter to narrow down your possible student record purchases to only those students who are most likely to enroll in your institution. 

Encoura partners use the Smart+® predictive model to ensure they are focusing on connecting with the right students and have achieved strong enrollment increases as a result. (This model boosts your ROI by revealing search score volumes before you commit to acquiring them.)

Level 2

Evaluate the Effectiveness of Your Current Strategy

The first step to setting a search strategy for the year is having a clear understanding of what you have been doing in recent years. 

Review Your Current Search Strategy

Have you been working with an outside vendor for student search or running your search fully in-house? Let’s discuss both below.

Understand Your Vendor’s Strategy

If you work with a vendor or agency, it’s possible that you may not know how your representative there has been choosing which students to acquire for your school. 

In the case that your school works with a vendor, ask for an annual report and strategy summary to get a historical outlook of your search. This information should include a profile of previous acquisitions (e.g., graduation years, geography, academic profiles, etc.) and the parameters or filters they are using in their searches for you.

If you are an Encoura member, you will have access to all Encoura searches through Class Planner® on the Encoura Platform.

Understand Your In-House Search Strategy

If you run search internally, ask your admissions data processing or operations staff to pull the raw files of your original acquired student lists so that you can discern where your student search has been focused — including student demographics, interests, or geography.

Evaluate Your Current Search Strategy

Once you have your search strategy pinpointed, it’s time to evaluate what’s working and what’s not. 

Understand Source Acquisition

Let’s start by looking at your first source, or where you first acquired each student record. Evaluate how those sources are performing for you at the top and the bottom of the funnel. Ask yourself if the cost is worth it for each vendor. 

Insights Cloud™ in the Encoura Platform reveals funnel performance by prospect source.

Tip: You can easily track and assess how each of your sources is performing in your funnel with Insights Cloud™.

Consider Bringing Search In-House

After you’ve done a vendor spend analysis, it’s time to decide if it makes sense to bring it in-house. If the cost or funnel performance is not ideal, consider taking full ownership of your search. 

Ask yourself: 

  • Can my CRM handle a large volume of data? 
  • Is it set up to organize data points to student profiles (e.g., funnel stage coding and student interest/mindset)?
  • Do you have a communications plan set up to market to your acquired students? 

If you answered yes to all, you could strongly boost your ROI and strategies by taking control of your student search. Start by ensuring you have the time and resources needed to take full ownership or if you need to take a tiered approach that begins with senior search and then ties in your junior and sophomore searches over the next few enrollment cycles. 

Once planned out, continue by choosing databases that have performed well for you in the past and/or use predictive models that show you how likely students are to enroll in your specific institution before you acquire names.  

Check out the clip below to hear the top four reasons why Marquette University chose to bring its search in-house. 

With Encoura's Smart+, we could pinpoint where our students are coming from, the ones most likely to enroll, and the populations we need to focus on most. We also saw a massive jump in applications and admitted students from states we strategically focused on – well over 15%.

Executive Director of Recruitment & Admissions, Fort Valley State University

Tip: Acquire top-scoring Smart+ students even if no email address is attached to them and send them your print outreach. These records are bought less often meaning you are competing against less colleges for these top students! 

Connect With Families

When you are acquiring student lists, don’t forget to get their parent/guardian information too! Families are more engaged in this generation’s college searches, so ensure you are getting their information (like through Encoura’s double-validated parent email addresses).

Take the Next Step

Once you feel confident in your understanding of how your institution has been conducting student searches – and in your decision to partner with a vendor or bring search in-house – check out Level 3 below. We’ll discuss how to create a search strategy that goes beyond sustaining enrollment to surpassing your goals.

Page Divider

Boost Enrollment by Searching Students in Class Planner®

Begin your search with confidence. With the largest sole-source database, you can access nearly 8 million students, as well as parents/guardians, while leveraging predictive modeling and 35 strategic filters to shape your class and make your enrollment goals.

Let's Search
Level 3

Solidify a Search Strategy That Grows Your Enrollment

Once you have a solid understanding of your institution’s current search strategy (see Level 2), it’s time to examine how you can strengthen your strategy to grow enrollment year over year.

The number one way to set your team up for future enrollment success is to build your pipeline sooner. Today’s best practice involves connecting with students – and their families – as early as possible. 

Connect With Students & Families Early

Our Prospective Parent Research™ by Eduventures® found that about half of all parents/guardians are already considering colleges for their students by ninth grade. For parents of students with access factors (i.e., low-income, first-generation, or an underserved minority member), this number jumps even higher. 

Source: The Eduventures 2025 Prospective Parent Research

Ensure that you are finding ways to get in touch with these college search influencers early. One easy way? Check out Encoura’s parent/guardian email addresses that are double-validated to assure you’re reaching family members who want to hear from you.

Tip: Check out our family engagement action plan for the most effective strategies for connecting with and engaging families.

In addition to parents/guardians beginning the college search early, the next generation of college students is known for their strong brand loyalty. This means that the earlier you can authentically connect with these students, the better your opportunity to get them to identify with your brand and see themselves on your campus. 

If your college is not currently acquiring student lists for younger high school students, start planning how you can budget to get these sophomore and junior records.

Set Up Your Engagement Plan for Success

Next, make sure you are prepared to engage these students. Build a three-year communications engagement plan to keep your school top of mind for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. 

Take care to integrate customization like the Eduventures Student Mindsets™, engaging subject lines, and geo-specific segmentations to ensure that you stay relevant with today’s high schoolers who expect personalization in marketing messages. The next generation of students also values authenticity and connection, so integrating the voices of your current students and faculty will go a long way to building loyalty.

If designing and implementing a segmented communication plan for three years of students seems overwhelming, start by owning your senior communications and outsourcing your marketing to early high school students. Plan out how you can use the next few years to take ownership of juniors and sophomores at a manageable pace. 

Move Beyond Search

If you feel comfortable with your search strategy and have set yourself up for multi-year success by solidifying a search and engagement plan for sophomores through seniors, you’re ready to move on to Level 4. Continue on in this action plan to learn how to move past acquiring broad lists of students to strategically shaping your incoming classes.

Page Divider

Spark Interest. Build Awareness. Expand Your Funnel.

Encoura's team will help you reach the right students with personalized, data-driven campaigns that spark curiosity and drive engagement. Through a strategic mix of digital outreach, email, direct mail, and behavioral insights, we'll help you generate interest and find students that fit your institution.

Enrollment Marketing Solutions
Level 4

Shape a Class That Achieves Your Institutional Goals

By now, you’ve laid the groundwork: you understand how search works, you've evaluated your current strategy, and you’ve taken steps to grow your funnel. Now it’s time to think bigger.

This next level is about shaping – not just filling – your incoming class. It’s about aligning enrollment strategies with institutional goals: growing specific academic programs, shifting your demographics, pursuing designations like HSI, or expanding your geographic reach.

In short: this is where enrollment strategy becomes institutional strategy.

Start With the Big Picture

This level often starts with a directive from leadership:

“We need more students in X program.”

“We want to improve our academic profile.”

“We’re aiming to serve more [insert population].”

These aren’t short-term fixes. They’re long-term goals. And shaping a class to meet them requires alignment across teams, access to the right tools, and a deep understanding of your market.

Start by asking:

  • What are our institutional priorities over the next 3–5 years?
  • What kinds of students are we trying to serve (and how might that differ from the past)?
  • Are there current programs or populations we want to grow and are we resourced to support that growth?

Use Market Analysis To Find Your Best Opportunities

Market databases, like the publicly available IPEDS data, student-centered research, and market analysis tools, like Encoura’s Insights Cloud™, help you look beyond assumptions to see where the real opportunities are. Whether you're launching a new academic program or trying to reach more students from a certain demographic or GPA band, you need to know:

  • Where are those students?
  • What else are they interested in?
  • What’s the competition doing?

Tip: In Encoura’s Class Planner®, you can even identify related fields to help expand your acquisition strategy. (Students often select more than one major interest, so acquiring names broadly within a cluster helps you capture overlap.)

Student-focused research can often help answer these questions, including where students with specific academic or college-type interests are concentrated geographically and where their interests overlap. For example, the table below reveals Eduventures’ findings of the top alternative interests for students considering common majors. Keep these in mind when filtering your searches. 

Health Professions (18%) Business (14%) Engineering (12%) Biology (10%) Computer Sciences (5%)
Another Health Professions Major (27%) Another Business Major (45%) Another Engineering Major (38%) Another Biology Major (32%) Another Computer Sciences Major (26%)
Biology (21%) Social Sciences (9%) Computer Sciences (8%) Health Professions (21%) Engineering (14%)
Business (6%) Visual and Performing Arts (6%) Business (8%) Engineering (6%) Business (12%)
Psychology (6%) Computer Sciences (4%) Biology (7%) Physical Sciences (6%) Engineering Technologies (10%)
Agriculture (4%) Health Professions (3%) Physical Sciences (6%) Psychology (5%) Visual and Performing Arts (7%)

Source: The Eduventures Wake-Up Call post, “How Much Can You Trust High School Students’ Academic Interests?” 

Let’s say a faculty member believes an engineering program will solve your enrollment challenges. Rather than guessing, a market analysis can show you where engineering students are, related programs that overlap in interest, what the competitive landscape looks like, and how your institution is positioned to reach them.

Build Smarter, Not Just Bigger, Lists

Once you know who you’re trying to reach broadly, your next step is to narrow that list to target your best fit students. One option is to use predictive modeling, like Encoura’s Smart+, to identify the students most likely to enroll and succeed at your institution. Predictive modeling lets you protect your “bread and butter” while layering in filters that align with your growth goals – whether that’s academic, demographic, or geographic.

As a reminder – don’t underestimate the impact of families. Parents/guardians often drive the conversation around fit, affordability, and outcomes — all critical to your institution’s ability to enroll the right class. 

Start by acquiring parent/guardian emails alongside student records and then build content specifically for the adults and their priorities.

Your Class, Your Strategy

The most successful institutions don’t just chase numbers – they shape them. They use insights to align their search strategies with long-term institutional priorities, reaching not just more students, but the right ones.

Filter acquisition lists to align with the student profiles that match your goals. Academic filters, geographic overlays, and predictive scores work together to ensure you're spending strategically – not just broadly.

By focusing your resources on programs, populations, and regions that match your goals, and empowering families along the way, you’ll move from reactive recruiting to strategic class building.

Real-World Example: Tarleton State University

When Tarleton State University was charged by leadership with increasing new student enrollment and improving the academic profile of its incoming class, it took a deep dive into analyzing its market before deciding on its search strategy. 

After understanding who its students were and where they were coming from, Tarleton uncovered growth opportunities in several academic areas and aligned its search strategy accordingly to filter and connect with students in those areas. This approach led to an 11% increase in freshman enrollment, a 20% increase in Hispanic/Latine first-time students, and a 3-year enrollment increase of 40%.

Round Out Your Strategy

You now have the knowledge and tools to create a strong, multiyear search strategy. Continue on to the final level of this action plan to learn the last step in effectively searching and shaping your class – outperforming your competition.

Page Divider

Maximize Your Search ROI with the Smart+ Predictive Model

Smart+ from Encoura is the only predictive model that assigns a score to millions of students nationwide to determine their likelihood to enroll—all before you purchase your search list.

Get Started
Level 5

Lead Your Institution To Excel in Your Markets

As a seasoned enrollment leader, you probably have a reliable search strategy that has met your past enrollment goals. Your last step to continually surpass your enrollment goals is to surpass your competition by becoming the leader in your markets.

Combine Search & Marketing to Outperform the Competition

With the right strategies, your institution can win the hearts of students before your competition in geographical and niche markets. 

Know Your Competition

To lead your market, it’s essential to know who you’re competing against for students. While you may have an idea anecdotally of other colleges your prospective students are considering, enrollment technology like Insights Cloud™ gives insights with precise numbers of students considering you versus your competitors, as well as how many of those enroll in your institution versus theirs. You can also see specifically where these students ended up enrolling - which could be with other competitors you may not have considered. 

Insights Cloud’s Competitive Analysis shows your student interest compared to competitors (“Visibility”), as well as enrollment share, by specific markets and interests. The filters applied here show Texas students interested in fields within Engineering and Technologies.


If you’re interested in identifying your top competitors at specific high schools, turn to tools like Insights Cloud’s High School Explorer.

Insights Cloud’s High School Explorer shows with which high schools you have the most competition. Click on any of these high schools to open the high school detail page above that reveals your top competitors. 


Solidify Your Messaging

Next, pinpoint your differentiators from these competitors and ensure they are clearly communicated in your outreach. For example, if you are competing against a set of large public schools, what strengths can you promote to outshine them?

Check out this quick Enrollminute™ video to hear our VP for Higher Education Consulting share three steps to maximizing your competitive advantage. 

Source: Monthly Enrollminute by Chris Tyburski


Get Your Message in the Market

Now it’s time to get your brand in front of students in your markets. Digital marketing will be your best strategy here. Start by geofencing in areas or at events where your competitors are well known. Consider strategic feeder high schools, conferences, and competitions. 

Take Predictive Modeling to the Next Level

While you’ve likely been using a prospect-to-enroll predictive model to maximize your search ROI, there are valuable opportunities still available to you if you aren’t yet using a prospect-to-interest model to help you reach and engage new cohorts or new markets.

Use Predictive Modeling for Offense

This type of predictive model, like Encoura’s Opportunity+™, connects you to prospective students who are interested in colleges and universities similar to yours by providing an Opportunity Score for each student. 

The model empowers you to get student contact information often before competing institutions – allowing you to win student loyalty at a time when this generation is quick to attach themselves to their favorite brands.

Use Predictive Modeling as Defense

In addition to an Opportunity Score, the Opportunity+ predictive model also provides two Travel Scores for the prospective students in your search. These travel scores predict if a student is likely to travel for school – either out of state or 200+ miles from home.

While many schools use these scores to recruit students from new out-of-state markets, you can also shrewdly use this model as defense against competitors. Acquiring students in your own state who have high travel scores allows you to identify students in your primary market who may need additional support to consider staying close to home. Increase your engagement with these students to ensure they choose you over competitors they would be open to considering.

Tip: If you are an Insights Cloud™ user with Opportunity+, take advantage of your unlimited eMatch® access to fill in missing information on your prospective student lists. This information will include Opportunity and Travel scores for all those students!

Take Inspiration From Others’ Successes

The final step to becoming an expert in student search is skillfully aligning your travel, search, and digital marketing efforts. 

Schools that successfully develop and implement this advanced, cohesive strategy dominate their markets and achieve their enrollment goals annually.

University Success Story

One such school – a private, research university in the Midwest – serves as a model for others seeking to integrate their enrollment efforts to achieve success throughout the funnel. 

This university began by evaluating its markets and competition to pinpoint high schools its team would visit. Once selected, the team used the zip codes for those schools to filter its student searches and acquired prospective students who lived in those areas. 

Before and during travel season, the university implemented digital marketing solutions, like residential targeting, to these students and their families. This ensured that students and families would have the university top of mind when it was time for high school visits and college fairs in their areas – improving engagement once connections were made with recruitment staff at these events.

Your Turn: The Next Success Story

How can you make sure that your search strategy weaves seamlessly and effectively into your larger enrollment strategy? In what ways can you use technology to pinpoint your true competitors, find the students most likely to enroll in your institution, and boost engagement with these students and their families to help them cross the line to enrollment?

Once you’ve learned to start seeing your search strategy in this larger context of competitive market position and engagement, you’ll be the one in control of your funnel. Expertly break into new markets, stand out in your own backyard, and win the loyalty of students and families to achieve your institutional and enrollment goals. Encoura is always here to empower you with tools and strategies and to be your institution’s champion if you’d like support in these goals.

Page Divider

Rise Above the Competition With Insights Cloud

Better understand your competition, your institution, and your students to empower your institution to lead in your current and new markets.

Strengthen My Enrollment Strategy