For many colleges and universities, finding ways to stand out when communicating with your prospective students can be a challenge. Colleges are engaging students earlier and more often than ever before—not to mention utilizing multiple channels to stay connected with them while they’re at home and on the go. How can your institution stand out from others with stronger brand recognition?

Data you already have access to—like Eduventures® Student Mindsets™—available in Encoura’s combined dataset, can offer critical insights into answering that very question. Ensuring this data is accessible to everyone on the team through your CRM is even more critical so you can work together to better recruit, engage, and support prospective students.

Before diving into the three benefits of importing this critical student data, we’d like to provide a brief refresher for those who haven’t heard of our Student Mindsets™. Derived from Eduventures Prospective Student Research, our Student Mindsets identify the dreams and desires that prospective students have for their upcoming undergraduate educations.

These are just three ways your institution can benefit from importing Eduventures Prospective Student Mindsets into your CRM:

Better Recruit

The Mindsets can help your team better understand not only the types of students who are interested in your institution, but also how they engage and convert. By importing Mindset data into your CRM, you’ll be able to identify:

• Which Mindset is most common on your campus? 
• Do your academic programs and research opportunities attract the Grad School Bound Mindset and/or does the campus life really connect with the Social Focus Mindset?
• How are students of different Mindsets converting through your funnel?

Answering these questions will help your team better recruit both incoming and future classes. Once imported, we can even work with you to build predictive audiences who are most like your enrolled students to help you hit your enrollment goals year after year.

Better Engage

Many students are overwhelmed by the amount of communication about upcoming dates and deadlines—few feel like colleges are connecting to their personal interests. When content is personalized to a student’s desires, a prospective student can see how your college could be their home away from home. For example, when talking to a student who wants to engage in every connecting activity on campus, messaging about how to get involved and create lasting friendships on your campus will resonate with them the most.

Student Mindsets segmentation can be applied to your email, digital advertising, website, print and direct mail, and in recruiting conversations to help prospective students see their fit on your campus. Generally, using Student Mindsets can also help you stand out from your competition by speaking directly to students’ dreams and desires.

Better Support

Our research shows how to best engage with each Student Mindset starting during your opening conversation. For example, let’s say a prospective student has booked a 1-to-1 with one of your admissions representatives; that admissions team member can be better prepared for the conversation if that student’s Mindset is attached to their record in your CRM. Let’s say you’re meeting with Chris this week—a prospective student—and your CRM shows his Student Mindset is socially focused and he lives out of state.

In opening conversations with Chris, your admissions team can discuss the defining aspects of your social environment, share how they can make lasting friendships, and support connections that drive success in the workplace. Making the social transition to your college might be a challenge for them, especially with coming out of state, so sharing how he can be supported on campus could lead to his enrollment on your campus. This, when combined with use of the Mindsets in other touchpoints, will help your institution speak more directly to those dreams and desires mentioned above.

Ultimately, we all want and need to achieve the enrollment goals that are set in front of us. By implementing your Student Mindset data into your CRM, you can make sure you aren’t wasting quality data that can help you achieve those goals.