Search Party: Experts Spill All on New “Student Search” + Q&A

Recently, I pulled together several of my Carnegie colleagues and hosted a webinar called Search Party: Experts Spill All on New “Student Search.” The panel of experts had an open and honest discussion about the current state of Student Search. We shared our thoughts on how we got here, where Student Search is headed, and impactful strategies for Student Search today.

I was joined on the panel by:

• Alexa Poulin, Chief Digital Officer
• Megan Robinson, EVP of Search and Slate Optimization
• Jared Brickman, SVP of Research
• Jason Frost, VP of Enrollment Strategy

During the webinar, we got some fantastic questions from attendees, and we answered many of them live on Zoom. If you attended and would like to see the answers to your questions, feel free to jump down to the Q&A section at the end of this blog.

For those who didn’t attend, here’s a summary of the key topics discussed, followed by the audience questions.

Key Insights From the Search Party

Diversify Your Sources

Relying solely on senior search or traditional name buys doesn’t cut it anymore. The panel stressed the need to diversify sources and engage students earlier. To stay competitive, we discussed how it’s crucial to evolve your sourcing strategies. This involves experimenting with new sources and measuring their effectiveness.

This recommendation was made as a short-term and long-term strategy as traditional record sources decrease in volume. Third-party college search and community-building sites offer both early and senior pipeline-building opportunities. Specific opportunities mentioned were College Board Connections, CollegeXpress, and Unibuddy.

Leaning on demand generation through creative, digital-first strategies is essential, as well as optimizing your website to become your number one lead-generating source. While privacy policies have made digital advertising to students under 18 trickier, there are still many opportunities to deploy precise digital marketing strategies.

Personalize Your Outreach

Personalization in student recruitment is more important than ever! It all starts with truly understanding your audience through demographic, behavioral, and psychographic segmentation. Think of it like how Netflix tailors its recommendations—our panel emphasized the importance of crafting communications that resonate with each student’s unique preferences and behaviors.

By using demographic segmentation, you can tailor content based on basic demographic data, laying the groundwork for personalization. But don’t stop there. Behavioral segmentation takes it a step further by responding to students’ actions, making your communications more relevant and personal. And then there’s psychographic segmentation, which taps into personality, motivation, and beliefs to create rich, engaging content that truly resonates.

Run Agile Email and Digital Campaigns

Our experts highlighted how crucial it is to use CRM systems like Slate to run drip campaigns that adapt based on student interactions. Drip campaigns ensure students get information when they need it and stop when they don’t, making your communication strategy more effective. We recommend taking this a step further and deploying the behavioral data you collect in your CRM to enhance in-flight campaigns—both email and digital ad campaigns can benefit from this.

Real-time data and performance metrics are key for making quick adjustments and optimizations. For example, you might reallocate budgets between digital ad platforms and tweak campaign content based on what’s performing best. Keeping a strong, always-on digital marketing presence, supported by robust SEO strategies and continuous retargeting, is vital for engaging students where they spend most of their time—online.

Own Your Data

Our panel emphasized the importance of owning all your data, including purchased names, and tagging them appropriately for tracking. Integrated reports aligned with enrollment goals should focus on actionable metrics rather than just interesting data points. Regularly reviewing and updating your data is crucial for making strategic pivots.

Asking the right questions about data accuracy, segmentation, and the integration of various data sources can significantly enhance the effectiveness of personalized communication strategies.

Important questions to ask include: Can you report on any data point you want to—and in real-time? Do you know how the metrics you’re looking at are being calculated? Are you set up for year-over-year assessment?

Be Everywhere You Can Be

The recruitment environment is changing rapidly due to shifts in student behavior and stricter privacy laws. Our panel emphasized that to stay competitive, it’s essential to remix your recruitment strategies. Just sticking to traditional methods won’t cut it anymore. By blending traditional and digital approaches, you can diversify your reach and engage a broader audience more effectively.

Here were a few suggestions discussed during the webinar:

• Use a mix of print, text messaging, and digital advertising to engage students. Experiment with platforms like TikTok and Unibuddy.
• High school counselors and parents play a key role in student decisions. Make sure to tailor your messages to include these important influencers.
• Videos and testimonials from current students provide authentic insights and build trust.

Don’t Forget About Yield

We recommend considering yield strategies as a part of your Student Search efforts in order to build a connected strategy and unified experience for your prospects. This ensures continuous engagement with admitted students through personalized, data-driven communications, which can significantly boost yield rates.

One approach discussed was using EnGauge Scores to assess the likelihood of applicants and admits to enroll. By leveraging these scores, schools can focus their resources and efforts on the students who are really interested.

We also discussed the role of peer-to-peer connections and opportunities to build community before students even enroll. We know this generation of prospects respects their peer’s opinions above all else, so we recommend leveraging that power.

Optimizing financial aid is perhaps the most crucial strategy. This means understanding what financial aid packages resonate most with your prospective students and their families and tailoring your offers to meet their expectations. Conducting admitted student research helps you understand their decision factors and refine your strategies for better retention.

Next Steps for Your Student Search

Looking for more strategies and tips? Check out our blog post, 6 Student Search & Enrollment Marketing Strategies.

Want to explore opportunities to optimize your current Student Search strategy based on the insights from our recent webinar? Whether it’s diversifying sources, upleveling your personalized communications, or running agile campaigns, there’s potential for improvement at every stage.

Reach out today to talk to a strategist about your Student Search.

Audience questions and Carnegie answers

Question: “For purchased lists, how do you recommend handling emailing students before they inquire, with Google cracking down on deliverability, spam, etc?”

Slate inherently does a lot to protect sender reputation, so sending to prospective email addresses isn’t a problem. A few of those measures are: Unsubscribe options and prompt opt-out capabilities, suppression list and bounce management, and DKIM configuration.

Additionally, one of the biggest ways to ensure emails are landing in inboxes and your sender reputation remains high is to send quality emails that students engage with, which we at Carnegie have tons of experience doing! Combined with campaign monitoring to assess the effectiveness of email tactics, the schools we work with on Student Search communications maintain high sender reputation and deliverability.

Another strategy that can help influence open rates is to deploy digital advertising to your list so that when the email arrives, there is already some brand familiarity there.

Here are some additional tips to help improve email deliverability.

Question: “How do you overcome the “creepiness” factor of super-customized content? Having a recent college grad in my family, they are really turned off by anything they feel tracks their activity too closely.”

That is one thing that can definitely happen, especially in the “behavioral” sense. I think it comes down to the plausibility of why you know that data. For example, segmenting by program or things they said they care about on campus is in play. If, however, you learn that they did XYZ over the summer or their hobbies that aren’t related to their application… all great info, but shouldn’t be segmented on to avoid that “creepy” factor.

We’ve also seen that this phenomenon is slowly going away for younger audiences. In effect, many folks are “getting used to it,” but in the college space, it might still be a surprise.

So certainly, I would tread lightly in getting “too personal,” but the strategies you can use to filter folks in the right direction should help.

Question: “Does it make sense to focus on the “most likely” targets versus trying to be all things to all prospects?”

Don’t try to be all things to all prospects. Instead, be authentic and true to your school’s values and message. Spend your time with those most likely to attend, as we describe in these examples:

• First off, always be authentic and true to your school’s values and message.
• For strategies that require more resources, like purchasing names, making phone calls, or sending print mailings, focus on students who are more likely to apply or enroll.
• No matter how many emails you’re sending, make sure to segment your lists so you can tailor your messages based on student interests, behaviors, and demographics.
• The right approach also depends on where you are in your recruitment cycle and the budget you have available. Early in the cycle, broader outreach may be beneficial, while later stages might require a more focused effort on high-propensity students.

Question: “Would it be okay to have an RFI form on the homepage? We have them on individual program pages.”

I would say you should 100% have an RFI on your homepage! Also, consider campaign-specific landing pages and RFIs built for the conversion that you are asking prospects to make; if you are able to configure RFI forms to conditionally show or select key information based on the purpose of the campaign, then we encourage using fewer forms for streamlined upkeep for your team. This is a key element to ensuring your website becomes your number one lead-generating source—giving prospects a friction-free conversion experience.

Question: “We are a graduate-level institution (master’s and doctoral programs). Are you seeing any key differences in that market (vs. undergrad)?”

There are a few that I’ve seen in the audience research area:

• Online interest jumped during COVID for both grad and UG, and both dropped back off for UG while it has stayed higher for grad and adult education.
• There are a lot more folks considering “certificates” instead of full degrees in this space now. A challenge for many of our clients offering graduate degrees has been educating on why it makes more sense and has more ROI.
• Grad students are catching up to UG on shifting in the platform mix. UG has fully moved to video (YouTube, Reels, TikTok, etc.), but grad is catching up. Grad is more open to direct messaging but wants every outreach moment to be relevant.
• Women are outpacing men in both sectors; there are more women inquiring, attending, and graduating in both undergrad and grad programs. However, for grad programs, we still see a lot more gender-related differences by program.
• Additionally, for adult audiences, we don’t have any privacy policy restrictions, so that’s another difference in terms of the volume of digital ad tactics available. LinkedIn is also very effective for the graduate and adult population.

And here are some suggestions from our Student Search team:

• We see grad prospects engaging with campaigns at different times than UG. Consider trying early morning email sends or focusing efforts closer to term start dates.
• The grad audience appreciates touchpoints with real people at an institution. Sending out a form for prospects to fill out with their specific questions and having counselors follow up with an email or phone call is effective. LinkedIn is also a great platform to connect with grad prospects.
• Practical aspects of a grad degree resonate best with these populations. We like to lean into these topics in messaging.

Question: “Jared, you noted that you have to know what students are looking for. How do you do that?”

It’s a great question. I think robust research is a good start (of course, as the researcher of the group, that might be what I always recommend!). We’ll talk through a few different ways we might do research here, but I usually like to focus on a mix like this:

• National Research: From vendors like Carnegie and others, there are often large-scale reports on student behaviors, motivations, and changing trends. We have several on our site, and I know other groups do some great work as well. This work is free and typically is published annually or every few years.
• Admitted Student Research: Talking to students who were admitted and either deposited or decided not to attend is one of the best ways to get direct feedback about your institutional offerings. It also is a great way to build a foundation for retention among students who did deposit and intel for optimizations in your next recruitment cycle.
• Qualitative Interviews/Focus Groups: The in-depth insights of talking with students in a more formal setting can get to details we sometimes miss in survey research. ​​This method is most beneficial early in the first year with students who have attended, as they still have their journey fresh in their minds and are more accessible. It’s particularly useful in scenarios where survey data isn’t enough to understand why certain people made specific decisions. Qualitative methods provide the depth needed to gain a clearer understanding of their experiences.
• Market Perception: What do external audiences think?

Question: “What about social media SEO (i.e., students searching things on TikTok)?”

We have had great success on TikTok with prospective students. I would highly recommend a digital advertising outreach on TikTok!

We also just completed some research on TikTok topics and themes that have worked well. TikTok and many similar personal media areas have had the best success when talking about things that are tangential to the actual “college marketing” and more about life at college and related topics. For example, “A Day in the Life” videos, as well as things like “Cooking in your dorm” as a topical focus. Much like I noted earlier, having user-generated content in this area is also very powerful.

Question: “Could having student brand ambassadors on social media help?”

Absolutely! Current student enthusiasts and/or alumni are a fantastic way to authentically represent your institution on social platforms.

Some research we did last year with institutions found it was relatively rare to see schools using influencers directly or recruiting students to create content. However, in more recent work with students, we found that more than half are following some type of “influencer.” While higher ed influencers are rare, having your institution in related content is a great awareness builder!

Question: How many states have established legislation protecting student data of minors?

As of 2024, 43 states in the U.S. have enacted laws to protect the data privacy of students. The laws vary in scope but generally aim to regulate the collection, use, and sharing of student data by educational institutions and third-party service providers​. This interactive map shows each State’s data privacy laws.

Question: How do schools figure out what mix of these tools to use to not break the bank since budgets are all being cut to afford the inflation in the cost of educating a student? Everyone is charging tons of money for multiple new products to get a few names.

Finding the right mix of recruitment tools without overspending is all about smart resource allocation and being strategic with your budget. Take a hard look at your current strategies and identify what’s truly effective. Don’t be afraid to stop doing things that aren’t yielding the results you expect, even if you have been doing them “forever.”

Find a partner who understands your specific needs and can create a customized approach to help you meet your enrollment goals. A great partner will help you uncover savings in your current budget and come up with a strategy that makes the most of your resources.

Question: How are international students affected by student data legislation? How can we reach them?

International students studying in the U.S. can be affected by student privacy legislation in the following ways:

1. FERPA Compliance: The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that applies to all students in the U.S., including international students. FERPA grants students certain rights regarding their educational records, such as the right to access, amend, and have some control over the disclosure of their information​.
2. Third-Party Vendors: Many educational institutions use third-party vendors for various services (e.g., online learning platforms and cloud storage). These vendors must comply with state and federal privacy laws, ensuring that student data, including that of international students, is protected against misuse.

Finding International Students
Many student name providers offer international student names. In general, the TOEFL test is one of the best sources for international student names.

International student populations and lists have always been tough to identify, purchase in larger quantities, and communicate with via traditional methods. Mainly because traditional print and postage, especially international postage rates, can be very expensive.

Instead, establishing online international student recruitment efforts is suggested. This includes an institution establishing expansive networks, attractive international program offerings, and focusing on electronic and digital marketing—including customizing social media efforts and landing pages for international populations.

Next steps for your Student Search

Want to explore opportunities to optimize your current Student Search strategy based on the insights from our recent webinar? Whether it’s diversifying sources, upleveling your personalized communications, or running agile campaigns, there’s potential for improvement at every stage.

Reach out today to talk to a strategist about your Student Search.