A Smarter Funnel
How SMART Approach improves enrollment yields over traditional admissions funnels
The traditional funnel focuses on stages, pushing students from one level to the next until they enroll. However, there are several problems with the traditional funnel approach:
- The stage approach tends to lead to "one-and-done communication" strategies. A prospective student who doesn't respond at one stage of the funnel tends to be discarded from it.
- By focusing so intently on moving students from one stage to the next, communication strategies may conflict with overall enrollment goals. Even if the funnel push is successful in terms of numbers, the resulting class may not be what you desired.
- Traditional search criteria can lead to campuses overlooking students who would normally be a good fit because the student lacks traditional characteristic, such as their geographic proximity to campus.
- Through the Web, more and more prospective students are remaining anonymous during the college search process, severely limiting the effectiveness of the funnel approach.
SMART Approach avoids these funnel pitfalls by using predictive modeling to give you a strategic advantage in identifying and communicating with your best prospects.
Learn more about the cost and process for SMART Approach.
Build a more strategic enrollment base
Rather than focusing on enrollment stages—as the funnel model does—a strategic enrollment base focuses on the desired student types. With this approach, you can position your communication strategies to address the dominant buying motives of your desired target groups. This approach gives you a much stronger opportunity to achieve not only broad enrollment goals, but specific shaping and mix objectives.
For example, a campus may desire more high-ability, out-of-state biology majors. With the funnel, those potential students may not make it past the first or second stage due to a stage-specific communication flow. With a strategic enrollment approach, those students are targeted from day one, increasing their chance of enrollment.
SMART Approach gives you this strategic advantage by providing access to millions of student names from the National Resource Center for College & University Admissions (NRCCUA) database. NRCCUA has detailed student data that goes far beyond traditional selection criteria...with every student ranked by their probability of enrolling at your institution.