Tim Sheehan, Director, Partnership Development
Universities have been under fire for the last decade. Between student debt debates targeting high tuition costs, industries valuing certifications at the same level as university degrees, and COVID-19 pushing students into online curriculums, recruitment programs have been shaken to their core. So it comes as no surprise that university leaders would start to tighten budgets as enrollment declines.
But that action might be hurting universities more than helping. Where universities should be marketing the value of a university education and showcasing the benefits to attending their university to drive higher enrollments, they’re cutting enrollment budgets because they can’t see or don’t understand how best to utilize their enrollment dollars. That’s not to say university leaders should be throwing money at enrollment teams either. The key is to understand how and where to invest in student recruitment to attract high-value, lifetime learners.
To do that, university leaders need to understand one key metric to help them build better, more accurate enrollment budgets: total cost of acquisition.
- What is Total Cost of Acquisition?
- Why is Total Cost of Acquisition Important for Universities?
- How to Optimize Total Cost of Acquisition Metrics?
What is Total Cost of Acquisition?
Total Cost of Acquisition (TCA), also known as cost of acquiring a customer, is a calculation that ensures your recruitment activities are bringing in more than you’re spending to drive student enrollments. It’s the total cost of all your recruitment efforts divided by the total number of enrollments. These costs include the development of all print marketing materials, the personnel costs to build, support, and implement recruitment activities, the execution of paid search and social campaigns, and any software or tools used to manage recruitment and enrollment activities.
Why is TCA Important for Universities?
TCA is one of the best accountability metrics to ensure your recruitment and enrollment processes are running efficiently. When university presidents, deans, and marketing leaders understand the costs that go into recruiting and enrolling a new student, they can focus their spending on activities that drive the most valuable activities. This calculation helps marketing leaders fine tune messaging or choose to invest in different marketing channels at the micro level, while also helping deans and university presidents better predict budgetary needs at the macro level.
How Should Universities Optimize TCA?
Understanding how to calculate TCA is one thing. Learning to manipulate it is where the magic happens. There are three ways universities can affect their TCA to generate more high-value enrollments for less money:
1. Identify your ideal learner and fine tune your messaging
Your ideal learners are the people most likely to be interested in your university’s values and experience. They are the ones that enroll at higher rates and who stay engaged with your university long after they’ve received their degree.
By identifying these learners you can pull out the characteristics they share and build a message that is impactful to others like them. Why do they pursue degree programs at your university? How does your mission and vision align with their values or goals? What obstacles or challenges do they face that you can help them overcome?
That knowledge shapes your marketing strategy and focuses your spend on the audiences most likely to enroll at your university. For example, Harvard knows that its learners are looking for the prestige and networking opportunities that come from attending its university. On the other hand, SNHU promotes its career-focused programs and online flexibility to attract job seekers.
Universities can spend a lot of money sending a generic recruitment message to every potential learner on the globe, but the more efficient use of your enrollment dollars is to target specific learners with a message you know they will respond to.
2. Simplify your recruitment and enrollment processes
You can spend all the money in the world targeting the perfect learner, but if your enrollment process is difficult to find or navigate they aren’t likely to actually enroll. Simplify your processes by:
- Eliminate redundant or unproductive steps
- Focus on clear, visible cues that tell your potential learners what their next step is
- Make your applications easy to access and complete
- Readily answer common questions about your application process
The goal is to remove as many obstacles a potential learner could come across during their recruitment or enrollment process to increase the likelihood they complete both.
3. Use metrics to guide future recruitment and enrollment efforts
Metrics are everything in determining effectiveness. Once your campaigns are up and running, you can still find new ways to improve their efficiency and effectiveness through analytics and testing.
There are many different ways to test your recruitment efforts from testing your messages across different channels to the cadence and timing of your campaigns. For example, younger learners might resonate more with recruitment messages sent on social media instead of postcards. You can test these messages at different times of the day or different seasons of life. Adult learners may be more receptive to your recruitment messages around the new year as they reflect on the year past and set goals for their future.
Age isn’t the only characteristic that requires testing, though. It’s also critical when targeting undergraduate versus graduate learners. Undergraduate students may respond more to frequent social media outreach, while graduate students might engage better with less frequent, but more detailed, email campaigns.
If you’re working with a recruitment partner like Noodle, make sure you have insight into these kinds of metrics to make sure you’re investing your recruitment dollars to attract your highest-value learners and encourage them to enroll with your university.
