The following is a guest post from Samantha Martin, CEO and Founder of
Via TRM.
In a time where international educators are
called to increase participation in education abroad at the institutional and
national level (e.g. Generation Study Abroad and 100,000 Strong),
the message of “Apply Now” comes too late for eligible students who were
interested at one time but who had little or no engagement with education
abroad messages prior to the call to apply.
“Apply
Now” is the student decision phase that offices have historically been able to
support operationally. However, the lack of a strategy, resources, and
supporting systems for the “just curious” and interested student is a missed
opportunity and means genuinely interested students are not adequately tracked,
understood, or engaged.
The challenge is that education abroad offices
are not equipped to scale, operating with limited staff and inefficiencies such
as tracking student interest on paper and across multiple systems. Given that
support for education abroad is inconsistent across academic departments, most
colleges and universities lack a cohesive strategy for early-stage academic
planning for education abroad as well.
What can be done to reach the early-stage interested
student?
In addition to aligning education abroad and the
home campus curriculum and following well-established best practices, education
abroad practitioners can build, cultivate, and provide value to students far
before an application decision is reached. This requires an openness to
learning new models, developing professional skills in ethical sales &
marketing tactics, and support from leadership to define success
metrics around engagement and not just applications.
Practically speaking, education abroad offices
can reach new student populations and create more consistent advising and
application experiences by establishing a distinct brand identity, defining the target
audience, and tailoring messages to specific student segments prior to the big
ask of “apply now”.
Education abroad offices might consider doing
away with gate-keeper policies that require students to attend in-person group
sessions or clearly define academic and professional goals before speaking to a
full time advisor. An alternative is building an advising culture defined by
availability and service to all students, regardless of application readiness.
There is, of course, not just one way to build an
all-inclusive advising culture that aims to reach not only every demographic
and academic segment, but also across psychographic and behavioral segments
that can be defined in one way by a student’s “readiness”.
Shifting advising targets to serve the entire
pipeline (sometimes also referred to as a “funnel”, see diagram below) means
clearly defining advising roles & responsibilities, creating a strategy
& plan that includes serving early-stage students, and implementing systems
to track interest and engage students prior to an application.
If the education abroad office accepts that their
core mission is to help every student make an informed choice about education
abroad opportunities, the most important metric of success is not the number of
applications and participants, but the number of students who were reached.
Takeaways:
●
The message of "Apply
Now" as a primary (or sole) call to action excludes key populations of
interested students from starting the education abroad process.
●
Growth in education abroad (as in
all industries) relies on cultivating the entire funnel, and not just focusing
on people close to the 'conversion point' (i.e. submitting an application)
●
Create a marketing and advising
strategy to engage the "just curious", first-year, and unsure
student. Resource that strategy with new and/or updated technology systems and
cross-departmental collaboration.
Samantha is the CEO and founder of Via TRM, next generation software for education
abroad. Previously, she developed & facilitated online courses for students
and staff and worked as a Study Abroad Advisor at SUNY New Paltz and as a
Program Coordinator at IEP at Jacksonville University. Samantha completed an MA
in peace and conflict studies from the University of Ulster in Derry, Northern
Ireland on a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship. Her original inspiration for
starting a career in international education was a semester study abroad
program in Cyprus on a Gilman Scholarship.
