Early-funnel leads might be slipping through the cracks in your lead gen strategy

In my work helping schools acquire and nurture a higher volume of leads, I’ve noticed one area where they commonly struggle: converting early-funnel leads.

Current students, alumni, or leads who have expressed interest in your institution are easy to nurture and great to have. But to accrue enough leads to fill your class, you’ll need to use other complementary sources in your plan. We recommend considering alternative early-funnel sources—but remember that the names you receive from them may not be familiar with your institution or know what you offer, which makes them harder to convert.

Here are three tips to help you engage and nurture early-funnel leads.

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Tip 1: Ensure your early engagement messaging is strong.

Early communication is a key part of a full-scale marketing plan. This is a great opportunity to encourage students to learn more about you and take the next step in their student journey. Introducing your institution, the unique programs you offer, and what makes you different is one of the most important pieces of this process. Think about the features of your institution or programs that would be most important for students to know. Don’t leave it to them to seek out this information on their own: promote it in your initial communication!

In addition, consider ways that your initial outreach could be personalized—maybe a special email for leads that live within 50 miles of your campus that features more information about your in-person programs. Finally, include a link that directs your leads to your RFI form so you can collect more information.

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Tip 2: Make sure your RFI form is concise.

Graduate and adult students are pragmatic and don’t want to deal with unnecessary obstacles during their journey. Your RFI (request for information) form length shouldn’t be a barrier between you and a potential applicant. Ensure that your RFI only prompts students for information that is necessary for you to collect so you can personalize your future communication with them. This may include preferred name, email, and phone number as an optional field (if you have a phone campaign).

I also find that enrollment marketers often fail to tell students why they are asking for their information through the RFI. It’s helpful to add a sentence to the top of your form letting students know that with this collected information, you’ll be able to provide them with more relevant communication. Otherwise, it’s easy for students to view this as just another task they must overcome to finally learn more about your programs. This may also help to reassure students that you’ll use their information appropriately in an age of heightened concerns about data privacy.

Tip 3: Don’t box early-funnel leads into communication streams focused on program of interest.

When placing students into your marketing campaigns, it’s important to know that some of them may not have chosen a specific program of interest, and many of them will change their mind. EAB data shows that nearly 25% of graduate applicants and over 50% of adult degree completer applicants apply outside of their originally chosen program of interest. That means your institution may be losing out on prospects if your campaigns can’t accommodate the fluidity of the situation.

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One way to handle this issue is to encourage students to explore the variety of programs you offer. This allows you to promote your standout programs in your engagement communications and gives students more guidance about what options are available to them. You might even consider asking for them to identify their area of interest on your RFI, rather than a specific program of interest. That way, you know a little more about the student—for instance, that they’re interested in your graduate business school—but may not have to adjust your messaging entirely if the program they’re interested in changes from accounting to finance.

Patience is key when it comes to top-of-funnel marketing. When we run campaigns for our partners, we certainly see immediate responses when we communicate with top-of-funnel leads—but we also see a steady stream of responses that come in over time. Don’t give up!

Diversifying your paid lead sources is crucial to expand your lead pool, but not all lead sources are created equal. These three tips will point you in the right direction, but you should also make sure that you are prioritizing sources where leads are high-intent—in other words, they are actively looking to return to school. Appily Advance is a great example: we use a diversified acquisition strategy to gather a list of high-quality leads who are researching a graduate or adult education program. This complements your institution’s existing lead generation to help fill your top-of-funnel.

Recruiting early-funnel students isn’t easy, but the graduate and adult enrollment leaders I speak to at institutions that undertake this task are finding that it’s worth it. It’s my hope that the above tips will help to get you on the right track and encourage you to get to know your unknown leads.