Enrollment Marketing Consulting
Students don’t experience your enrollment funnel. They experience your institution.
Every email, website visit, campus interaction and unanswered question shapes a student’s decision about whether your college or university is right for them.
Solve helps colleges and universities strengthen enrollment marketing strategy, improve student recruitment communications and create a more connected student journey. From inquiry generation and application conversion to yield and melt prevention, we connect marketing strategy, admissions and the student experience to help more students take the next step.
SERVICES
Where we focus
Students don’t always follow the enrollment path we’ve designed for them. They get confused, encounter obstacles, change their minds or simply stop responding.
We help colleges and universities map the student journey, identify friction points and improve communications and experiences from initial inquiry through enrollment. The goal is to make the next step easier for students and more effective for your enrollment team.
Your institution may be sending hundreds of recruitment messages, but what does that experience actually feel like to the student receiving them?
We audit enrollment communications across email, text, print and digital channels to identify confusing messages, unnecessary duplication, missed opportunities and gaps in the student experience. Then we give you a roadmap so you know what to fix first.
When enrollment results fall short, it’s tempting to assume you need more leads, more advertising or more emails. But first, you need to understand what’s actually happening.
Our higher education enrollment marketing audits examine recruitment campaigns, digital advertising, CRM communications, marketing performance and conversion data to identify what’s working, what isn’t and where your efforts could be more effective.
Even a strong enrollment marketing strategy can struggle when marketing and admissions have competing priorities, unclear responsibilities or workflows that slow everyone down.
We assess enrollment marketing organizational structures, staffing, roles, resources and collaboration to identify what’s getting in the way. Then we help you build a more effective operation, with clearer accountability and stronger coordination between teams.
More inquiries won’t solve every enrollment problem. Sometimes the bigger opportunity is improving application conversion, strengthening yield or helping admitted students make it to the first day of class.
We develop data-informed enrollment marketing strategies that connect institutional brand, student recruitment campaigns, digital marketing and communications across the enrollment funnel, from inquiry generation through melt prevention.
Students may be the ones applying, but they rarely make enrollment decisions in isolation. Parents and families often have questions, concerns and considerable influence over where a student enrolls.
We help colleges and universities develop parent and family engagement strategies, targeted communications and content that address those questions, build confidence and help families support students through the enrollment process.
Common challenges we solve
We don’t have a clear view of the student journey from inquiry to enrollment
Students are dropping off at key stages of the funnel
Our communications don’t feel connected across the experience
Marketing and admissions aren’t aligned
We’re not sure what’s working, or why
Our yield and melt strategies need strengthening
We’re not effectively engaging parents and families
Common questions
What’s the difference between an enrollment marketing audit and student journey mapping?
An enrollment marketing audit evaluates how effectively your recruitment marketing is performing. It may examine campaigns, channels, communications, CRM strategy, conversion rates and marketing investments.
Student journey mapping looks at the process from the student’s perspective. It examines what students experience at each stage, where they encounter barriers and whether the institution is providing the information and support they need.
The two approaches complement one another. An audit might reveal where students are disengaging. Journey mapping can help explain why.
Can better enrollment communications improve application conversion and yield?
They can contribute to stronger conversion and yield by reducing confusion, addressing questions and helping students complete important steps.
But communications alone can’t fix every enrollment challenge. Pricing, financial aid, academic offerings, admissions processes and institutional reputation also shape enrollment decisions.
We examine how communications fit within the larger recruitment and enrollment experience so that recommendations address the underlying problem, not just the number of emails being sent.
Better decisions.
Fewer missed opportunities.
More relevant recruitment communications that address what students need to know.
A clearer understanding of where prospective students get confused, disengage or encounter barriers.
Stronger strategies for inquiry-to-application conversion, yield and melt prevention.
Better alignment between enrollment marketing, admissions and student success teams.
More intentional parent and family engagement.
Clearer priorities for investing your enrollment marketing budget and staff resources.
Why Solve?
We’ve been accountable for the results.
We know what it’s like to sit in meetings where enrollment goals are ambitious, budgets are tight and everyone has a different theory about why the numbers aren’t moving.
We’ve led higher education enrollment marketing teams, managed multimillion-dollar advertising budgets and worked alongside admissions leaders to strengthen student recruitment, communications and enrollment outcomes.
That experience shapes how we approach consulting. We look beyond campaigns and conversion rates to understand the strategy, organizational structure, people and processes behind the results. And we help institutions make changes they can realistically put into practice.
Let’s figure out what’s getting in the way.
Maybe you need more students entering the funnel. Maybe you need to do a better job helping the ones already there take the next step. Or maybe you’re not quite sure where the problem is.
That’s a good place to start a conversation.
Let’s talk about what you’re seeing.