Our hosts are then joined by Nicolas Chu, CEO & Founder of , and Jennifer Parsons, Executive Director of Partnerships with , for a featured discussion on how we can harness the power of people, process, and platforms in order to better engage with prospective students.

The context for this discussion is that international student recruitment has entered a new phase, one marked by changing student preferences and also by much more intense competition. The result is a widening gap between student expectations and institutional performance, especially in terms of responsiveness to student enquiries and the channels that institutions and schools use to engage prospective students.

As recruitment professionals, we must now consider even more carefully than ever: how can we best meet students where they are, with timely responses on the channels they prefer?

You can listen right now in the player below, and we encourage you to subscribe via your favourite podcast app in order to receive future episodes automatically.

For additional background, please see:

• “黑料官网 Podcast: Students are switching to AI for search. Are you ready?“
• “Survey highlights a growing ‘engagement gap’ between international student expectations and institutional response“

The post 黑料官网 Podcast: Are you using the right digital channels to reach international students? appeared first on 黑料官网 Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

AI is not arriving into a clean, joined-up recruitment function. It is landing in environments where systems do not talk to each other, ownership is fragmented, and key information lives in a mix of CRM notes, web pages, PDFs, team inboxes and locally managed spreadsheets. That matters, because AI does not solve complexity. It scales it.

The sector is at risk of repeating a familiar pattern: investing in new tools while leaving the foundations untouched. AI then becomes another layer sitting on top of the same friction points 鈥� just with quicker outputs and higher expectations.

AI in recruitment is less 鈥渨ow鈥� than it sounds 鈥� and that鈥檚 a good thing

The public conversation often gravitates towards chatbots. They are visible, easy to demo and appealing for 24/7 coverage. But the most valuable AI use cases in recruitment are rarely headline-grabbing. They are operational.

AI earns its place when it does one of three things:

• reduces response time without losing quality
• improves relevance by matching students to the right information faster
• removes admin drag so staff spend more time on high-value conversations

That can mean intelligent enquiry triage, appointment scheduling, follow-up prompts, application workflow support, and content personalisation based on what a prospect has actually engaged with. In a competitive international environment, these are not 鈥渘ice to haves鈥�. They directly influence whether a student stays in the funnel.

And it is worth saying explicitly: the goal is not to replace people. The best-performing model is 鈥渉uman + machine鈥� 鈥� AI provides speed and consistency; staff provide judgement, reassurance and nuance.

The uncomfortable truth: AI exposes what institutions have tolerated for years

Where AI is introduced, it tends to shine a light on issues that were previously manageable because humans quietly compensated for them.

• Inconsistent information: entry requirements differ by page; fees are updated in one place but not another; scholarship details live on in a PDF long after the policy has changed.
• Fragmented journeys: marketing owns one part, admissions owns another, faculties own programme content, student services owns 鈥渆xperience鈥� messaging 鈥� and the student experiences it as one journey anyway.
• Siloed data: multiple CRMs, multiple lead sources, inconsistent definitions of 鈥渆nquiry鈥� and 鈥渜ualified鈥�, and limited integration between systems.

AI can help, but only if the institution is prepared to treat these issues as structural 鈥� not cosmetic.

This is where many implementations falter. AI tools are purchased as point solutions, deployed by one team, and expected to perform magic in an ecosystem that is not ready to support them. The result is predictable: patchy adoption, uneven quality, and a lingering sense that 鈥淎I didn鈥檛 work for us鈥�.

Often, the tool is not the problem. The conditions are.

Readiness is not a slogan

Before investing further, institutions benefit from stepping back and asking four simple questions. They are simple to ask, harder to answer honestly:

• Will this improve outcomes that matter?鈥≧esponse time, conversion, quality of guidance, staff workload 鈥� and how those will be measured.
• Is it easy enough to use in the real world?鈥―uring peak cycle, with staff turnover, shifting priorities, and competing demands.
• Is there clear support and ownership?鈥∟ot just 鈥渂uy-in鈥�, but named accountability across marketing, admissions, IT/data and governance.
• Are the foundations in place?鈥–lean data, accurate content, integration capability, and governance that is operational, not theoretical.

When AI adoption stalls, it is usually because the last question is answered with a quiet 鈥渘ot really鈥�.

What changes when universities use AI (and students still use it too)

Two things happen at once.

First, student expectations rise. If AI can answer instantly, waiting two days for a response feels outdated. Prospects still want humans 鈥� but they want humans at the right moment, with continuity and context.

Second, measurement becomes harder. As more decisions happen inside AI tools, fewer people follow a neat trail from ad to website to enquiry form. That does not mean marketing is failing. It means the web is no longer the only (or even primary) interface between student and institution.

In this environment, accuracy becomes strategic. AI will surface what it can find, whether it is current or not. The institutions that win attention will often be those with fewer contradictions, clearer ownership of content, and consistent signals across the web 鈥� not necessarily those with the biggest budgets.

A pragmatic way forward: start small, fix foundations, scale carefully

A full 鈥淎I transformation鈥� is not required to make progress. But a full commitment to foundations is.

Three moves tend to deliver genuine momentum:

1) Treat the data layer as recruitment infrastructure鈥↖ntegration and data hygiene are not 鈥淚T projects鈥�. They are recruitment capability. In practice, this means ensuring that core recruitment and admissions information 鈥� prospect records, programme data, entry requirements, fees, communications history, and application status 鈥� is accurate, up to date, and connected across systems. Where this is weak, staff compensate manually, and AI tools inherit and scale the same inconsistencies. Where it is strong, institutions can respond faster, personalise more effectively, reduce duplication, improve measurement, and give students more consistent guidance. Modest progress here often unlocks disproportionate benefits elsewhere.

2) Choose one high-impact journey point.鈥‥nquiry response, programme matching, international applicant support during peak periods 鈥� pick one, do it properly, and learn fast. For example, Georgia State University鈥檚 鈥淧ounce鈥� chatbot focused on a single high-friction point 鈥� the pre-enrolment period between admission and arrival 鈥� helping admitted students complete required tasks and get answers quickly; Georgia State reports this contributed to a significant reduction in 鈥溾��. A non-chatbot example can be seen in European qualification recognition workflows, where ENIC-NARIC centres in France and Norway have explored AI/RPA (Artificial Intelligence/Robotic Process Automation) ) for rather than broad front-end deployment. The common lesson is the same: define the bottleneck, improve it step by step and use the learning to build up capability.

3) Put governance in writing and into practice.鈥―efine what AI can and cannot do, when humans must review, how escalation works, and how bias and data protection risks are handled. Governance should enable adoption 鈥� not suffocate it.

In short

Students using AI for search is only half the story. The other half is whether universities are ready to use AI to recruit responsibly and effectively.

The competitive advantage will not come from buying the newest tool. It will come from doing the basics exceptionally well: accurate content, joined-up data, clear ownership, and an operating model built around the student journey 鈥� with AI used to scale what already works.

For additional background, please see:

• “AI tools in action for international student recruitment“
• “AI is changing how students search: What it means for marketing and recruitment“
• “The ChatGPT Generation: How AI Is quietly rewriting the global student search experience”听
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The findings rely in part on a recent Sinorbis survey of a small sample of international students at Australian institutions, but they are backed by a wider field of evidence from the latest edition of Edified’s ongoing Enquiry Experience Tracker study.

One in three students responding to the survey said they abandoned an application to a prospective university because of communication issues.

The challenge begins with responsiveness. Seven in ten students said they expect a response from an institution within a couple of days, but only about a third (34%) actually received a reply within that window.

That gap alone carries a significant cost. Nearly six in ten respondents (59%) reported disengaging from a university because communication felt “slow or difficult.”

An even greater proportion (71%) said the quality of communication played either a major or moderate role in their final decision on where to study, and 66% said that “response speed genuinely matters when choosing a university.”

Those expectations loom even larger given the increasingly competitive marketplace for student recruitment. Nearly all survey respondents (94%) said that their shortlist included five or fewer universities, and the findings make it clear otherwise that a delayed or ineffective response can be enough to shift a student’s attention to another institution.

鈥淭he enquiry stage is an incredibly influential moment in a student鈥檚 journey,鈥� notes Elissa Newall, senior partner at Edified. 鈥淲hen a prospective student reaches out for the first time, it gives them a glimpse of what it might feel like to be part of an institution鈥檚 community. A clear, responsive experience builds trust; a poor experience simply pushes them away鈥�.

The study report adds, “Student expectations are changing at a much faster rate than many institutional processes. While universities have expanded their recruitment activity and added some new communication channels, students are now judging their experiences against a much higher standard鈥or university marketing and recruitment teams, this creates some very real pressure. Students are engaging across more channels, expecting faster responses, and comparing experiences more closely than ever before. Yet many institutions are still operating with engagement models that were designed for a different era.

Although email remains central, as student preferences shift toward messaging, new channels are added, but systems, resourcing, and processes often struggle to keep pace. The result is a growing disconnect. Enquiries go unanswered or are answered too late. Conversations break across channels. Students are asked to repeat information, and what should feel like guidance instead ends up feeling transactional.”

Introducing the omnichannel

In part, those findings reflect a growing student preference to communicate outside of email, and especially via messaging apps such as WhatsApp or WeChat. The issue for recruiters is not only managing communications with students across a widening array of channels, but that that ideal channel mix varies by market as well.

Even so, there is no mistaking the shift. As the study report explains, “Email once the default channel for formal interaction, is no longer the main reference point for many prospective students. Instead, expectations are now increasingly shaped by the messaging platforms that students are using every day. These more modern environments have the benefits of being immediate, conversational, and perhaps most importantly, highly familiar. They set a standard for how quickly and easily information should flow.”

That standard, however, collides with the reality that many recruiters face today of large and growing volumes of enquiries from prospective students. Edified reports that two in five institutions now receive more than 25,000 enquiries from prospective international students each year, yet, four in five say they lack “a single view of the customer” 鈥� that is, a way to effectively manage communications with prospective students at scale.

The authors argue for an “omnichannel” approach that allows recruiters to meet students where they are at, in terms of communications channel, but where all channels are strongly linked to and owned by the institution, where the use of that wider range of channels is properly resourced, where all are integrated into recruitment systems (especially CRMs), and where those aligned workflows and systems can support more effective and meaningful student communications at scale.

“Automation supports this process by enabling both speed and structure, especially during peak enquiry periods,” adds the report. “Beyond simple acknowledgements, segmentation and automation allow institutions to prioritise leads based on factors such as level of intent, programme interest, country, or stage in the journey. High intent enquiries can be surfaced quickly, while earlier stage prospects can be nurtured over time without manual intervention. This ensures that the attention is focused where it is going to have the greatest impact, even when teams are under pressure.”

As the students engagement with the institution continues 鈥� as they progress along the enrolment funnel 鈥� that alignment between channels, workflows, and systems can equally support a more targeted engagement with well-qualified prospects. In other words, this is the stage at which automation gives way to more one-to-one communication. The study report adds that, “By prioritising personalised dialogue at the bottom of the funnel, institutions create space for meaningful reassurance rather than transactional exchanges. This human connection often becomes the final factor that turns intent into action, helping students feel confident in their decision and supported in taking the next step.”

For additional background, please see:

• “Mystery shopping study finds broad improvement in student enquiry handling this year“
• “Three international education trends for 2025: Revenue optimisation, marketing personalisation, and on-the-ground local intelligence“
• “In a time of shifting student demand, a speedy response to enquiries is a must“

The post Survey highlights a growing “engagement gap” between international student expectations and institutional response appeared first on 黑料官网 Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

The international student experience begins long before students arrive in a new country and walk on to campus. It takes shape when the student is still far away and considering a shortlist of schools. Institutions that provide stellar encouragement and support during this period are building trust and satisfaction even before students are enrolled.

Brand image is built over multiple touchpoints

If you have ever bought a pair of jeans, a digital device, or any other product online, you know how rewarding it is when a brand creates anticipation and excitement before your purchase. You know the satisfaction of getting an immediate response to your questions and reassurance that should you need to make a return, there is a fair process for doing so.

Once you鈥檝e made your purchase, you look for email updates on your order, estimated delivery dates, tracking information, and notifications about any delays. You grow more eager when you go to your inbox and there鈥檚 a message with an anticipatory subject line, e.g., 鈥淵our stunning new jeans are on their way!鈥�

When the package arrives, you are delighted to see your purchase wrapped beautifully in tissue paper, contained in a sleek, branded box, or accompanied by a personalised note. In fact, 鈥渦nboxing鈥� videos 鈥� where purchasers ooh and ahh as they open their packages 鈥� are so popular that they often go viral on social channels. They are also perfect examples of the power of word-of-mouth marketing.

Clearly, a great deal of brand engagement happens before consumers ever try on or try out their purchase. Online brands that provide great service and communications before and directly after a purchase encourage a positive consumer mindset that inspires satisfaction right from the get-go.

Jeans and headsets are one thing. Study abroad is another 鈥� and it is much, much more
of an investment. Yet many schools miss the opportunity to deliver gold-standard service to prospects still deciding where to go and to keep inspiring confidence after students have applied.

Study abroad begins at home

When designing pre-enrolment student support, imagine a prospect sitting in a living room chatting with family and friends about institutions on their shortlist. Parents are naturally worried and determined to make a good choice. After all, they care deeply about their children鈥檚 happiness and safety and often make the financial investment in study abroad. Friends may also be considering foreign schools or universities, and so there is vigorous debate about the pros and cons of various options.

That living-room discussion touches on all the typical considerations: rankings, affordability, quality, location, visas, programmes, work opportunities, possible scholarships, etc. But also: Which institutions have great websites? Which institutions make it easy for students to contact them?

You can imagine parents poring over emails from institutions to compare pros and cons. And they aren鈥檛 just looking for information. They notice if the tone is professional and friendly, and they notice when an admissions staff member offers to talk personally to them about a programme. They like impressive percentages about post-graduation employment rates. If parents aren鈥檛 proficient in English or another language of study, they appreciate an o聣 er to have information and answers translated into their first language 鈥� which is becoming much easier to do with AI tools, and which is just beginning to happen at some institutions.

Students, meanwhile, look for prompts to speak with student ambassadors, offers to connect with the career services team, and housing assistance. They like links leading to virtual tours of campus facilities and 鈥渄ay-in-the-life鈥� videos of students having fun at orientation and graduation ceremonies, attending lectures, enjoying meals with friends, and interacting with industry professionals as part of their programme.

If those students and parents were looking at communications from your school or university, would they be impressed? Would your email and website strategies truly represent what it is like to study on your campus? If not, it鈥檚 time for a review and rethink.

Keep it going

Congratulations! The prospect you鈥檝e been handling with great care has decided to apply! Ahh, all that effort was worth it. But that鈥檚 not where it ends.

Kasper Baars, head of university partnerships at Uni-Life, notes: 鈥淔or many institutions, the post-application phase is where things go quiet. Students go dark. Engagement drops. And teams shift their focus to the next cycle. But this silent stretch is actually one of the most critical moments in the entire journey.鈥�

Mr Baars continues: 鈥淭he admissions process isn鈥檛 just about checking boxes and verifying documents; it鈥檚 about sustaining momentum, building trust, and reassuring students that they鈥檝e made the right choice.鈥�

As students wait for a visa decision, your institution could:

• Provide one-on-one guidance about accommodation, academic expectations, study tips, course structure, reading lists, etc.;
• Guarantee late admission in the event of visa decision delays;
• Deliver virtual tutorials for students who may need language support;
• Create virtual meet-ups with other international student applicants to start creating community.

Roll out that welcome mat

When new students arrive on campus, arrange for airport greetings and transportation to ensure their first impression of your country and school is incredible. When students tuck in for bed on their first night, you can be sure they are messaging with family and friends at home and posting photos and videos before they go to sleep.

For additional background, please see:

• “Five key steps to driving ROI from your student ambassador programme“
• “黑料官网 Podcast: Beyond the offer letter: The services that drive international student success“
• “How likely are students to recommend your institution?“

The post Building the bridge to campus: The first stage of student satisfaction begins long before admission appeared first on 黑料官网 Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

This year, the report also does a nice job in setting the context for enquiry management by providing some important takeaways from a survey of 49 responding institutions. Those findings highlight, for example, that two out of five universities in the sample report receiving more than 25,000 international student enquiries every year.

Near nine in ten (85%) of the responding institutions report using either a standalone or fully integrated CRM system to help manage those enquiry volumes. A similar proportion (84%) say that they use marketing automation tools as well. Edified adds that while the use of such tools is widespread, it is “at varying levels of sophistication globally.”

The institution survey also provides an interesting window into the enquiry channels supported across universities. As we see in the figure below, email and phone remain the most commonly available options.

The 2025 Enquiry Experience Tracker

The average overall scores in the tracker study rose by 10% year-over-year to reach a four-year high point. The proportion of responses rated as “excellent” rose from one-third to 58%, and the share of interactions characterised as “negative” fell from 33% to 18%. This reflects, says Edified, “how intense global competition is driving universities to sharpen their interactions with prospects.”

The 2025 study is based on enquiries filed with 103 institutions in five countries, across six enquiry channels (e.g., email, web enquiry form, WhatsApp, or other) and using seven student personas. Roughly a third of the institutions in the study were in the UK, another 28% were in Australia and New Zealand, just over a quarter in Canada, and 7% in the United States (all in the state of New York).

The mystery shoppers’ interactions with each university were then evaluated against 51 criteria, including “findability, responsiveness, clarity, and personalisation.” The scores for each are weighted according to the following model and used to generate an overall Enquiry Experience Score (out of 100) for each institution in the study.

The results

Overall scoring improved this year to a global average of 61, which represents a six-point improvement from the 2024 study. As we see in the figure below, however, the scoring varied a fair bit by region, with institutions in Australia and New Zealand showing the strongest performance. Also of note: each region in the 2025 study either improved or equalled their ratings from 2024.

The four years of the Enquiry Experience Tracker study reflect a steady improvement in enquiry handling, with global ratings rising from 51 in 2022 to this year’s overall score of 61.

Key findings

Beyond those institutional, regional, and global scores, the Enquiry Experience Tracker model has some important insights to offer.

Channels are not always on. Some of the enquiry channels that students find most meaningful 鈥撎齭uch as peer-to-peer, live chat and WhatsApp 鈥撎齛re not always available, meaning students are essentially asked to fall back to more traditional channels like email to reach the institution.

For example, only 70% of institutions provide options to chat with current students, and just over half have live chat or chatbots. WhatsApp is the channel least likely to be offered with two-thirds of this year’s mystery shoppers unable to locate WhatsApp details. The significant of this rests in part in the fact that students found WhatsApp the most satisfying enquiry channel in every region. It is an option that, when available, offers greater responsiveness (all students in the study received an answer to their queries via WhatsApp and 80% of those came within two business hours. “The experience was so good,” says the study report, that “6 in 7 students said they鈥檇 be likely to engage further.”

Responsiveness is improving generally. Across the 2025 study, response rates and speed in responding improved. Edified reports: “Half of replies met best practice timeframes, up from four in ten last year.”

The report adds, “Response rates improved slightly, indicating that institutions are paying closer attention to their lead pipelines amid shifting policies and growing competition. On average, ANZ institutions are the most responsive, answering more than 95% of enquiries placed with them, followed by UK institutions, who replied to 85%. Response rates in North America were less consistent. One in four students didn鈥檛 hear back after placing enquiries to Canadian and US institutions in the time allowed for this research (three weeks for email and 15 minutes for live channels).”

Enquiry responses are becoming more effective. This year’s study finds that most institutions improved their communications in the last year and delivered both the key information that students need but also an element of persuasion as well. “Nearly 80% of responses were tailored to students鈥� study interests or country and 60% went the extra mile to include bonus information to help students,” adds the report. “Globally, half of communications were rated as 鈥榚xcellent鈥� against our standard 鈥� a further improvement on previous years.”

Follow-up remains a big challenge. While the study reflects better performance in terms of the initial reply to a student enquiry, serious issues remain in terms of any further follow up activity. Only one in four mystery shoppers received follow-up communications in the 2025 study, although this was up from one in five last year.

The report notes an important variation in follow up practice in that, “Students who placed web form enquiries were followed up with the most often, with 45% receiving nurture emails. This indicates a growing capability in data integration and consent management globally. Follow-ups were lowest for phone enquiries, and less than one in ten students heard back from institutions after their call.”

The bottom line. Most students in the 2025 study felt positively about their interaction with the institution(s). But one in five still said they would be unlikely to continue engaging beyond the initial exchange with the institution, mainly because the responses they received were impersonal or lacked warmth or a more personal touch. Just over half of the students in the study reported a positive experience, and more than four in ten said they would be “very likely” to keep engaging with the institution.

“Getting the basics of enquiry management right is not always enough to win hearts,” says Edified. “Student feedback shows they most value the institutions that anticipate their needs, give personalised responses and make them feel genuinely welcome.”

Recommendations

Working off of those important findings, the study report offers a series of recommendations for enquiry management.

1. “Apply a conversion mindset.” Each enquiry is an opportunity to guide the student to choosing your institution. Put your unique sales points forward, offer value-added details that speak to the student’s concerns, and close with practical next steps in the process.
   
2. Open up mobile channels. Many students may prefer to interact on messaging apps, but relatively few institutions offer this option.
   
3. “Don鈥檛 send students on a scavenger hunt.” Rather than relying on links to provide information, answer the student’s questions directly and meaningfully in your reply. “A more thoughtful reply builds trust and shows students what they can expect if they choose to study with you,” says Edified.
   
4. Commit to ongoing improvement. Student concerns, expectations, and even channel preferences are changing all the time. “Stay connected with your recruitment and in-country teams to identify shifts or challenges early, and adjust your content and channels accordingly,” concludes the study report.

For additional background, please see:

• “How to improve your communications with prospective international students“
• “In a time of shifting student demand, a speedy response to enquiries is a must“
• “Mystery shopping study indicates many institutions are still losing international student leads“

The post Mystery shopping study finds broad improvement in student enquiry handling this year appeared first on 黑料官网 Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

However, a CRM system is not a substitute for human-to-human interaction. There is still a huge role for staff to play in terms of designing content and communications for prospective students. Today we鈥檒l look at good practice in email correspondence between marketing/admissions staff and prospects, and we鈥檒l proceed with an assumption that a student has submitted a form on the sales/marketing team鈥檚 CRM.

Delegate, respond quickly, and provide options

School or university staff reading a well-devised, completed form can quickly discern basic details such as the student鈥檚 name, city, country, and level (e.g., undergraduate, postgraduate, foundation). In addition, the form can indicate:

• Programmes of interest, as well as other priorities (scholarships, accommodation, internships, visa processing, etc.);
• Language preferences;
• And more.

The more information you can collect, the better 鈥� but keep in mind that many leads will drop off if they see a long form asking them to submit too much information. One solution is to make certain fields optional.

Once a form is submitted, it should be clear in CRM who is responsible for following up. (HEM) makes a good point:

鈥淎 key element of building your workflows is ensuring that your follow-up is handled by the right staff. Even if you are working in a very small school with just one or two team members, having each of you take ownership of specific workflows can ensure your work is distributed evenly and your time managed efficiently.

It also allows you to maximize the strengths of each individual team member. For instance, you may have staff who are much more experienced at processing applications and dealing with prospects further on in the enrollment journey, whereas others might be more adept at making an impression on new leads. Likewise, some of your team members might have specific knowledge of certain courses, or even speak the native language of those in one of your key target markets. By assigning your workflows to the right people, you could dramatically increase your chances of success.鈥�

Segmenting and writing emails for automation

The information you collect through the website form allows you to construct student segments for automated emails. Asking for relatively detailed information on the form allows for smaller segments because students have distinguished themselves based on the specific information they have provided. Smaller segments allow for more personalisation in the email templates that staff create. For example:

• Template A goes out to students with a specific interest in agricultural programmes.
• Template B goes out to students who say they are open to any programme for which they are eligible.
• Template C goes out to students who want to communicate in Spanish and want information about visas.

In other words, the different templates correspond to different student segments.

The following is an example of an email 鈥� written by staff and then automated in the CRM 鈥� that would go to a student who had indicated their name, location, and preferred programme in a fictional university we called ANP. Note the friendly tone, one-to-one style (as opposed to a corporate tone), and openness to a range of communication platforms.

Hi Sakura,

Thank you for reaching out to us at ANP University. We鈥檙e excited to provide you with information about our campus and engineering programmes.

My name is Kate, and I鈥檓 here to help you with any questions you have about studying at ANP and living in Picton. I鈥檇 be happy to connect with you in whichever way works best for you: email, phone, or a messaging platform of your choice (e.g., WhatsApp or Messenger).

If you鈥檇 like to connect by phone, you can schedule a call with me at the following link: [link to calendar platform].

In the meantime, I encourage you to look at our available resources on our website. Here are some quick links to get you started:

鈥� Undergraduate engineering programmes
鈥� Internships
鈥� Working while studying
鈥� Tuition fees and scholarships
鈥� Budgeting calculator
鈥� Accommodation
鈥� Student testimonials
鈥� Virtual campus tour
鈥� Living in Picton

I look forward to chatting with you soon!

All the best,

Kate

The importance of speed and tone

According to , more than three-quarters (77%) of consumers say that the best customer service a company can provide is valuing their time. What鈥檚 more, customers say that the following emotions have the most powerful and positive influence on their perception of a company, purchase behaviours, and brand loyalty: feeling valued, appreciated, and respected.

For marketing and sales teams at schools and universities, inspiring those positive emotions means responding quickly, precisely, politely, warmly, and personally.

The negative emotions the Forrester research found to be most detrimental to a customer鈥檚 trust and willingness to purchase are feeling frustrated, annoyed, and disappointed.

There are ways to avoid triggering negative emotions, even when institutions are short on budget or staff. For example:

Avoiding frustration: research has found that 90% of customers say an “immediate” response to customer service questions is “important” or 鈥渧ery important,鈥� and that 60% of those customers consider “immediate” to be 10 minutes or less.

This is where a good chatbot can be useful. However, if you have a chatbot, ensure that it provides an option for students to speak with a human being if the AI chat is not delivering what they need.

Avoiding annoyance: If staff can鈥檛 respond immediately to a student鈥檚 request to speak with a human via email, automate a friendly email response in the CRM that acknowledges the query and tells students what to expect in terms of timing (e.g., a reply within 24 hours, 48 hours, etc.) UX designers call this the 鈥溾�� and consider it the most important response to all queries. It provides prompt reassurance.

The first reply is also strategically important because it allows staff to take required time to respond meaningfully and helpfully to students. There are no gains to be had by rushing that crucial email that answers specific questions; conveys a friendly, legitimate, and confident brand; and increases the odds students will stay in the enrolment funnel.

Avoiding disappointment: If you say you will respond in a certain amount of time, keep your word. Research shows that waiting times from consumers.

Lean into the follow-up

How many of us have placed a desired item in a website shopping cart, then left it there without purchasing it? Research shows that 70% of shoppers abandon their shopping cart, meaning that . Reasons for leaving a website before making a purchase include:

• The items were put in the cart on impulse and the impulse passed;
• The items were in a category the shopper was exploring from multiple brands (this is especially true of students who are considering more destinations and institutions than ever);
• The shopper knows from experience that many companies respond to an abandoned shopping cart by emailing the shopper with a discount or other incentive.

All the above points pertain to students as much as general consumers. Education is both consumed and invested in by students and their families. It is a big-ticket item. As a result, it can take multiple attempts to encourage a student along the enrolment funnel, and it can take a value-add or incentive. This is why it is key to master the art of the follow-up.

Research by business-to-business marketing firm has found that sending just one follow-up email to a customer who has ignored the first email increases the replay rate by 22%, and that the reply rate to that first follow-up is 40% higher than to the first email. And a blog post on the automation firm notes that following up 鈥渁lso shows you are engaged in the client鈥檚 journey and helps to set and reinforce expectations.鈥�

Clearly, there is a synergy created by combining 鈥� and aligning 鈥� good chatbot, email, and branding strategies.

For additional information, please see:

• 鈥�Mapping the student journey: good data, student-centric strategies, and a customised CRM鈥�
• 鈥�Study shows that international students want a sense of belonging long before arriving on campus鈥�
• 鈥�In a time of shifting student demand, a speedy response to enquiries is a must鈥�

The post How to improve your communications with prospective international students appeared first on 黑料官网 Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

You are committed to your organisation鈥檚 internationalisation goals and targets and dedicated to guiding students to the programmes that suit them best. But commitment and hard work are one thing and having the right supports to achieve results is another.

Is your organisation optimised for international student recruitment? Consider the following questions:

• Where are students discovering your school/university?
• What proportion take the next step (e.g., engage, enquire, apply)?
• What are common pain points for students trying to interact with your institution?
• What are individual students鈥� goals, priorities, barriers, and interests?
• Which communications and website content do students engage with, and which do they ignore?

If you don鈥檛 have these insights, it could be time for your institution or agency to invest in student journey mapping and a customer relationship management system (CRM).

What is the student journey?

The path that students follow from first awareness of an institution to enrolment is called the student journey. It can also be extended to encompass graduation and even employment.

The journey metaphor illustrates how many decisions students make as they proceed towards enrolment, and it prompts institutions and agents to:

• Map out all the brand touchpoints and phases of engagement/activity that can influence a student鈥檚 decision to enrol;
• Create a plan to nurture leads at each phase;
• Make customer satisfaction a priority from the time a student indicates interest
  to the time they graduate.

Studyportals envisions the student journey as a series of actions that leads take: discover, shortlist, apply, commit, prepare, and study.

That progression is depicted in the following illustrations.

What is a CRM?

Salesforce explains: 鈥淎 CRM system helps with contact management, sales management, agent productivity, and more. CRM tools can now be used to manage customer relationships across the entire customer life cycle.鈥�

The consulting firm (HEM) elaborates on what a CRM can do:

• Contact management 鈥� build and store individual contact profiles, segment them according to your needs, and track your interactions with each one.
• Team management 鈥� collaborate, schedule tasks, track leads, and plan workload.
• Communications tools 鈥� log and detail communications with contacts via phone, email, SMS, instant messaging, physical meetings, and even social media.
• Reporting 鈥� synthesise valuable, granular data on your audience and your own team鈥檚 work into reports that can be used to improve your efforts.

Consider what is truly expensive

It鈥檚 common for marketing and admissions teams to be told by management that their existing systems (e.g., their original, poorly performing CRM or Excel) have been paid for and must therefore remain in place. This is a huge mistake for at least three reasons:

1. Excel does not offer marketing automation.
2. An outdated CRM that nobody knows how to use is pointless.
3. What is truly expensive is recruiting inefficiently and ineffectively.

When staff lack tools or training to respond immediately and helpfully to prospective student queries, they can easily lose leads through no fault of their own. When they are trained on a well-configured CRM, they can focus on providing the strategic thinking and human touch that remain crucial to customer service.

Alejandra Otero, founder and CEO of education marketing and recruitment consultancy , says:

鈥淰iewing [CRM and staff training on it] as a cost is missing the point. Remember, cost is part of an equation. If the cost is outweighed by incoming revenue, it is not a cost; it is an investment that is paying off.鈥�

Common pitfalls

Ms Otero鈥檚 company helps institutions and agents to replace inefficient marketing and admissions structures and technologies with new systems and ways of working. These systems are set up with one overarching goal: to track and nurture student leads along the student journey to enrolment.

When brainstorming the process, Ms Otero considered common issues that can derail a recruitment drive:

• Slow responses to student enquiries. According to Keystone Education Group鈥檚 State of Student Recruitment (2024) global survey, 85% of students expect a response within 24 hours, preferably through email (70%) or instant messaging (12%, a marked 36% increase over 2023).

• Lack of coordination. Ms Otero explains: 鈥淲e have seen cases where agents are recruiting diligently and according to an institutional contract, but the admissions team isn鈥檛 aware that the agent channel is even being used. The marketing team knows, but this information hasn鈥檛 been shared or isn鈥檛 visible in the CRM to admissions. The student 鈥� after having spoken to an agent 鈥� contacts admissions, and admissions tells them they aren鈥檛 working with agents. This undermines both the agent鈥檚 and institution鈥檚 trustworthiness in the market. The silos within an institution should not hinder student experience.鈥�

• Frustrating processes. Asking students to complete many forms with the same basic information, or overly long forms, is a sure way of annoying leads. So is a website chatbot that leaves students with no answers and no idea where to turn to next.

• Lack of personalisation. Are you collecting the right information from students to personalise your communications? Ms Otero notes that when students click on a paid ad or search on a webpage, heated zones where they have lingered can provide data on their top interests (e.g., programmes, scholarships, etc.). Marketing may have this information, but admissions should have it as well for their own interactions with students.

• Limited collection/use of data. Ms Otero says: 鈥淓veryone should have data showing where leads are at in the student journey 鈥� whether you鈥檙e an agent, an admissions officer, or a marketing director. That data is like gold. It reveals opportunities as well as signs that a lead is about to drop off. Data signals where an intervention is required (e.g., a personalised email, an application fee waived, an early admissions offer). Many clients think they need more leads, but better lead management through a CRM is really what is required.鈥�

Customisation is key

When Ms Otero鈥檚 team begins to work with a client, the first thing they do is an audit of what data is available (and often not being used) and how marketing and admissions are functioning and interrelating. The team discovers where leads are coming from, enrolment trends, opportunities for better synergies between departments, and common points at which prospects are leaving the enrolment funnel. Ms Otero says:

鈥淵ou have to know what is and what is not working before coming up with a plan. Every institution is unique, so when we implement a CRM or train staff on new systems, it鈥檚 always customised. Everything you do should be for a reason, and each element of a plan must relate to all the other elements.鈥�

A main goal is always to empower people: 鈥淚t is amazing how much more satisfied and
committed marketing and admissions teams become when they have the right tools to do
their jobs well.鈥�

Student-first thinking

A good way of approaching recruiting and admissions management, says Ms Otero, is to ask: 鈥溾�楢m I making it easy enough for students to (a) become aware of our brand, (b) interact with our staff and agents, and (c) enrol?鈥� Part of that is collecting and acting on data, and the other is responding quickly and well to students.

A CRM empowers staff with good data, and it frees them from the impossible task of responding immediately to all queries.鈥�

No need for chaos

Students now have almost endless ways of discovering institutions and deciding whether to enrol. They have far more resources available to them now as they research 鈥� just think of all the social media channels they are active on!

Without student journey mapping and associated data, it is next to impossible to properly identify and nurture leads. The result is that leads are poorly managed or even squandered and the ROI on your recruitment effort suffers. A student-centred strategy, backed by an effective CRM that everyone on the team knows how to use, is a reliable path to meeting your recruitment goals and achieving better student outcomes. As staff become adept with new systems, and as students achieve more success, everyone wins.

For additional background, please see:

• “Three international education trends for 2025: Revenue optimisation, marketing personalisation, and on-the-ground local intelligence“

The post Mapping the student journey: Good data, student-centric strategies, and a customised CRM are must-haves appeared first on 黑料官网 Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

I know plenty of examples where an organisation got tired of their existing, ugly website and replaced it with a better-looking one 鈥� and ended up with worse performance: lower engagement, fewer conversions or less search traffic compared to their old site. It has happened to me, too.

If a website has been around for a while, some portions will probably do their job brilliantly, even if everyone feels they look outdated. So before you make significant changes to your existing website or start designing a new one, make a plan. While nothing in life goes entirely according to plan, knowing where you鈥檙e heading will help you stay on course.

When you have a solid plan, it will also become easier to say 鈥榥o鈥� to ad hoc requests from across the institution 鈥� you can simply explain that they would take the website off track (and why).

Fortunately, there are proven methodologies to help you improve your website. To be clear: when I say 鈥榠mprove鈥�, I don鈥檛 necessarily mean redoing everything. Sure, there are times when it is best to start from scratch, but that isn鈥檛 always feasible immediately. The good news is, you can usually achieve a lot just by changing text and images and perhaps adding and removing a few pages.

In this book, we will use SEO as the main framework for website planning and design because it encompasses much of what people do on your website, from discovering your website in the first place to navigation and engagement.

But there are many other methodologies that partially overlap with SEO and have valuable perspectives to add. You鈥檒l likely already be familiar with many of them. While I won鈥檛 cover all of them in depth, it is helpful to introduce the most important ones here. That way, you鈥檒l know what expertise is available and how the different approaches can support each other.

Student journey

I don鈥檛 like the phrase 鈥榮tudent journey鈥� 鈥� it sounds very much like bullshit to anyone who isn鈥檛 familiar with the concept. For any non-marketers in the room, consider replacing it with a phrase like 鈥榗ommunicating consistently with students across organisation units鈥�.

But semantics aside, the student journey is an important lens for looking at your website (though the concept encompasses much more than that) and it鈥檚 supported by a community of experts and documented best practices. This phrase uses the metaphor of a journey that the student makes, from deciding where to study, to applying and onboarding, to being a regular student, and then to graduating and maybe becoming part of the alumni association.

Different departments are responsible for specific portions of this journey and things often don鈥檛 work smoothly when responsibility for the student passes from one team to another.

Students remain the same person along the journey, though, and regard your institution as a single entity. They don鈥檛 care if the message comes from marketing or the registrar鈥檚 office, they just want an answer 鈥� and they don鈥檛 want to be asked for the same information repeatedly.

Student journey mapping is a way of graphically representing all the interactions a (prospective) student will have with your institution. By bringing groups representing different departments together, you can identify the gaps and points of friction and adjust processes to make the journey smoother for students. Called the 鈥榗ustomer journey鈥� in the business world, 鈥榡ourney mapping鈥� can be applied to any audience an organisation serves, whether it鈥檚 students, staff, external scientists or another group. It just so happens that for most universities, students take priority: they鈥檙e the largest group and have the most complex needs.

How does the student journey relate to marketing and building better websites? Web content is a very effective way to support students on their journey. During the stages of their journey, students will visit different webpages and other content to find out what to do. When they search in Google, they will use different keywords depending on the stage they are at. By making sure the right content is available and easy to find on your website every step of the way, you can take away a lot of guesswork and uncertainty on the part of students and save yourself from repeatedly answering the same questions.

For example, has information about all stages of the student journey available year-round, but highlights different content in the top section depending on the time of the year. In February, it emphasises open days and webinars, while in June, the homepage starts with a huge banner that advertises their housing guarantee. You can read more about how they did this and how they plan to take things even further in the NHL Stenden case study (Chapter 12).

If you get a knot in your stomach when you hear the words 鈥榮tudent journey鈥�, you鈥檙e not alone. At an organisational level, student journey mapping is a complex and protracted process which can be rife with conflicts. Don鈥檛 worry about the organisational process here, and certainly don鈥檛 wait to apply the student journey lens to your website with what you know today.

Wherever your institution is in the organisational student journey mapping process right now, as a marketer you can ensure that the content on your website supports (prospective) students during each step of their journey. Even if it鈥檚 not perfect right away, get going and you can always come back to the content and fine-tune it later. In Chapter 4, we will discuss planning and creating relevant website content. The stage of the student journey reached by the prospective student is one of the key factors to consider.

Is your website accessible?

Here鈥檚 another lens for viewing your website: is it accessible to as many people as possible? An inclusive and diverse institution should be easy to interact with, even if a website visitor has a visual, auditory, motor, speech or cognitive impairment. For example, people with visual impairments may use screen readers that read out the website text to them. Screen readers only work well when website content is clearly structured with descriptive page titles and helpful headings. If you miss this structure, the website may look no different to a non-impaired visitor but will become much harder to use for someone who relies on a screen reader.

Compliance with accessibility standards is often mandated by law. Public institutions are often held to higher standards. The most common framework for implementing accessibility is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Accessibility isn鈥檛 only about the technical setup, design and structure of your website: the content matters, too. The question any wheelchair user will have when they are about to visit a building is, 鈥榃ill I be able to get around in my wheelchair?鈥�

As a marketer, you鈥檙e not in charge of building wheelchair ramps, but even if your building has serious accessibility issues, having a clear accessibility page signposted in your menu can make things much more straightforward. Provide advice on which entrance to use and who to contact for support 鈥� and you鈥檒l take a lot of guesswork out of the visit.

Good accessibility practice fits well with SEO best practices, but there are additional things to keep in mind. I will cover accessibility in more depth in Chapter 6.

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)

While it鈥檚 great if your website is helpful, just having the world鈥檚 most helpful university website will not get you far. At a certain point, your website also needs to lead visitors to their next action, such as:

鈥� Initiating a chat with a student ambassador
鈥� Filling in an enquiry form
鈥� Signing up for a newsletter
鈥� Getting started with an application

Each of these actions can be referred to as conversions. The percentage of website visits that includes a conversion is the conversion rate.

Conversion rates vary greatly between websites and they can make all the difference. Imagine that two websites both get 2000 visits in a day. If the first website has a 5% conversion rate, while the conversion rate of the second is 10%, it could mean the difference between 100 and 200 email addresses captured daily on your website. If all your marketing activities together are a football team and the website is the star striker, can you imagine how much of a difference it makes when your striker is twice as likely to score when they get the ball?

Achieving a good conversion rate overlaps with all the other approaches: relevant, discoverable and accessible website content builds trust and confidence to set your audience up for further engagement. Beyond all the above, there are specific things you can do on your site to encourage people to take action. For example, CRO best practice asks for clear calls to action (CTAs) on your website to encourage people to take the next step.

A specific CRO-related pitfall in higher education is to scatter prominent 鈥榓pply鈥� buttons across the website. Since applying entails a lot of work for prospective students, it鈥檚 not something they can do quickly. That鈥檚 why prospective students usually leave a site if they get asked to apply too soon unless they are sufficiently motivated. It鈥檚 better to emphasise smaller steps, such as 鈥榗hat with a current student鈥� or 鈥榬egister for a webinar鈥�, as your key CTA. These deeper interactions will build the confidence that your institution is worth the effort of applying.

Web analytics

Simply putting all of the above approaches to work is no guarantee of success. You may believe your website is perfectly optimised 鈥� it looks beautiful, and its content is relevant and inspires action.

But just like in a football game, it鈥檚 not about which star players are on your team. Ultimately, it is the scoreboard that counts. Web analytics is what you can use to keep score. Popular software for web analytics includes Google Analytics 4, Matomo and Piwik PRO.

In football, the main thing you want to keep track of is the number of goals. But there are many other things you can track which will give you an insight into what is already working and what needs improvement, such as shots on goal, fouls and ball possession.

In analytics, the ultimate goal on the student front would be enrolments. Steps along the way that you鈥檒l also want to track include website visits, number of pageviews, open day registrations and so on. By keeping score, you can pinpoint bottlenecks and focus your efforts on alleviating them. For example, it won鈥檛 do you much good to focus on improving a website鈥檚 conversion rate if barely any prospective students visit your website.

Another important role for web analytics is to share performance with internal stakeholders. This can help everyone get on board and stay engaged with improving the website experience. I will cover analytics and communicating results in Chapter 11.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

I started off the previous chapter by likening your website to a party. The previous approaches were all about making sure the people at the party have a great time. But before you can have a party, you need a crowd. Without enough people, it鈥檚 not a party. You also need the right mix of people.

SEO is concerned with attracting the right profile of people to your website. The kind of people you want to draw close to your institution. That includes prospective students who fit your ideal profile but there are other people you would want to attract, too.

For example, a city official who is thinking of revitalising and greening a neighbourhood may discover the work of your architecture faculty. Or a scientist at another institution might discover a project at one of your faculties that鈥檚 closely related to a study they are working on.

While you could (and probably should) advertise your programmes and projects, doing so requires constant effort and expenditure. The SEO framework is all about putting in the foundational work to make sure your website gets discovered by as many of the people you want to be at your 鈥榩arty鈥� as possible 鈥� when they are looking for answers, and not only when you get around to promoting yourself.

Most universities never get around to strategically using SEO, which is a giant missed opportunity 鈥� and it鈥檚 also one of the main reasons I wrote this book. As you can read in its case study (Chapter 15), the University of Rochester managed to get the same content viewed ten to twenty times more by optimising it for search engine discovery. SEO has amplified everything these pages were previously doing by a factor of ten!

That鈥檚 why SEO is the main focus of this book. SEO is the method for making sure your intended audience finds your well-crafted content listed prominently in the search engines, right at the moment when they need it most: when they search for it.

Conclusion: Approaches for improving your website

In this chapter, I have briefly introduced the key approaches that you can use to improve your website. They all overlap to some extent, but each provides a slightly different angle. To keep this book manageable, we鈥檒l look at your website mainly from the angle of SEO, but I will also bring other approaches into the discussion where they have something important to add.

For additional information, please see:

• 鈥�Building better landing pages for international student recruitment鈥�
• 鈥�Could you be missing a competitive advantage in marketing to international students?鈥�
• 鈥�Move over Google: Social media is also a search engine鈥�

The post University websites: How can we make them better for international student recruitment? appeared first on 黑料官网 Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.