Mystery shopper experiment reveals best practices in communication strategies

We recently sat down for an interview with Mrs Lisa Cynamon Mayers, an academic advisor with Intead (International Education Advantage). Intead is a full-service consulting, strategy and digital international education solutions marketing company based in the US. Mayers explains how Intead conducted a mystery shopper experiment in which a Chinese staff member at Intead posed as a prospective student. The staffer sent an enquiry email to 30 universities in the US, Australia and Canada in an effort to observe how each would respond to a query from an international prospect. The results may surprise you...

Tips for improving your communication with student prospects

Part two of our interview dives into simple, inexpensive techniques institutions can implement in order to improve their email communication with prospective students. As Mayers outlines, the main tactics she suggests include:

• Use technology to streamline your admissions process via, for example, an auto-response to enquiries or keyword-based scheduled emails;
• Try to correspond in the local, native language of the students and parents, especially in countries where parents have a strong influence, such as China;
• Use the social channels a prospect might have or mention during the recruitment process so that you can connect with them on a platform they are already using;
• Maintain sustained contact with the prospective student throughout the entire recruitment and admissions cycle.

For more tips on effective email communication with student prospects, please see our article "From prospects to enrolments: direct marketing in international recruitment."