Five key steps to driving ROI from your student ambassador programme

The following article is adapted from the 2026 edition of ICEF Insights magazine, which is freely available to download now.

In the age of AI, are students still asking human beings for their advice? It depends. When prospective students get information from a platform such as ChatGPT, they can sometimes conclude that they have all the answers, which can diminish their likelihood of (1) going to the university website and pressing the “Contact us” button, and (2) visiting a local agent.

However, an AI response can also inspire prospects to take the next step to see what other people think about the university – especially people with first-hand experience: other students and alumni.

The importance of a student/alumni ambassador initiative is not diminished by AI. Instead, this investment can go a long way towards ensuring that AI may be the first word about your institution, but not the last word.

According to marketing guru Seth Godin, a brand is “a promise and a shorthand for the expectations, memories, stories, and relationships a consumer has with a product, service, or organisation.” That is a phenomenal description of the emotional relationship between brands and their avid fans. This kind of relationship is just not covered by AI. It needs humans.

Students engage with school and university brands on many levels, including by spending hours watching student-created videos about getting ready for school, decorating dorm rooms, cramming for exams, cheering for sports teams, and goofing around with friends. They are looking for a student perspective as much as a list of the objective benefits of an institution. They want to be sure that on top of receiving quality education and good career outcomes, they will belong on campus and have friends and fun.

Student ambassadors can provide accurate, current information about programmes, internships, costs of study, etc. and the subjective student experience. This is a superpower! Ambassadors provide the authenticity prospective students crave when deciding on where and what to study.

Why aren’t more universities using student ambassadors?

At this year’s ICEF Monitor Global Summit in London, an expert panel – George Grainger, co-founder of Alumnify; Sanna Heikkinen, marketing designer at the University of Oulu in Finland; and George Olesen, CEO of The Ambassador Platform – explored the benefits and challenges of student ambassador programmes.

Mr Grainger started off by highlighting why institutions need to consider ambassadors as part of their branding and outreach, saying, “Prospective students are willing to make a huge investment in study abroad, but you need more than traditional marketing to have them choose your university over all the other options they might be considering. Students want to hear the real stories and opinions of other students … student ambassadors are a unique opportunity.”

The panelists also addressed a common worry that investing in an ambassador initiative could lead to unpredictable or unmeasurable ROI. For example, maybe one ambassador would prompt a conversion, while others would not, or maybe an ambassador could even damage the brand by providing inaccurate information by mistake or sharing a video that is too silly or even inappropriate.

The solution, agreed panelists, is to commit to a serious onboarding system and continuous support. Mr Grainger explained that you can’t just expect ambassadors to know how to represent your institution without preparing them:

“Training is so important for outcomes. We start with a four-hour bootcamp where we get ambassadors into the nuts and bolts of how to recruit. We explore how to communicate with different stakeholders. We do scenario training, where for example we take on the role of a difficult student or a difficult parent and then help ambassadors learn how best to handle the situation.”

Ms Heikkinen said that in her experience, involving ambassadors across marketing functions and activities is great for engagement and results:

“We connect all our marketing activities and design them to be complementary. So our ambassadors contribute to ideas for the website, they gather student testimonials and create videos. They play a role in webinars, open days, high school visits, social media, and more. They’re involved in agent cooperation and study fairs. They are integrated because they are part of our team.”

Treating ambassadors as valued, important professionals will encourage the results you are looking for. In addition to improved conversions, ROI will come from a strengthened position in key target markets and a reputation as a brand that students can trust.

Five key steps to driving ROI

1. Compensate your ambassadors. Paying them professionalises their job. By paying them fairly, you get to set tasks and responsibilities and require accountability. If ambassadors are simply asked to help out of the goodness of their hearts or for a bullet on their resume, they may deliver variable results. They could hit it out of the park here and there but then fade away when they are busy or distracted. If cost is an issue, start small – even 3-5 ambassadors for your top target markets can make a huge difference.

2. Commit to the relationship. Attach a contract to the work, with a start-and-end date and with regular performance and check-in meetings. Create a list of weekly/monthly tasks the ambassador is required to complete. As George Grainger said, “If you don’t build in regularity to the relationship, you run into situations like when all of a sudden, after not contacting an ambassador for months, you need them to attend an event. That’s probably not going to work.”

3. Choose wisely. Career outcomes are crucial to prospective students. Choose students
excelling in programmes you want to promote overseas or alumni who have secured great jobs after graduating. In addition, choose:

• Students and alumni who are passionate about what going to your school has done for them. Those people are going to be the most engaging, authentic, and persuasive.
• Current students or recent alumni. Someone who graduated 5 years ago instead of 12 months ago won’t have the same fresh take on studying at your university or school.
• People who are good communicators and presenters.

4. Train and nurture. Develop a rigorous onboarding programme for your ambassadors,
since ideally, they will serve as an extension of your marketing team. Provide comprehensive training, have your staff welcome them, and make them feel valued. Consider ambassadors part of your 360-degree branding: show them how they can support all other functions (e.g., agents and in-country representatives, digital campaigns, social media posts, etc.).

5. Clarify and prepare. Clearly define what kind and tone of content the ambassador can create to represent your school, and delineate what they can and cannot say to students. Then, provide them with a set script so they can confidently direct sensitive questions (e.g., immigration-related) to appropriate staff members. For many activities such as fairs, online discussions, and events, ask your ambassadors to have their laptop open so they can easily and quickly pull up accurate information about a wide variety of programmes, tuition fees, accommodation, etc.

For additional background, please see:

• "How to build a better peer recruitment programme"
• "The peer-to-peer effect in international student recruitment"