Create Relevant & Actionable Student Personas

Developing More Relevant & Actionable Student Personas

Presented by:Higher Education Marketing

1. Why Personas Matter2. Common Student Persona Development Mistakes3. What Makes up a Student Persona?4. Surveying Students for Persona Development5. Leveraging Student Success Stories for Additional

Insight6. Limiting and Focusing Your Student Personas7. Treating Personas as Living Documents8. Don’t Go it Alone in Persona Development 9. Revamping Personas for Alumni Engagement

Overview

Schools can't create customized content for prospective students without first understanding their distinct: Goals Aspirations Challenges Attitudes Search behaviours

Creating ‘student personas’ allows institutions to develop highly personalized, strategically targeted marketing campaigns that truly influence potential recruits.

Source: HEM – 7 Steps to More Relevant & Actionable Student Personas

1. Why Personas Matter

http://www.higher-education-marketing.com/services/inbound-marketing?utm_source=Slideshare&utm_campaign=SlideshareHEM&utm_medium=slide

http://www.higher-education-marketing.com/blog/authentic-student-personas?utm_source=Slideshare&utm_campaign=SlideshareHEM&utm_medium=slide

There remains some debate over precisely what the student persona should contain. As a result, many schools develop ineffective personas that: Merely skim the surface Aren’t based on real evidence Place too much emphasis on irrelevant characteristics

Read on for some expert advice for creating more relevant, actionable student personas that will really help you generate more student inquiries!


2. Common Student Persona Development Mistakes



When creating personas, many schools zero in on just one or two aspects of their target audience, thinking these will be enough to flesh out an authentic archetype.


3. What Makes up a Student Persona?

“While a customer profile can help with understanding buyers, they will not be revealing about buying behaviors. Nor will they

offer any illuminating buyer insights.”

-Tony Zambito

So how do we avoid this, and construct illuminating, insight-rich representations of our most sought-after prospective students?



At HEM, we use a 5-step persona development process for our online student recruitment campaigns:1. Define motivations and goals2. Identify pain points or perceived roadblocks3. Isolate search behaviours or key steps in the decision-making

journey4. Clarify background information (age, location, financial situation,

etc.)5. Identity important Influencers (agents, parents, peers, guidance

counsellor, etc.)


3. What Makes up a Student Persona?



Personas should deliver actionable insights – information about the attitudes and behaviours of prospective recruits that can effectively guide marketing decisions.

3. What Makes up a Persona?


Pro Tip!The Buyer Persona Institute offers a familiar framework for understanding how genuine insights can be applied to your student recruitment strategy!



While it’s helpful for student recruitment team members to contribute their observations, it’s always smart to go straight to the source – and survey students directly.

4. Surveying Students for Persona Development


There are a wide range of surveying tools out there, such as SurveyGizmo, Surveypal, SmartSurvey, or SurveyMonkey!



A survey of your current students can help you: Create an in-depth report of important characteristics, statistics, direct

quotes, and behavioural trends Gain some concrete "evidence" to present to your board of directors

Pro Tip!For more insightful results, use a balance of open-ended and multiple choice questions. For more subjective questions, such as "What prompted you to ultimately choose College ABC?" leave space for participants to describe their experience in their own words.


4. Surveying Students for Persona Development



Conducting in-depth interviews with successful students can help you uncover valuable or surprising information that might be missed on a more standardized survey approach.

5. Leveraging Student Success Stories for Additional Insight


Example:George Brown College features student success stories on their website, and encourages students to submit their own experiences via an online form. This information can be useful in persona development.



While large universities may have 10+ legitimate personas, smaller institutions should probably limit themselves to 1-3. When evaluating your personas consider your goals: Is there a particular program you wish to recruit for? Is there a particular audience you need a better understanding of? Are you hoping to reach an entirely new audience?

Focusing your persona development will stop you from micro-segmenting your audience and wind up with so many personas, you descend down a rabbit hole of data points, tactical options, and conflicted key messaging!


6. Limiting & Focusing Your Student Personas



Persona research and development is never really finished. Over time, new insights will emerge about your prospective students, and their preferences and behaviours will change. Continue to refine them by: Periodically polling and interviewing students Taking note of discussion trends on your school's social media channels Considering feedback on the persona-oriented content you've published Tracking or mapping your personas' interactions with your website Checking in periodically with admissions to see if they've noticed any new trends in terms of questions asked during the inquiry process


7. Treating Personas as Living Documents



Pro Tip!To avoid reaching false conclusions, more than one person should be responsible for crafting personas!


Invite input and critique from your student recruitment team to spot inconsistencies and information gaps.

8. Don’t Go it Alone in Persona Development



As some of your most convincing "brand ambassadors," alumni can and should play an important role in recruiting your next generation of prospective students.


After they graduate, students will develop a different set of aspirations, challenges, attitudes, and behaviours!

9. Revamping Personas for Alumni Engagement



In order to retain alumni as committed members of your community, you'll need to understand how to segment them into groups, and tailor inbound marketing content to suit them.


Pro Tip!

Alumni engagement expert Beth Kanter developed a continuum of engagement that schools can use to guide messaging to grads at various stages of involvement!




Schools should survey or interview alumni to determine answers to questions like: In what ways do your various alumni personas most want to "give back" to their alma mater? What is the easiest way to engage with overseas or out-of-state alumni versus those who live close to campus? What kinds of in-person events would your different alumni personas enjoy attending? What alumni persona would be most receptive to hosting a Q&A with prospective students?Surveying your alumni periodically will allow you to adapt your engagement strategy so it truly resonates with their needs!





Create Relevant & Actionable Student Personas

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