The Finite and Infinite Ways to Influence Yield
Over the past several days, I’ve been speaking with enrollment managers and hearing the mix of elation and angst depending on what the gods of the May 1 deposit deadline had wrought. Having been behind the college desk on deposit day just a year ago, I shared in the celebration of those who did well and empathized with those who fell short. Being away from the whirlwind of activity leading up to May 1, I also had the opportunity to give some thought on yield.
At the most basic level, there are few ways for enrollment managers to motivate students to enroll: strategic use of financial aid; applying other predictive analytics to focus outreach and operational efforts; and the establishment — or hopefully the deepening — of relationships between students and the college.
With respect to financial aid leveraging and other predictive analytics, their value is important but limited. They are limited to the attributes and behaviors that one can quantify. Most glaringly, they are unable to capture the gut instincts and emotions that drive major life decisions.
They are also limited in that they rely on the assumption that past behaviors will mirror future ones. The past does not predict consistently well. Despite what models might have shown, how often do we hear “I made my class but missed my revenue” or “I missed the class, but my discount was okay”? The latest NACUBO Tuition Discounting Survey shows private colleges’ average freshman discount rate has grown to 50%. If strategies relying on the past have led to this present, I think a lot of presidents and CFO’s would like to find a new strategy as the recent past has not been particularly kind to most colleges.
The other area where enrollment managers can influence yield is the limitless realm of relationships. To be sure, relationships don’t begin during yield season, they simply culminate then. They begin as soon as — and oft-times before — a student becomes a blip in a college’s CRM. We all know that engagement and communication are different things: a campus visit engages; a view book does not. Technology now allows for real engagement to extend well beyond the single campus visit and the tireless work of admission counselors. Through social media, engagement can be boundless and continuous. By connecting students to the college and to each other, engagement evolves. It replicates, and it grows.
Over the coming weeks, enrollment and college leaders will be attending planning retreats to reflect on the goals they hit/missed and to begin planning on how to do better for the coming year. I encourage them to take a step away from the inevitable tweaking of aid strategies and other elements of the yield effort and start by asking the elemental question of whether they are truly connecting on a human level with students. The utility of leveraging and analytics are always going to be limited. The power of relationships is not.
