Targeting Students for Honors Programs & Financial Aid

Welcome to the second in a series of blog posts that demonstrate how marketing and web teams can bring the power of personalization to life at their college or university. The series follows the staff at a fictional school, Gallena University, on their journey to attract, convert and engage learners using practical personalization techniques. Each blog is accompanied by a worksheet and online workshop so that you can make the Gallena experience a reality for your school.

The provost’s directive is clear: As registrar at Gallena University, it is Regina’s responsibility to stop the brain drain of high-achieving students going out of state to college—and she needs to do it sooner than later.

The problem is, Gallena’s current content management system (CMS) doesn't provide this type of visitor information. Unless prospective students contact an admissions counselor directly or complete the college’s application, Regina has no way of knowing which students actually qualify for the honors program or need financial aid.

Realizing that having no access to such crucial data puts her university at a disadvantage, Regina does her research and discovers Modern Campus CMS with Instinct, a feature that enables rich personalization throughout the campus website.

The Instinct Advantage for a Modern Campus

With Modern Campus CMS and Instinct, Regina now has a powerful personalization tool at hand to identify specific students for honors programs and financial aid, thereby solving the brain drain problem.

Using Instinct, Regina can target specific students based on geolocation and segmentation by GPA or test scores and then customize the website homepage banner. For example, all students might see a banner highlighting new academic programs. Similarly, in-state and high-achieving students who visit the site might be shown the same banner about the honors program.

Another way to attract high-performing prospective students is to display targeted testimonials. Known in-state high achievers might be shown a student video or quote. Unknown visitors can be shown more generic messages.

Instinct also makes it easy to present merit aid packages for in-state and out-of-state students. When a prospective student visits the application page, a quote from a current student can pop up as a further enticement to enroll. Likewise, a high-achieving student might see a video about the merit aid program at Gallena University.

The personalization features of Instinct are also beneficial to students. Kai, a high school senior, wants to attend GU because it is close to home but he struggles with finding applicable website information on scholarships and merit aid. Why, he wonders, can a university 2,000 miles away supply personalized communication about tuition and financial aid, while a school only 20 minutes down the road cannot? 

Instinct eliminates barriers like these by providing prospective students with information based on specific values—such as geolocation or segmentation by GPA or test scores. In other words, Instinct delivers the right information (GU scholarships and merit aid) to the right student (Kai) at the right time (now).

Are You Ready to Supercharge Your School’s Enrollment and Admissions Process?

Like Regina, you, too, can use Instinct to do big things to attract high-achieving prospective students to your campus. Even before you know a website visitor’s name, Instinct helps you understand their interests and then uses that information to offer tailored content and messaging that the student is looking for—at the right time.

Don’t wait; It’s time to transform your website into a next-generation digital experience with rich personalization that dramatically increases digital engagement.

Read the first blog post in this series—Recruiting Out-of-State & International Students

Website Content Management Website Personalization

Last updated: April 27, 2022