Virtual Open Days: How to make the most of your leads?

An East Wind for Universities in 2020?

2020 is proving to be a year like no other in the world of higher education. Despite record student admissions, Universities are facing questions on the value of their courses in 2020, and whether they are worth the cost.

Students are facing a bizarre year of mini-lockdowns, online seminars and limited social interaction. But what about the Universities themselves? The next few months leading up to the UCAS application deadline in January are the most important of the year for Unis to secure admissions in 2021.

What’s going to change?

One of the biggest sources of lead generation for Universities in this period are Open Days. With the majority of Unis now committing to virtual events instead, what effect may this have on their 2021 admissions?

In theory, the process shouldn’t be too different. Attendees of the virtual open days will still leave contact info, just like they would have at the real thing. The online webinars will still provide the same info as the real-life ones would have.

So what’s the big deal?

The answer is in the numbers.

With the events being online, Unis may be dealing with a much higher number of leads than they would normally have if the event was in person. Without the need to travel, students may be able to “attend” more open days (perhaps even 2 or 3 on the same day) from Unis all over the country.

What’s more, the online nature of the events will allow the Unis to continue collecting leads long after the virtual open day itself. 

That would leave Universities with a large pile of leads and the big challenge of being able to identify which ones are seriously interested in their programs.

The question is: What will Unis do with all these leads? 

The pandemic left a toll in most sectors, including education. Organisations should therefore be proactively searching for more cost-effective solutions, to avoid spiralling costs going into 2021.

Universities have had to invest a lot in new infrastructure, programs and processes in order to adapt to the current situation. What’s more, with a large number of unqualified leads entering the system through virtual open days, Unis may spend the next year chasing their own tails.

A large amount of leads often does not translate to more conversions, if there isn’t an efficient process in place.

How can predictive marketing help?

Utilising the sales teams to qualify those leads could raise costs fairly quickly without ensuring results.

Bad quality leads (and there will be lots of them) still require attention, but organisations have a lot to gain from prioritising their sales actions towards the best quality leads, i.e. the prospects that are most likely to convert.

The data show that 70% of an organisation’s revenue comes from only 30% of the leads. The same is true for Universities.

Predictive Lead Scoring improves current traditional scoring methods. Lead Ratings is the leader predictive marketing tool for education and is able to identify the likelihood of enrolment from a prospective student, with only the initial details they leave on the application form. 

Just like a crystal ball would do, but instead of magic, lead scoring utilises machine learning to identify patterns on the historic data and make accurate predictions. 

This predictive lead scoring model allows universities to quickly identify the quality of your leads and perform actions accordingly that can lead to a 40% increase in enrolments on the same budget. Read business case

If you haven’t tried it yet, this is the moment. That’s why we are offering a 3-month free trial of our AI-powered lead scoring tool specialised for education – Lead Ratings.