The start of a new decade calls for a new international recruitment strategy. It’s time to recruit in new areas and improve the way your school’s admissions office functions. Administering new methods and ideas prevents plateauing in your application pool. Whether you are new to the admissions department or the Vice President of Enrollment Management, understanding and creating a strategy for international recruitment can help you reach your goals using less resources. We’re breaking down new trends and technology to help you improve your international student recruitment strategy in 2020.

While it may be easy for your school to continue its efforts in the same geographical locations, this doesn’t promote long term diversity for your school. If your school is already seeing a constant influx of students from a specific geographic area, continuing to promote in those areas doesn’t make financial sense. Since students are already applying and are aware of your school, using your budget on ‘exposure’ in those areas is a waste. Simple stop-ins to some of your contacts in the area would be just fine. Recruitment budgets should be used in areas that have not been explored yet, or that show promise for application and enrollment numbers.

How can I focus on new regions?

When reviewing information about current applicants, look to see where the applications are coming from. We recommend traveling to areas that show an interest in your school, before traveling to places that have 0 applicants. Tacking on a few individual visits to a recruitment fair would be a great idea too.

It’s hard to introduce new methods of recruitment or even begin to recruit internationally when your college or university already has a high number of local applicants. A few new popular ways to recruit international students are:

1. Influencer collaborations – schools will ‘hire’ students or influencers who have a strong social media presence. The influencers will then place advertisements on their social media pages to increase the awareness of the college or university, and its benefits. This strategy is increasingly popular as the social media trends continue to boom. Some influencers have a high following due to their specialization in a topic (such as cooking, photography, makeup, designing, etc.). This typically means that they have an audience interested in the same subject matter. Start by finding influencers who currently go to your college or university, or by inviting influencers to your campus and allow them to live the life of a student to share with their audience. Typical fees are $5-$10/ 1,000 followers, depending on the influencer’s specialty and audience.
2. Social media advertising – different than the influencers advertising. Social media advertising is done on the colleges or universities profile. Promoting posts can be created for specific target markets (geographic & demographic). These ads can be very specific and include many options including age, location, gender, interests, hobbies, and more.
3. Be the First – When you hear about a new form of marketing, it’s always great to be the first involved with it. Not only will being the first allow your school to grow as the marketing/advertising grows, but it will allow you to become an expert in using the platform and others will begin looking to your for advice (establishing your brand as the “go to”).

How can I explore new types of marketing?

Data driven online marketing yields the highest results for colleges and universities. Based on your schools’ current applications, your admissions department can deduce which areas are set (continue to produce applicants), which areas need to be explored (have not visited yet/have little or no applicants), and which areas need improvement (currently have students on campus from a region and would like to increase the population).

Most data can be collected from recent applications to understand which international areas are supplying the most students. Worldwide College Tours collects data from each event we host. Our Marketing Kit has specific data from each region we visit with student facts like:

• Programs of interest
• Geographical areas of interest
• Degree level seeking
• Sports interest
• And more…

Please click here to download our Marketing Kit

Diversity in a college or university is like rolling a snowball down a hill – once you start rolling, it will continue to pick up speed and grow on its own. By investing your international recruitment budget in new areas around the world, you get the ball rolling for the admissions department. By visiting new areas, you are increasing your institutions global exposure. Then, as more students become aware of your school’s benefits, they will begin to share the information with friends, family, and guidance counselor, who in turn will share the information with their networks.

How can I encourage diversity in my school?

International admissions teams can encourage diversity by simply showing up in new areas. Student feel special and important when international schools visit them. It encourages the possibility of new opportunities.

A secondary method is to offer scholarships, bursaries, or awards to international students and then to promote those scholarships within international areas. As international student tuition can vary, some students might make the decision based on which schools offer financial assistance to them. Most students typically include the housing/residency in their tuition cost when weighing the options between staying at home or abroad.

In addition, including programs, clubs, or groups to international students can help encourage diversity on campus. A student may favor a school that has clubs for international students as it can ease their transition to a new area.

To start the year or decade off on the right path, it is best to develop an international recruitment strategy that’s built for long term growth. By focusing on the current and past data of applications, you can develop a plan to best spend your recruitment resources. To improve your global reach, your school should begin to explore new areas for recruitment and to use online marketing as a way of reaching new audiences, and to tap into a market you just visited.

Check out our upcoming tours - HERE!

Join our mailing list for email updates on events, new strategies, or to get connected with one of our team members – HERE!