EducationDynamics White Paper Fuses Research & Best Practices to Avoid Student Prospecting Pitfalls

July 22, 2009 - PRLog -- As competition to recruit students to online programs heats up, understanding what works, what doesn’t and what outreach is most meaningful to prospects becomes imperative for higher education institutions seeking to increase enrollment yield. This is the basis of a new EducationDynamics (http://www.educationdynamics.com) white paper, titled Closing the Gaps: Meeting Emerging Student Preferences and Increasing Yield in the Post-Inquiry Enrollment Process.  
Now available for download at http://www.educationdynamics.com/closing_the_gap/, the white paper addresses tactics to improve the four prominent gaps in post-inquiry enrollment processes that emerged throughout the course of the Prospective Student Enrollment Preferences Research, the most comprehensive survey of prospective students for online higher education to date. Based on responses from 2,000 prospects who inquired about online degree programs on eLearners.com and EarnMyDegree.com, deficiencies in the recruitment process were revealed in the areas of:

1.   Speed and consistency of contact
2.   Quality of contact
3.   Method of contact
4.   Web-based prospecting activities

The white paper not only identifies emerging student preferences and the gaps that occur when needs and expectations are not met, but also incorporates real-world, best-practice solutions for closing those gaps in an effort to help institutions of higher education avoid costly pitfalls in the student prospecting process.

“Understanding the needs of today’s online learners and tailoring post-inquiry institutional outreach to adhere to those preferences is critical in the hyper-competitive online higher education landscape,” explains Andrew Gansler, president of the Prospecting Services Division of EducationDynamics. “Aligning prospecting initiatives with emerging student preferences not only drives improvement of enrollment yield, but also facilitates a more meaningful outcome—increased accountability in regards to overall student success.”

Closing the Gaps: Meeting Emerging Student Preferences and Increasing Yield in the Post-Inquiry Enrollment Process is the latest white paper to be added to EducationDynamics’ Sharing Center. Additional white papers are also available for download, including Best Practices in Enrollment Marketing Management, Attracting the Next Generation of Online Learners and Incorporating Online Lead Generation Advertising with Traditional Marketing without Creating Havoc. Visit http://sharing.educationdynamics.com/ to browse the resource library.

About EducationDynamics
EducationDynamics, a portfolio company of Halyard Capital, is higher education’s leading marketing and information services company dedicated to helping institutions find, enroll and retain more students. Its content-rich and highly visible education websites, including EarnMyDegree.com, eLearners.com, GradSchools.com, StudyAbroad.com and its more than 50 special interest microsites, make EducationDynamics the premier provider of qualified prospective students for colleges and universities. In addition, the company offers a full suite of Web-delivered services proven to drive enrollment growth and reduce student attrition. For more information, visit http://www.educationdynamics.com.   

About eLearners.com®
The eLearners.com website is one of several high visibility, high-quality prospecting tools offered
by EducationDynamics. Since 1999, eLearners.com has been successfully connecting learners to
online education, including online degree and certificate programs, specialized career training, and
a variety of online courses. For prospective students, eLearners.com provides a powerful search engine for users to find thousands of online program offerings, as well as educational evaluation
tools and financial aid resources. For colleges and universities, the eLearners.com website offers a
low-cost, performance-based method to provide national exposure and increase enrollments in
their programs. For more information on eLearners.com, visit http://www.eLearners.com.

About EarnMyDegree.com
EarnMyDegree.com, part of the Prospecting Services Division of EducationDynamics, is a network of leading websites that connect prospective students with colleges, universities and online learning programs. Established in 2003, EarnMyDegree.com serves as a one-stop directory for undergraduate and advanced degrees, as well as professional certificates in a variety of fields from business to healthcare to technology. EarnMyDegree.com’s team of marketing experts, designers and copywriters have a proven track record for optimizing marketing campaign results to increase qualified leads. More than 3 million students have been connected to the online education programs of their choice through EarnMyDegree.com. To learn more, visit
http://www.EarnMyDegree.com.