Attract international students with Microsoft D365
Looking to attract international students to your educational institution? Microsoft D365 is your answer.
The competition for international students at higher education institutions has arguably never been stronger. And for good reason. The benefits to your campus are numerous. To increasing the amount of perspectives and ideas your students are exposed to, from attracting better candidates for your PhD programs, international students are unquestionably a valuable resource.
They also are a financial windfall. Although, higher education should not exist solely as a profit-driven enterprise, administrators cannot afford to ignore the business realities of this highly competitive industry.
One great tool higher education administrators can use to help them attract international students is a CRM system like Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Here are 4 reasons why D365 can help attract international students.
No 1: Set up multiple marketing campaigns at once
When looking to attract international students you have to be aware that you are not going after a monolithic group. Students from South Asia have different needs and wants than students in the Middle East who have different needs and wants than students from Europe. You need to send these different groups different messaging and D365 will allow you to do just that by easily tracking the performance of each unique campaign.
No 2: The early bird gets the worm
Just like any business it is vital to stay on top of potential new business. The only difference is that instead of selling a car you’re selling a better future for your students. But, just like when you sell cars, speed of service matters.
Think about it. If you go to a car dealership – with money in hand – and ask to buy a car you’ll expect to be served in a reasonable amount of time. If you don’t get your car and you see that there is a dealership across the street doing its job, you’re going to cross the street.
Dynamics 365 allows you to be responsive, quickly. We have seen the results of fast response first hand. When we worked with Toronto, Canada’s Humber College we saw their acceptance rates skyrocket when we implemented a D365 solution.
We can do the same with your attempts to attract international students with D365.
No 3: Be personable
As much as we talk about how we need to treat selling your educational institution the same way we treat selling anything, the reality is that you are selling something that is a bit more important than a mid-day snack. Not only is it one of the most expensive things anyone will buy in their life, it is also, arguably, the single most influential purchase anyone can make for themselves.
It’s not a decision anyone makes flippantly so you need to nurture the sale throughout the process – and that may take years.
A great way to do that is to assign recruiters to individual prospects. That way you can give perspective international students the individual attention that they want and need. However, that can be challenging when you may be tracking thousands of potential students. D365 makes it easier. With every interaction tracked you can stay on top of things. You never know what might make the difference in a potential student’s decision. Sometimes it might come down to something as arbitrary as what school remembered to send a birthday greeting to them. With D365 you can easily do just that and more to make the prospective international student feel like they are valued.
No 4: Track alumni success better
Tracking alumni success may not seem intuitively important to the recruitment of future students, but many want to be “shown, not told” that your school is the right fit for both the next four years of their life, as well as a place that will propel them to future success.
Using many of the same processes that allow you to keep track of potential students, you can also track the success of your alumni and keep in touch with them to make them feel like they are part of a family. If you only contact your alumni when it’s time for the Annual Fund Drive they will be far less open to helping you recruit.
D365 can help you avoid that mistake.
Let the power of D365 help you attract international students. Contact us today for a free demo.