Article Source: https://thevirtualmarketer.co.uk/the-importance-of-data-for-student-recruitment-and-retention/

Data for Relationship Building

Relationships have always been key to building and maintaining a customer base. Given the physical separation imposed on so many of us since the beginning of the pandemic, a sense of connection with prospective and current parents is more important than ever for schools. So how can cold, clinical data help to build the warm and fuzzy relationships necessary for student recruitment and retention? I’m glad you asked…

Begin Meaningful Conversations

To start with, if you can’t clearly identify your prospective parent, how will you connect with them either physically or emotionally? You may have a good understanding of your target parent but data platforms such as Google Analytics can provide hard facts into where those prospective parents live, what their ages are, their gender, how they found your website, their online interests and the content that resonates with them… just to name a few. Custom data mining and focus groups can provide additional insight into the lives of your target audience that may not be easily accessible to a school. When you understand the characteristics that make up your prospective parents you not only know where to target them, but you’ll also have insight into the messages that will begin those all-important first conversations.

Deepen Your Connection

After developing your personas* based on the data you’ve collected, you can then dig deeper to determine the content gaps within your website. The right content at the right time, not only will build a deeper connection with your audience but also further guide them along the customer journey. Use free data platforms such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console and even Google Ads to uncover the keywords your audience is searching for and how you’re ranking on those, to review the searches taken on your site and to analyse the sequence of pages visited across your website and which content is most read. Paid tools such as SEM Rush can offer data insights into your competitor’s content. Individually or working together, this data can be used to identify key gaps in your website content—content that is essential to developing those parent relationships. One website visit does not a parent make.

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