Admissions departments see opportunity to fix broken enrollment process and tackle shortfall with AI-powered student engagement CRM technology

Element451, an advanced student engagement CRM, announced that its customer base has more than doubled in the last academic year as higher ed institutions strive to modernize their marketing approach and gain a competitive admissions advantage despite the shrinking pool of college applicants.

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As back-to-school and student recruitment season looms for higher ed, colleges of all sizes –   public, private, and community – are grappling with attracting, enrolling, and retaining the right students. To offset and adapt to swiftly changing trends, recruitment teams are turning a spotlight on the integral role of the modern CRM, and how AI-powered insights on student intent can enable real-time, high-impact marketing that elevates the student experience and provides big results.

“Most admissions departments lack a dedicated marketing team and rely on cookie-cutter communications that net historically low student engagement rates,” said Ardis Kadiu, CEO of Element451. “If bottom-line success is going to be measured in applicant yield, enrollment melt, and, ultimately, tuition dollars, the ability to leverage AI to predict student behavior and quickly automate a personalized journey for every student becomes a crucial competitive differentiator.”

Colleges that have recently become Element451 customers see the value in elevating connectedness – reaching students where they are, when they want – and delivering meaningful content that goes beyond the use of a first name in an email or text to make students feel valued.

Recently, at Element451’s Intelligent Admissions Academy (IAA) 2021, higher-ed practitioners and industry experts shared their perspectives on the current and long-term challenges and opportunities in the student engagement lifecycle. IAA showcased how innovative admissions teams are leveraging AI to better understand student-behavior, and often seeing triple-digit percentage increases within a full recruitment cycle, without having to become or engage outside technology experts.

“Change is often met with initial resistance yet that was not the case at Southeast Missouri State University,” said Lenell Hahn, Director of Admissions. “Our need for real-time, accessible data and intuitive reporting on the efficacy of our efforts to reach more students meant saying goodbye to a costly, disparate and outdated CRM system. With Element451 in its place, we scaled elegant and insightful marketing campaigns in just days – it was pure relief.”

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