Data-Driven Strategies to Increase Enrollment, Student Engagement and Revenue

Focused admissions outreach and paid media

In 2018, Dominican University engaged Collegis Education for support in growing enrollment. Despite a strong brand, the university’s outreach efforts were hampered by data siloed in disparate tracking systems, gaps in admissions team staffing, and the need for data enablement to support marketing and recruitment. Dominican and Collegis collaborated to execute a holistic enrollment growth strategy – informed by data – that focuses on admissions outreach and engagement for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as paid media management, reporting and forecasting for undergraduate and graduate students.

Situation: Enrollment process mapping

To achieve Dominican University’s goal to create a successful enrollment growth strategy for traditional, graduate and online programs, Collegis connected the university’s systems, such as its CRM and marketing analytics platforms, and collected it in one central platform for activation. By mapping Dominican’s enrollment process, Collegis was able to recommend actions to ensure the student journey was optimized and personalized.

The school’s growth strategy prioritized driving first-year undergraduate enrollments and the development of an online Master’s in Social Work program to drive scalable enrollment and revenue growth. It was clear Dominican would need support to refine the student engagement process, increase conversation rates, and manage the maintenance and deployment of online program courses.

Results: Exceeding ambitious enrollment goals

Across the board, the focused efforts outlined in the partner plan showed positive results for fall 2022.

• 31% increase in first-year undergraduate enrollments
• 51% increase in first-year undergraduate acceptances
• 48% increase in first-year undergraduate applications
• 29% above goal for summer/fall 2022 graduate enrollment

Enrollment for first-year undergraduate and summer/fall graduate programs exceeded goals, year over year.

About Dominican University

Institution Type:
Private Catholic non-profit coed university

Location:
River Forest, Illinois

Total Enrollment:
3,066

Goals

• Meaningful outreach and engagement
• Analytics engineered for actionable insights
• Flexible technology systems for students

Challenges

• Siloed data across systems
• Gaps in staffing for admissions team
• Lack of sufficient data for marketing and recruitment

Solutions

• Data Analytics and Enablement
• Web Performance Optimization
• Marketing and Media Management
• Admissions Support Services and Admissions Training
• Course Development and Academic Solutions