Seismic Changes in Higher Ed Call for Rethinking Traditional Approaches

Higher Ed Is Poised to Reap the Benefits of Data-Driven Decision-Making

As the higher education community contemplates how to respond to seismic changes in the industry — and recognizes that some tried-and-true approaches simply aren’t delivering the same results — Collegis suggests it’s time to rethink.

Colleges and universities need to challenge their assumptions about the traditional value, delivery and marketing of higher ed, then use data to evaluate the efficacy of those approaches. In a challenging landscape of fierce competition and shrinking demographics, institutions need high-quality, high-integrity data that yield clear, accurate insights, as there is too much at stake for institutions to move forward with anything less than data-driven confidence in the outcome.

Here’s the Good News

Data-powered decision-making has proven its value across industries:

• According to McKinsey Global Institute, data-driven organizations are not only 23 times more likely to acquire customers, but they’re also 6 times as likely to retain customers.
• BARC research surveyed a range of businesses and found that those using big data saw a 10 percent reduction in cost.
• A Forbes survey of marketers found that 57% say data-driven marketing has measurably increased the ROI of our marketing campaigns.

There’s even more good news: Plenty of data is being generated by marketing, academic, and operational systems within schools. Data enablement can reveal insights within that data and make data-driven decision-making the norm. In the retail industry, companies like Amazon and Walmart have used data to personalize the shopping experience for customers, increase sales, and optimize their supply chains while healthcare industries are using data to improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, and streamline operations. The unifying factor is a willingness to rethink data enablement as an ongoing strategic objective, rather than a standalone initiative. Forward-thinking colleges and universities are following suit — and Collegis is leading the way.

From Simple Data to Valuable Intelligence

Data enablement occurs in three steps: Collecting data from disparate and often siloed systems, connecting it in a central location that is easy for appropriate parties to access, and then activating it as intelligence for immediate action.

The outcome of these three steps is an organization in which decisionmakers at all levels can get meaningful answers for mission-critical use cases, like these we’ve detailed throughout this blog series:

• Enrollment Outreach Intelligence that uses behavioral data to understand who your prospective students are, how best to reach them and what prompts them to act.
• Enrollment Attribution to understand which clicks actually drive enrollment and generate metrics like cost per inquiry, per application and even per enrollment.
• Web Personalization to create unique targeted student experiences that can sway a student toward conversion in a way that bulk communications cannot.
• Audience Segmentation & Clustering to identify untapped segments, personas and targets as well as understand which market segments to serve and how to differentiate your school from others to reach the right-fit students.
• Data Discovery to create a search engine with your own data that puts self-service analytics in the hands of every business user at your institution.
• Anomaly and Signal Detection to identify behavioral clues that signify a student may be at risk of transferring out or failing to return in time for faculty intervention.

The Data Enablement Specialists

At Collegis, our experience continues to affirm that decision-making is faster, easier and more reliable when data is integrated and accessible to all stakeholders throughout an institution.

If that sounds too easy, it’s because Collegis handles the heavy lifting, supporting your IT team in connecting technology into a cohesive and secure ecosystem. As Google’s preferred higher ed implementation partner for Google Cloud and Google Analytics products, Collegis has a proven playbook for leading colleges and universities to their ideal state of data enablement, one in which centralized data is easily accessible, readily interpretable and eminently valuable for informed decision-making at all levels of the institution.

Higher education is undergoing momentous change. The insights you need to create new, successful ways to enhance learning experiences, improve institutional performance and secure a sustainable future lie within your existing data.

Let’s Rethink this Together.