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Return to Archives Return to Article Summaries Winter-Spring 2008, Vol. 7, Issue 2 THE DYNAMICS OF EducationDynamics By George Lorenzo, Writer, Editor and Publisher Back in September 2003, I wrote what was probably the most-read article in the history of Educational Pathways: "The New World of Online Marketing for Distance Educators: How Higher Ed Institutions (Especially For-Profits) and Internet-Savvy Companies are Prospecting Over the Web for Potential Students." I began that article with a description of a brief online search I conducted, typing out the words "online degrees" into the Google search engine. I explained how I was "suspicious" of some of the results that came up that were linking to online degree portals. In particular, I was frustrated by my inability to find out who owned and operated some of these portals, which I named "pseudo DE portals," the DE standing for distance education. For this article, I conducted an identical Google search (more than four years later). The very top non-sponsored link that came up was www.guidetoonlineschools.com. I went to that website and clicked on the "About Us" link. Here’s what came up:
Following this was a brief online form with fields requesting a name, e-mail address, phone number, name of the school you represent and other questions or comments. The Who Factor None of this told me much about who owned and operated guidetoonlineschools. Basically, the website failed to answer a very simple first question I always use when deciding on whether or not to pursue a deeper look into a source of online information: Who are you? I could not discover on their website who the people or company are behind guidetoonlineschools. This is not to say, however, that the information provided on guidetoonlineschools is not reliable. Their "resources" section, for instance, looked to be providing some fairly comprehensive information about earning a degree online. Hello EducationDyanmics In any event, I did not stay on the guidetoonlineschools website for too long. Instead, I went to the next Google result, which happened to be eLearners.com. I was familiar with the eLearners.com website, but I wasn’t sure about who the people and company are behind it. So, down at the bottom of their home page I clicked on the "Company & Legal" link, which brought me to a page that provided a "Corporate Information" section with links to a press kit and more. I was able to find out where the company is headquartered, who its executive officers are (with bios), when the company was founded, and that Halyard Capital, a New York-based private equity fund, acquired a majority interest in eLearners.com in May 2005. Additionally, it was noted that in November 2007, "to more effectively serve the rapidly changing needs of the higher education community, four divisions - Educational Directories Unlimited, eLearners.com, GoalQuest and WorldClassStrategy- have integrated into one dynamic enterprise known as EducationDynamics, LLC." All this led up to this story (I felt the long introduction was necessary and even interesting), which was composed through an interview with Steve Isaac, CEO of EducationDynamics, along with drawing upon several other sources of information. It’s the Technology . . . EducationDynamics is a company that is all about using technology to find, enroll and retain students in higher education. As noted on its website, EducationDynamics has a "portfolio of tools proven to maximize its interaction with students, parents and alumni and to drive strategic growth and retention." Students Find Schools and Schools Find Students The "find" part of EducationDynamics is what Isaac calls its "prospecting services" division. "Enrollment and retention services" coalesce to form the other half of EducationDynamics. Prospecting services is driven by the company’s vision to become the premier source of information and assistance for prospective students seeking education options at any stage of their lives. EducationDynamics started to fulfill that vision by bringing together a network of websites that, combined, attract more than 3 million visitors each month: GradSchools.com, StudyAbroad.com, eLearners.com, EarnMyDegree.com, IIEPassport.org and a good number of "special interest micro sites." Depending on which website you refer to, these visitors can be interested in online adult and continuing education, as well as traditional, on-campus undergraduate and graduate courses and programs. All these websites, combined, also form a very big part of the business of EducationDynamics, which is to generate qualified prospective student inquires/leads to institutions and programs that buy into their online marketing services. "We are focused on helping students find schools and helping schools find students," Isaac says. "It is a fundamental premise of what we are as an organization - that we do the best job for the schools by helping the students first. If we help students make an informed choice, we believe that we are probably going to provide the school with students who are more likely to be specifically interested in that school for the right reasons and will more likely be successful in the program they choose." This is all, in very basic terms, accomplished primarily in two ways. One is to provide website visitors with what Isaac calls "deep content," meaning valid information that helps students make informed decisions about their current and future educational pathways. The other is to get those students to complete and submit an online form requesting more information, or, in some cases, an actual admissions application, that goes to the admissions and/or enrollment counselors at the institutions they are interested in attending. The institutions, of course, pay a fee for receiving the forms, which are now "leads." The process is called pay-per-lead. The fees for leads vary, depending on a number of factors, such as the duration of time you want to attract leads, the volume of leads you are willing to accept during a given time and what level of activity an institution or program has the capacity to handle. A lot of other factors come into play in the lead generation business, including what kind of specific information should be collected in an online form; how to qualify and prioritize a lead; what kind of, when, and what level of communication procedures and practices should be applied to a lead; and a number of cost-of-acquisition equations and principles. Best Practices eLearners.com published a 22-page white paper last year that addresses many of the aforementioned factors, and more, titled "Best Practices in Enrollment Marketing Management." It can be downloaded in PDF format from the EducationDynamics website at www.educationdynamics.com/media/resources/, along with other related white papers on Internet recruiting, search engine optimization and how to attract online learners.Pat Partridge, vice president of marketing at Western Governors University explains that "WGU has been a continuous user of the eLearners.com website for almost six years. The site is of a higher quality than most. The eLearners.com site offers prospective adult students a broad range of information and options, which is what the individual wants. Consequently, the leads generated through eLearners tend to have pre-qualified themselves. That’s a win for us." Addressing the entire process of turning a lead into an actual enrollment, Partridge says that "our enrollment process emphasizes finding fit. Not every lead WGU obtains, even from a good site such as eLearners.com, represents someone who is a good fit for our academic model, so our enrollment process is designed to help the prospect accurately evaluate if WGU is the right choice. We contact leads quickly, conduct one or more interviews, stay in touch via e-mail and help individuals reach informed decisions. Our approach is high touch, not high pressure." Improving Yield As Partridge has indicated, the other big part of this picture involves getting the right student to enroll in the right program and ultimately complete an entire course of study to obtain a credential or degree. This is where GoalQuest comes into play. GoalQuest is the most recent Halyard Capital acquisition, brought into EducationDynamics in May 2007. GoalQuest has a suite of web-based programs that help colleges and universities accelerate recruiting, enrollment yield, retention, parent relations and alumni developments. Issac explains how GoalQuest is focused on student inquiry, to application, to enrollment, to start and to retention. "They do it through a combination of customer relation management and custom publishing." For instance, one of GoalQuest’s enrollment services, called Enrollment Yield Optimization (EYOp) is, as noted in its website, "designed to connect with students during the ‘window of vulnerability’ between their acceptance and enrollment. EYOp’s interactive content reiterates key institutional strengths and enrollment next steps, while ushering admits through a virtual pre-orientation that’s custom-built for your school and yield objectives." Today it is not unusual for college-bound high school students to apply to more than 10 institutions. Easy online applications to individual colleges and universities, along with today’s Common Application service that allows students to apply to multiple institutions through one application, have generated a substantial increase in the average number of high school student applications to institutions across the country. Depending on the student, he/she will get accepted to between 40 to 50 percent or better, Isaac says. The EYOp program communicates with these students and their parents via e-mail, giving them a discrete access code to a special website. "When they go to the website, from a parents point of view, they might find things like ten things you should know to help your daughter prepare for her fist year," Isaac explains. "Students might find things like five tips on how to pick a roommate that is right for you. Students can also post their profiles and chat with other prospective students." As noted on the GoalQuest website, "each EYOp program has 26 customized modules that address of wide array of subjects, from questions about housing and financial aid to exploring a major to strategies for academic and personal success in college." "We are finding that this kind of engagement improves the yield from accepted to enrolled, depending on the school, someplace between four and 17 percent," Isaac adds. Information and Communication Technologies Overall, when looking at all of the prospecting, enrollment and retention services and products offered through EducationDynamics, it becomes obvious that driving force behind this company is its extensive provision of a variety of sophisticated online information and electronic communication programs and applications. "This is us," says Isaac. "We are focused on helping students make good choices, on helping schools find the students that are right for them, on helping them improve the process of enrollment and hopefully retain more students through to completion - all through technology and all through deep content resources that are online." Websites: www.edudirectories.com www.elearners.com
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