As concerns for data privacy grow, schools' marketing and admissions departments need to shift their thinking to a privacy-driven approach, with an investment in first-party data at its core.
What is it?
Unlike third-party data--which is problematic due to its collection from various websites and platforms-- first-party data is unique to your school. It is collected with explicit consent from your visitors through direct interaction with your website, app, or marketing campaigns.
Why does it matter?
Responsible use of first-party data will help you build more direct and meaningful relationships with your constituents. You'll communicate more personally by reducing the friction in conversion journeys, ultimately achieving better engagement and higher conversion. Statistically speaking, switching to first-party data also makes complete sense. Data shows that those relying on this strategy have seen uplifts of around 3x in revenue and a 1.5x in cost savings.
Despite these benefits, most schools have not even begun to see the benefits that harnessing first-party data can bring.
Effective Data Collection
What prevents most schools from using data effectively is the difficulty of identifying which data sources they should collect. It can be quite challenging to distinguish between the data sources that provide value and those that do not. For most schools, data tends to be collected in mass, resulting in overwhelming volume and minimal insight.
One of the best ways to overcome this is to establish your goals for your constituents' experience and determine how they link to your school's overall business objectives. Knowing the goals clarifies what data is necessary versus what is nice to have.
Let's take the example of wanting to improve your retention amongst your current parent and student cohort as one of your goals:
Before creating any initiatives, 1) establish what existing student and parent data you have and where and how it is stored – this forms the foundation of your first-party data for meeting your goal or retaining more students. 2) Establish what you already know about them and what you need to know about them (i.e. the data sources you need versus those you have), and then you can identify ways to acquire them.
In most cases, schools have demographic information on the parents and students that go to their school but will unlikely have things like user behaviour data, which they will need to collect to better understand and engage with their audience. While once outside of schools' budgets, tools that leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze behaviour data can now be a part of your marketing toolkit!
If you would like to learn more about AMAIS™, don't hesitate to contact us for a demo.
