Enrollment Growth Fueled by Location Intelligence
“Our school saw its largest applicant pool in our 150+ year history.”
In today's highly competitive education market, private high schools are looking for innovative ways to grow enrollment. One such approach is to use location intelligence, which uses geographic data to gain insights and make informed decisions about strategy and tactics to attract new students. By leveraging location intelligence, private high schools can better understand their target audience and reach out to potential students in a profoundly more relevant way.
Here are some ways that private high schools can use location intelligence to grow their enrollment:
Identify target areas with highest potential to attract new students.
Analyze student demographics to inform marketing message.
Evaluate transportation options to align bus routes with highest opportunity.
Assess the competition to drive differentiation.
Plan new campuses to increase market share.
Datastory makes location intelligence easy through an incredibly powerful tool called MapDash. This tool leverages data and insights so schools can better understand their target audience and make more informed decisions about marketing, pricing, transportation, and expansion strategies. As a result, private high schools have increased their competitiveness and attracted more students to their programs.
Case Study: Calvert Hall College High School
Interview with - Will Wellein - Director of Admissions
We recently “sat down” (in a virtual sense) with our client to learn how he was using MapDash to grow enrollment. Here’s a summary of that conversation.
Median Household Income and Competition
1. What challenges did you seek to address through location intelligence?
As a private, independent high school for boys, our initial goal was to answer a few basic questions with an eye toward a 3-5 year window into the future:
what areas in Maryland have the most boys aged 9-13
what geographic areas do families with an average household income that can afford our school live
are there any “pockets” in the surrounding Baltimore area that we should be targeting in our marketing efforts?
2. How was MapDash able to accomplish this?
Males Aged 9-14
MapDash’s user-friendly platform and customer-driven staff allowed us to accomplish – and exceed – our initial goals with this project. The Map allowed us to easily filter and un-filter data, export it for later use, and change the visual effects in a simple, on-the-fly manner. Whenever we had questions, Datastory staff was able to help us easily and efficiently.
3. What functionality is particularly useful to you and why?
We especially liked the ease with which layers can be selected or unselected depending upon the questions we were aiming to answer. The intuitive platform allowed us to showcase our findings in a way that was easy to understand, even by those who are not data-driven individuals.
4. Why should your peers consider using MapDash?
MapDash is an intuitive platform that will allow you to answer questions you may not have previously considered. The support staff will help you in any way should users have questions, and the real-time nature of MapDash, combined with data exporting functionality, is perfect for any user looking to make data-driven decisions that can have real-world impact.
5. Were there any "wow" moments when you looked at your data within MapDash?
Lifestyle Profile Analysis of students and neighborhoods to target.
The ability to “drill-down” to specific zip codes and even neighborhoods within our MapDash was certainly a wow factor. The visual appeal of the map itself – combined with its easy-to-explain functionality – impressed our Board of Trustees tremendously and further prompted new ideas and points of discussion to craft future enrollment strategies.
6. What has been the biggest impact because of the use of MapDash?
We tailored our digital marketing campaigns and added boots-on-the-ground recruitment events in new geographic areas as a direct result of our MapDash project. Our school saw its largest applicant pool in our 150+ year history and met enrollment capacity for the upcoming school year.
Anyone working in enrollment management within the education industry should consider MapDash as a tool for future success. If your organization’s goal is to utilize real-time data to better craft marketing and recruitment strategies, this is the product for you!
Contact our team to learn more about how we’re helping schools grow and diversify their student enrollment.
