How to Compete for Attention at the First Touchpoint in Education

Video Transcript

Brett de Leijer

Last week on Education TV we saw four students talk about the beginning of their higher education journey. So, we’re gonna dissect a little bit about what they said. So what are the highlights of their conversation?

Alice Nuttall

I mean, yeah, what was quite surprising to me was all four of them really had a different journey and they all… we saw Tim didn’t make his decision until halfway through year 12.

Tim Newton

I was never like clearly set on one particular thing. So, like seeing career counsellors at school and that sort of thing, probably started halfway through year 12 to decide what I wanted.

Alice

Where Molly always knew that she wanted to go to university.

Molly Steel

I just wanted to go to university and I just like the lifestyle, and the process, the lectures and things like that.

Pip Hamilton

Kane was a non-school leaver, so he took two years to figure out what he wanted to do.

Alice

Yeah, exactly, whereas Jack kinda started making that decision a couple of years before going in to a university.

Kane Fitzgerald

I’d been a labourer for quite some time. It was my first job out of school and then I thought it was time to do something different, maybe use my brain a little bit more.

Jack Quartermain

There was a lot talk about it at school and my friends were getting involved, and teachers were encouraging us, and parents, but I suppose the end of year 11 and towards the middle of year 12, I started thinking about everything a bit more seriously.

Alice

And also what really surprised me towards the end of the show was when Tim almost regretted his rushed decision as well, like I think he really wished he had taken the time to do a bit more research and consider his other options.

Tim

If you’re not certain, take time to actually realise what you want to do, like go and experience things.

Brett

Also, when he was in year 12, he decided to go to uni halfway through year 12. But then he said he had to make that decision, like there was no other choice. And that’s just when you’re at school you sort of as Molly was alluding to as well, you just wanted to go to university and get it done and you think that’s your only option.

But looking back on it you might think, you know, I should’ve taken a bit of time off or I should’ve considered other options.

Pip

A gap year or something like that.

Brett

Exactly.

Alice

Yeah and it was so interesting like the kind of theme that came through from that was they were wanting an experience. They weren’t really discussing what’s happening after uni, it wasn’t that end goal, that career path – it was the experience. So, I guess for a marketing team, it’s so important to realise that everyone’s going to be entering the enrolment funnel at different stages of their life.

So how you can transition this into a nurture might be that you’d have different streams for people entering the nurture, you know a younger age, so say year 10 or year 11 and then setting up rules so those people transition into year 12 stream and then to your non-school leaver stream as well.

And then devising your content around where those people are, because if you’re in year 10 and 11 you’re wanting to probably see more of the soft sell. It’s the experience that the university is gonna give you. Whereas in year 12, you’ve got to make that decision quite fast, so you need the facts and that’s definitely gonna be more of a sell.

Brett

Exactly. With Kane saying that he wanted to try something new, wanted to use his brain more, I thought that was quite interesting. So, that’s for the sort of after-school leaver sort of nurture. You know you can just be sort of slightly probing and say, saying ‘do you want to try something different? Is there another experience out there that’s better suited?’

Alice

Definitely.

Pip

Set up triggers so that you know if they’re coming back to your site and you’ve already had them as a lead and then they’ve kind of turned a bit cold and then boom, they’re back, they’re looking again and you send them a welcome back email and you kind of pop them into a nurture that’s a bit more relevant to them.

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