Education marketing for millennials

The new generation of students are tech-savvy, young and.. serious?

A new study has recently unveiled interesting insights regarding the millennials in university or about to embark upon university studies.

Millennials are more serious about their careers and making a positive difference in the world compared to previous generations. Note the word 'world' - millennials tend to have a global outlook and feel less inhibited by geography. Travel and learning at least one new language are two aspects of life which are essential to millennials.

Proactivity is a very millennial attribution, as these new breed of students will actively research for ways to help them attain their goals. However, it will be challenging for marketers to let their brands register with millennials as they tend to be always on the go, with a million other things and messages vying for their attention at any time.

One way to win the hearts of millennials is to be an ethical brand with a distinctive value proposition. Millennials show brand loyalty to brands with causes they believe in.

Tailoring campaigns to millennials may mean -

• succinct information presented in
• visual or audio form containing
• a message which appeals to millennials' sense of duty towards contributing the public good.

*NexPay can help your millennial students' study travel dreams to Australia come true by offering the most affordable exchange rates to your students.

Vist www.nexpay.com.au to learn more!

Australia's international students enrolments continues to increase

Australia has bounced back from the three-year enrolment decline it experienced in 2013, and the positive trend has been continuing since then, with the most number of commencements in higher education, followed by English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS). All other sectors - VET, schools and non-award programmes also reported strong growth.

ELICOS enrolments tend to have positive spillover effects, leading to additional enrolments in all other education sectors. Chinese and Vietnamese students are most likely to continue other studies in Australia upon completion of their English course, with the majority moving on to higher education.

Thai and Indonesian students, on the other hand, are more likely to continue studies in the VET sector.

What does this mean for education agents?

1. It will be worthwhile to keep in touch with students who might require assistance in enrolling for another course - for example, updating Chinese students with information on universities.

2. Prepare for all the extra administrative tasks that comes with more students. NexPay is an international students payments system which can assist education agents in receiving reconciled payments in full.

For more information visit NexPay - making international students payments simple and easy.

Source: ICEF Monitor

What Australian education agents can learn from American Student Recruitment

1. Most influential experiences prior to decision-making

Students judge universities based on their websites, followed by rankings and conversations with reps. A website is usually the prospective student's first in-depth and deliberate point of contact with a university, and where most of the initial research occurs.

To cater to students who may be researching universities on the go, more American institutions are offering mobile websites for easier usability.

2. Visa help

41% of graduate students and 31% of undergraduate students require assistance with visa applications. Australia-bound students may not be as concerned re this as Australia has in recent years introduced streamlined visa processing which makes visa applications relatively easy.

Visas matter

3. Finance 101

Funding and finances are students' top concern when considering studying abroad. After identifying a course which they are interested in on the university website, students immediately check the cost and financial aid options. And with Australian universities slated for deregulation, financial worries are more prevalent than ever.

Although these worries do dissipate upon arrival in the host country, services such as NexPay can smooth pre-departure financial concerns by offering international students a favourable foreign currency exchange rate and ensuring speedy delivery of school fees to education providers.

Visit www.nexpay.com.au to learn more about how you can save by using NexPay!

Digital marketing predictions for student recruiters 2015

#1 Content is King
As the world continues to be digitised and the Internet becomes increasingly saturated with more and more ads, blogs and websites; high-quality content creation which informs and engages users will become increasingly important.

For example, American Express Unstaged recently released an application in conjunction with the release of Taylor Swift's music video Blank Space, bringing the brand to an audience of more than 58 million. New marketing efforts such as these show the future of engagement - attention needs to be earned.

#2 Usability
Marketing and student recruitment will have to become more integrated with other departments, such as IT in order to deliver a streamlined experience to students. It is common for students to have multiple contact points with an agency, and those contacts may constitute of online and offline interactions. It is essential that all possible contact points with students are equipped with the same up-to-date information to achieve the best possible student experience.

#3 Mobility
This is a continuing trend from 2014, with 30% of prospective students accessing the web via a mobile device such as a phone or tablet. If your mobile site is currently a minimised version of your regular site, 2015 may be a good year to change that in order to effectively reach the increasing number of students conducting part of or even all of their education searches via mobile.

A strong mobile presence is not merely an easy way for prospective students to access information on the go, it also implies that an organisation is forward-focused.

#4 Data-driven marketing
This means different things to different people, but analytics will continue to drive marketing activities. Recruiters can collect data to monitor campaign performance and adjust marketing activities in accordance with findings.

Source: ICEF Monitor

Factors in decision-making

Evidence that decision may be unconsciously made and is easily affected by a person's surroundings is mounting. This makes our brains efficient, as we don't have to pay conscious attention to everything happening around us at once. However, this ability also has the side effect that we are making our decisions based on information of which we are not fully aware.

Our brains process information in our external surroundings on autopilot, and we unwittingly make decisions based on all information we have been exposed to - consciously or otherwise. Research from the University of Melbourne shows that our brains process information at a high level, even unconsciously, for instance, as to whether a piece of external information would be more relevant to the past or to the future.

These theories are most relevant to 'simple decisions', but major life changes such as a job change or purchasing a house can also be affected.

Environment Curation
Any positive presence in front of potential students - and their parents - is a worthwhile investment for service providers in the education industry, but also bear in mind that a fleeting glance of a negative headline may also affect the organisations.

All these logos in the cityscape background are more influential than we think.

 Source: The Conversation

Top 5 Education Agent Insights 2014

1. What are students' concerns about studying abroad?
Parents and students are most concerned about difficulties with language (60%) and financial difficulties (57%) prior to departure. 48% of agents also deem personal safety and difficulties with accommodation as concerns from parents and students.

Parents and students are most concerned about language barriers when it comes to studying abroad.

Interestingly, the top 2 concerns, as well as personal safety concerns, tend to fall away once students reach their education destination, but accommodation difficulties remain an issue.

NexPay creates multi-lingual payment instructions and offers favourable exchange rates to students which helps to ease the top 2 student concerns related to study abroad.

2. Australian visas easier to obtain compared to 2013
Canadian visas are the most difficult to get, followed by the US and UK. In 2013, 43% of agents had difficulty with Australian visas, but the amount has dropped to only 27% in 2014.

3. Australia remains popular study destination
In keeping with tradition, Australia is up there with US, Canada, UK and Germany.

4. Agents' biggest operational challenge
55% of agents feel that managing leads, clients and student information are their most major day-to-day challenge.

5. Australian international education sector looking bright
These 2 years have been good to Australia - in 2013 it reversed its 3-year enrolment decline, and May 2014 statistics confirm its continual strengthening. This might be thanks to visa reforms introduced at the end of 2013, which eased visa regulations for the non-university sector.

Source: ICEF Monitor

 

Vietnamese students in Australia up 15.3% over 2012

Vietnam has recently become one of the most important education market in Southeast Asia, where the booming economy has now produced families with spare income, who are concerned about the capacity and quality of a local education.

With 45% of the population aged 25 or under, Vietnam has a youthful population who, when coupled with newfound affluence, are highly motivated to pursue overseas studies. Parents appear to have more of a say in the education destination country, and then students will select their preferred institutions and majors.

Australia is the top education - secondary and postsecondary - destination for Vietnamese students. In Australia, Vietnamese students accounted for 10.3% (2013) of international secondary school students, second only to China.

What does this mean for recruitment marketing?

1. Vietnamese parents are open to the idea of sending kids abroad for studies at a younger age, namely secondary education.
2. Recruiters need to keep a lookout for countries with Vietnamese secondary graduates and redirect some marketing effort in those areas.

Source: ICEF Monitor