SEM 2021 Session by Siena College: Allison Turcio, Ned Jones, and Katie Szalda
Siena College is a small, private, regional, liberal arts school with a high discount rate. On paper, it’s not the place you’d expect to have enrolled three record classes in a row—knocking revenue goals out of the park in the process.
What’s the secret? Marketing, sales, and pricing create a single strategy and marketing, admissions, and financial aid work as one team.
This was a fun session and group of presenters (view their session teaser here) whose "one-team approach" shows through in every piece of content they create for Siena College. The Siena team opened with a group activity of “woo or boo”; the organizers presented a series of images (puppies, angry students, etc) to help warm up and excite the crowd.
The Siena Guarantee and Marketing Strategy
Siena’s strategy works by combining marketing, admissions, and financial aid into one team focused on increasing enrollment and student experience. One of the first projects this combined team endeavored upon was “The Siena Guarantee.”
Working with Financial Aid, the marketing team crafted the message “Every family will get 52k towards your degree”, a bold guarantee on the face. Still, it was lower than the aid already awarded to each student.
The Siena Guarantee works by piquing the interest of students who may not have been interested before and by leveraging what was initially a Financial Aid strategy into a full marketing campaign. Utilizing tried and tested marketing techniques to keep
costs down (granular targeting, geofencing, remarketing, etc.), Siena can narrowly focus its advertising on precisely the students they believe are most likely to convert.
As Siena’s combined strategy developed, there was an “Aha” moment where they realized that messaging worked better when they didn’t talk about Siena College but instead focused on relationships, connections, and individual student
experience.
Presenters noted that the “It’s all about them” messaging would not work if the teams were not working together to communicate, market, and advise.
Session Q&A
Presenters concluded with a vigorous Q&A segment; some of the questions asked included:
Q - Students Not eligible to receive financial aid - have you had any issues?
A - If someone could not submit, we would personally work with them to adjust, and we give merit to all students. We will show them that they’ll get more money from Siena even if they make 400k a year.
Q - What was the amount of aid you gave before, and how did this affect the revenue
A - The Siena guarantee was actually lower than what they were already doing. Net tuition revenue went up, and the discount rate went down. Raised discount rate slightly during pandemic but enrollment went up by 2k.
Q - You integrated your CRM into digital marketing; what did the logistics look like?
A - Everyone has access to the data and the CRM, and everyone has a deep understanding of how it works. A lot of cross-functional training.
Q - On site-visits, how do you define the 25 experiences?
A - Major specific; all majors have breakout rooms with faculty, current students, and alumni. We include a Saint panel of just freshmen talking about what they wish they knew; Another panel of current students, juniors/seniors talking about experiences;
a variety of experiences for international students, parents, every possible session that the student may be interested in. 100’s of one on ones in a day because that’s what they want. Keep the tours personal and small (ideally one family
or two per tour guide).
Q - How long are the tours and sessions?
A - Tours are 45 minutes; sessions are 25 - 35 minutes.
Q - Students that receive the guarantee - are there any requirements
A - We used to have GPA requirements; those requirements were removed. We do not take away their benefits
Q - Were there additional processes with faculty and advisors
A - This was one of our most difficult parts; “graduate in four years” took us a year and a half, We went to Switzerland to learn about their conditions, and they worked alongside us to make sure this guarantee worked.
Want to learn more about marketing and boosting enrollment at your institution? Attend AACRAO's upcoming webinar presented by Rogue Community College, Angelo State University, and Motimatic.