As our marketing office at North Greenville University began to pick up steam — taking on a slew of new external advertising initiatives — I felt like I still didn’t have a solid grasp on who our target customers actually were. Turns out, neither did anyone else.

Unfortunately, our customer relationship management system didn’t do much in the way of tracking key information about our customers or segmenting them into similar groups.

That’s when I came up with the idea for a Senior Exit Survey that would not only collect essential customer feedback from our soon-to-graduate students, but also collect data points we could use to create more detailed buyer personas. This would enable us to be more strategic in our marketing.

Strategy

• Collaborate with various departments on campus to create a 25-question survey for our senior students.
• Spearhead an email marketing campaign, prize giveaway, and graduation page overhaul to promote the Senior Exit Survey to all seniors the semester of graduation.
• Use the survey results to create a comprehensive analysis of NGU’s three types of customers: undergraduate, online, and graduate.
• Segment student responses by factors such as degree program, past educational experience, and goal career in order to formulate unique buyer personas.
• Present the survey findings, sharing key takeaways with university leaders to help guide the development of NGU’s products and services.

Example Pieces

• Senior Exit Survey – Content of Survey
• “Can We Reach 100 Today?” – Email to Seniors
• “Emily the Educator” – Buyer Persona Profile

Outcomes & Results

• Strong Click-through: During the 2019-20 academic year, our email and web campaign reached all 482 graduating seniors, and 379 of them clicked to view the survey. This represents a 78% campaign click-through rate.
• High Conversion: Of the seniors who viewed the survey, 235 completed it, which means the survey page converted at a rate of 62%.
• Above-Average Participation: An astonishing 235 seniors completed the survey, representing 48% of the total population — well above the average response rate of 10-15% for external surveys.
• Detailed Buyer Personas: Due to the success of the email campaign, I was able to use the customer responses as a firm foundation for a handful of in-depth buyer personas that outline the defining traits of customers NGU should target in the future and identify their core needs and buying triggers, which Admissions staff can use to customize their approach to each student.
• Essential Feedback: The resulting Senior Exit Survey Analysis provided NGU with essential feedback not only on the selling points of NGU from a customer standpoint, but also the pain points for our customers that drew them to NGU, as well as areas where we need to improve products and services to ensure greater customer satisfaction.

Testimonials

• “Thanks, Celeste. I appreciate your work on this and look forward to utilizing data to make our overall work more effective.” – Marty, VP for Advancement and University Engagement