CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., Oct. 29, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A cloud-based CRM from TargetX provided recruiters at the University of Nevada, Reno with a powerful tool for attracting prospective students to campus and cultivating the kind of relationship that convinces them to attend. As a result, the University has enrolled a freshman class of more than 3,000 for the first time in its history.
In addition, Nevada expanded the racial diversity of the incoming class, attracted students with the highest credentials ever, increased the percentage of students from outside the state, and increased the number of transfer students who enrolled for the Fall 2013 semester.
"This was the first year of results following the implementation of TargetX's Recruitment CRM," said Associate Director of Admissions Adam Stoltz. "It had a huge impact on our ability to schedule more campus visits and to increase engagement with prospective students both before and after their visit."
Hosting more campus visits is key to Nevada's recruiting strategy, said Stoltz. "Everything we do marketing-wise or communication-wise is geared to getting the student to visit," he explained. "Visits are skyrocketing, and that's just what we want."
While getting prospective students to visit campus is important for other colleges as well, it is especially critical for the University of Nevada, Reno. "There's a misperception that Reno is flat and desert-like," said Stoltz, "when in fact it is surrounded by mountains and water and is loaded with recreational opportunities for students."
So the goal is to get as many interested prospects as possible to see the area firsthand and meet the people who make up the University. But to do that effectively -- and with a true personal touch -- requires a customer relationship management system like the one offered by TargetX.
The TargetX CRM used by Nevada and many other schools helps admissions officers manage, integrate and automate the process of student recruitment from the first point of contact through enrollment. Among its strengths is built-in electronic communication, including the leading email broadcasting tool in higher education marketing. It is also fully integrated with a powerful event manager and online application.
With the Recruitment CRM, the Nevada admissions office has been able to:
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Centralize all information about prospects in one database, see what communication there has been between the University and each student, and track their behavior -- which students have already visited campus, for example -- all in real time.
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Personalize communication and other recruiting efforts to build more of a one-to-one relationship with prospects.
- Customize a built-in event management tool that makes it easy for students and families to select from multiple events online. Nevada took the user interface for TargetX's event system and created a registration form that is consistent with the look of its website.
"The CRM enables us to make it easier for students to visit and to enhance their visit experience," said Stoltz. "It also means we can be more timely, efficient and strategic with our communication."
Another benefit, said Stoltz, is that Nevada's eight schools and colleges are now recruiting out of the TargetX CRM along with the admissions office. "This means the marketing effort is centralized and much more coordinated. We can make sure the admissions staff and individual schools are on the same page, using the same tools and sharing information instead of working from different silos of data. And it fosters increased collaboration between admissions and the colleges."
Recently the Graduate School asked Stoltz if they could tap into the CRM system. "They've never recruited before," he explained, "but they now see the advantages of developing relationships with their best candidates. They're interested in copying what we've been doing on the undergraduate side, which is very flattering."
About University of Nevada
The University of Nevada, Reno is a teaching and research university established in 1874 and located in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's land grant institution. Nevada is considered a Tier 1 national university by U.S. News & World Report and is ranked among the top 100 public institutions. Its part-time MBA program was recently ranked fourth in the United States by BusinessWeek on the basis of such measures as student satisfaction, academic quality and post-graduation outcomes. The University's faculty are respected nationally and around the world as leaders in such diverse areas such as environmental literature, journalism and Basque studies.
For more information, visit www.unr.edu
About TargetX
TargetX is a higher education CRM company that provides an enterprise-wide solution to help colleges build relationships with their most important constituencies, including prospective students, current students, alumni and potential donors. The company's Enterprise CRM is built on the powerful development platform of Salesforce.com -- the worldwide leader in customer relationship management and a pioneer in cloud computing. With its 15-year reputation for innovative technology and industry expertise, TargetX has become one of the most trusted CRM providers in higher education.
To learn more, visit www.targetx.com