Liaison International
Streamlining the Enrollment Process with Institution-Wide Data and Responsive, Cross-Media Marketing

Schools are constantly looking for ways to improve enrollment, increase yield, and matriculate bestfit students. But more spending on IT doesn’t always guarantee better enrollment results. Liaison International is trying to change that dynamic by providing a suite of cloud-based admissions management and enrollment marketing software and services to help schools streamline processes, aggregate enrollment data from across their campuses, and reach students in the highly personalized way that they expect.

“Schools are looking to improve the efficacy of their recruitment efforts—specifically yield and retention. They’re learning that purchasing more lists or reaching out to larger audiences does not automatically translate into quality applicants. Today, more and more institutions are seeking better ways to build relationships with applicants and that means adopting oneto- one outreach practices that are scalable, cost-effective, and driven by data that will make those efforts successful,” explains Michael Behringer, CEO and President of Liaison.

The company’s Centralized Application Service (CASTM) is its lynchpin product, which it offers through more than 30 educational associations in disciplines such as medicine, nursing, and public health. Deployed to more than 5,000 schools and programs, CAS manages the enrollment process for undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs. Its sophisticated back end software allows educational institutions to evaluate their applicants, manage enrollment workflow, and communicate with applicants. Applicants are able to submit their credentials through a simple online interface— and apply to multiple institutions. CAS also provides critical data schools can use for analysis and planning. When administrators at Rush University College of Nursing saw consistently fewer applications from minority and male students, it used data from their CAS to gain a better understanding of attrition at various enrollment stages and adjusted its communication strategy accordingly. As a result, Rush University College of Nursing experienced a 5 percent increase in admitted minority and male students.

Progressive universities are keen on collecting and analyzing big data, but progress toward that goal has been slow. For most universities, collected enrollment data is neither standardized nor actionable due to multiple, siloed application providers. To solve this problem, Liaison, building on its success with CAS, launched UniCAS—a solution that balances the administrative need for centralized data and standards while enabling each individual school to maintain their own admissions processes, criteria, and even brand. This summer, Boston University launched UniCAS to manage admissions for over 900 graduate programs representing more than 40,000 applicants. “With UniCAS, universities will be able to utilize this enrollment data for everything from improving recruitment activities to resource planning to increasing retention,” explains Michael Behringer, CEO and President of Liaison.

We’re finding that the combination of automated enrollment software and personalized marketing services is a game changer

Retention of course starts with identifying and recruiting students who are right for the institution. A growing number of schools have adopted aggressive, high-volume ‘search’ campaigns to increase applications, but this doesn’t always translate to better yields or better retention. Many schools are shifting their IT spend to those technologies that help them establish stronger relationships with prospective students—from first interest to first day on campus. Liaison’s Enrollment Marketing Platform (EMP) integrates Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and marketing services— automating all of a school’s communication channels. “Schools need a way to easily launch personalized, multi-channel marketing campaigns that connect the unique value of their programs to the right prospective student,” says Behringer. “We’re finding that the combination of automated enrollment software and personalized marketing services is a game changer.”