Using webinars to boost enrolment

Twenty months on, the pandemic is continuing to shake the foundation of higher education. How are the sector’s communicators helping to bolster their institutions?

At the Faculty of Open Learning & Career Development at Dalhousie University, a big part of the answer is webinars.

Informative and interactive

The faculty, which has 14 program areas and caters to about 500 students per semester, offers 30-minute live webinars on specific courses or programs. They’re an opportunity for prospective students to meet their professor, get a sampling of the subject matter and ask questions.

The faculty hosts roughly two of these interactive mini lessons per month, and they’ve become a key tactic for converting fence-sitters into students.

“We see our role as being relationship builders…the participants are very engaged, and we’re happy with the results,” says Mary-Eleanor Power, Director, Marketing & Communications.

Adapting to covid

A marketing manager at Dalhousie since 2014, Power began in her current position in March of 2020. It was a brand new role for the faculty, and one where she faced the immediate and monumental task of responding to the newly arrived coronavirus.

“We had to try new things to get people in the door, because it became a far more cluttered and competitive space,” Power says. “If people aren’t registering or are hesitating during lockdown, or losing their job or are focused on child care or other things, how do we adapt?”

Power considered how webinars—a marcomm tactic never tried before in the faculty—could be used to help promote courses and programs, particularly new courses, those with lagging enrolment, or abstract/technical offerings. They determined that an interactive element would be needed to animate the material.

Dynamic element

She and her team—which consists of a marketing communications coordinator and a communication data coordinator—collaborate with program directors and professors to develop each webinar and identify a dynamic activity or experience.

In Mindfulness at Work, the professor kicks things off with a five-minute meditation. A discussion on current peer-to-peer digital payment systems is weaved into Introduction to Blockchain, Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies. In Foundations of Positive Psychology, meanwhile, a conversation on biases comes to life through live polling of participants.

“We treat these webinars as a teaser…an opportunity to take a small bite before paying for the main course,” Power says.

The webinars are promoted on the faculty’s website, Facebook and LinkedIn channels, and weekly public newsletter. Central communications also shares them in the university’s daily public newsletter and event calendar.

A mix of measurements

Power’s team measures the success of these webinars in quantitative and qualitative ways. The number of participants who go on to register for the course or program is tracked—usually 50% to 60%, she says. As well, a five-question follow-up survey is emailed to participants asking questions like, Was this a valuable use of your time? and, Would you attend another webinar? They also gain a sense of a webinar’s effectiveness from the level of participant engagement, which Power says is generally high.

In 2021, the faculty ran 54 of these webinars that covered 26 academic topics. Power moderates all the webinars, and each one is recorded and posted to the faculty’s YouTube channel. Then a follow-up email is sent to each participant with the link to the video, and an invitation to submit any additional questions.

The next such webinar is happening on Jan. 25: Being a Great Coach Makes You a Better Leader. Instructor Ted Herbert, a 25-year master coach who formerly served Canada’s Olympics bobsleigh team, will introduce the elements of successful coaching.

Says Power about the value of the webinar approach: “We’re bringing people in the front door in a less intimidating and commitment-focused way.”