Want a deeper understanding of who your prospective students are, and what factors have the greatest impact on their decision to engage with, apply to and (hopefully) enrol at your university/college?

Many possible paths emerge from the moment a prospective student hears about your institution to the moment they decide to apply or accept an offer. Without mapping out your users’ (or in this case – your prospective applicants’) goals, motivations, and pain points at each stage of their decision-making journey, you might not cross their path at all.

In this presentation, I’ll share with you how I led colleagues across the Marketing and Communications team at Wilfrid Laurier University as we embarked on an institution-wide user journey mapping project to build empathy for and understanding of our future undergraduate student audience.

We will traverse topics like:

• Our research and project methodology to use as your own framework
• The key stakeholders to involve, as well as how to engage partners across the university to play their part in informing the journey and actioning the learnings
• The key learnings identified of our Gen Z student’s journey, and how we’ve implemented those learnings in our marketing strategies
• A snapshot of the final user journey map and persona deliverables for your own inspiration!