How to Know Prospective Students’ Pain Points Without Talking To Them Directly
TL;DR:
Use webinars as a stealth research tool. Add a required question to the registration form to collect hundreds of real, current pain points directly from prospective students. Then share and centralize that data across departments so everyone—from admissions to student life to web content teams—can create more relevant, student-centered content.
How to “Know Your Audience”
We talk a lot about “knowing your audience” in MarCom… but I rarely hear this question answered:
”HOW do I get to know my audience?”
Obviously you can talk to them. But if the idea of cold calling prospects out of the blue, or hoping they respond to an email survey, or paying for expensive market research sounds like a buzz kill, here’s a workaround.
Host a webinar. But it’s not what you think…
When you host a webinar on Zoom, you can include a required question on the registration page. This is where you can ask them anything you want that would help you understand their needs better.
I host periodic webinars about content creation and strategy. My primary goal with these is to provide tons of value and help you more forward faster toward your goals with content. But a few webinars ago I started experimenting with this required question.
In my last webinar, “Higher Ed Content Creation, But Make it Not Suck” I asked this on the registration page:
”What’s your most burning question about content creation?”
I had over 100 people register for that webinar. About half of them showed up, but I still got all 100+ responses to that question. I have them in a spreadsheet that I’ve referenced for months now to help me create more relevant content for this newsletter and other platforms I’m active on.
The great thing about this is you can start to map the patterns in questions that students are actually asking at whatever stage in their journey they’re at. This can help you define some priority content pillars — universal topics that you now know your content should address.
Here is some inspo for questions you can ask:
“What’s your biggest worry about college right now?”
“What feels most confusing about the college process at the moment?”
“What question about college keeps coming up for you lately?”
“What’s the hardest part of making a college decision for your ight now?”
“What’s the biggest unknown you’re trying to solve before committing to a school?”
“What does a college need to have for you to feel like you belong?”
“What’s most important for you to feel supported in college?”
“What outcome matters most to you from college right now?”
Taking this a step further:
Maybe you start with a general webinar about your college. Maybe it’s a virtual tour, or an info session on how to submit a standout application.
But as you start getting into a groove, you can get more granular with the webinars, and thereby more granular with the required question.
Maybe your admissions department hosts a yield-focused session, like “How to Decide Between Your Top College Choices?” or “How Paying for College Actually Works (In Plain English)?”
Or Career Services can host “Internships, Mentorships, and Getting Hired Before You Graduate.”
Or Student Life hosts “Finding Your People in College” or “What Campus Life is Actually Like (From Current Students)”.
In all of these, your questions can be specific to that topic so you’re getting to know your students on a deeper level.
And here’s where collaboration comes in. Share that data. Create a master database of questions students are asking across different departments so everyone can learn from each other.
This way, anyone interacting with students in any way - even if it’s managing the content on the website - will be able to steer those conversations effectively.
Want more insights on creating emotionally resonant content for higher ed?
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