Case Study
Unveiling the Needs and Emotions of Prospective Online University Students
overview
The world of higher education has continually evolved to meet the changing needs of people. In particular, the continuous advancement in technology, coupled with increasing acceptance and demand for flexible education, has driven the growth and development of online universities over the past few decades. Our client, an online university, provides a flexible, accessible education designed to cater to adult learners and working professionals. Our client recently refreshed its brand positioning and defined its target and was looking to develop personas of the audience to inform messaging, media planning, and other marketing strategies and tactics.
Knowing our strong heritage and expertise in segmentation research, our client decided to partner with C+R to deeply get to know their target audiences.
THE PROBLEM
Need to Understand Needs and Emotions of Prospective Adult Learners
Our client, an online university, initiated strategic segmentation research to explore prospective adult learners’ needs and emotions. This research aimed to uncover insights built around the most and least important factors when selecting an online university/college program.
Specific objectives of this initiative included:
- Gaining a consumer-driven understanding of prospective adult learners, with emphasis on their needs and emotions associated with seeking to complete an undergraduate degree online
- Identifying motivations for pursuing an undergraduate degree
- A deep dive into perceptions and attitudes toward higher education and the role it can play in a person’s career journey
OUR APPROACH
Comprehensive Attitudinal Segmentation Study
After kicking this project off with our client, which involved a deep discussion on past research conducted, how they arrived at their new positioning and, most importantly, their goals and objectives of this project, we recommended an attitudinal segmentation approach. With this approach, we identified different attitudinal segments, grouping people together based on their attitudes toward selecting an online university/college program. To provide context, our sample design not only included prospective adult learners, but also current students at the online university.
A deep dive of each segment was delivered, including segment size, priority for the client, and each segment’s story to help guide targeting and messaging strategies.
The result
Two Segments Identified as Prime
Prospects
Our segmentation identified six distinct segments of adult learner prospects. Each segment was sized, prioritized for opportunity, and personas were written that allowed our clients to deeply understand their motivations, perceptions, employment journey, values, and demographics. We identified two segments that have the best opportunity to enroll in our client’s online university and, therefore, marketing efforts should be prioritized to these two segments.
Our recommendations included messaging strategies for each segment, which took into account the majors/areas to focus on and the barriers to overcome to convert them from a prospective adult learner to an enrolled student.
proven experience
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