Post-secondary institutions engage with a diverse range of audiences: applicants, current students, alumni, parent and teacher influencers, government, employees, and others. By understanding these audiences in terms of their unique preferences, expectations and challenges, institutions can cater their communications, recruitment strategies, academic programs, support services, and campus experiences to better meet their diverse needs. Meeting these diverse needs is a variation on a challenge many other kinds of organizations – businesses, governments, non-profits – face as they try to understand and engage with a growing number of customer segments. Post-secondary institutions, too, need to gain insight into the motivations of their audiences to foster engagement and form lasting connections.
Understanding The Why Behind Student Preferences And Priorities
Even audiences that appear similar cannot be painted with a broad brush – Environics has learned that what resonates positively with one person could be a complete flop for another. Using the example of prospective students, we can illustrate the importance of understanding these nuances within various stakeholder groups. Most institutions have some sense of the circumstances and goals that shape prospective students’ decisions about their education. Our research with learners shows people pursue higher education for a variety of reasons including personal growth, finding a community, or preparing for a dream career. The decision about which school to attend can be based on factors including cost, location, an institution’s reputation, and program availability.
Understanding how these relatively practical factors shape prospective students’ thinking is important, but an invaluable complement is understanding their underlying values and how these feed into the decision-making process. When institutions understand why certain factors are important to students – exploring what concepts like community and success mean to them – they are able to develop strategies that are better informed and more defined.
Strategies that incorporate student values also support retention: by understanding what different students are looking for and what they need to thrive, institutions are better equipped to offer an experience that will keep students engaged and satisfied, seeing them through to the end of their studies. The same principle applies to engaging with other audiences, like current students or alumni – understanding what they value most about their post-secondary or alumni experience can help keep them connected to an institution for the long term.
Segmenting Learners Using Social Values
Segmentations are a useful tool for understanding audiences – something institutions likely already do based on demographic and socio-economic information. However, people who share demographic traits – notably age – can have very different perspectives. Take Gen Z, for example – a group born between 1995-2008, they are likely to be considering or engaged in higher education at this time. Environics’ Social Values research identifies seven distinct segments within the Gen Z cohort alone. That’s seven subgroups whose values will likely cause them to make decisions about post-secondary education in very different ways. One of the most interesting components of understanding Social Values is this idea that how we view the world changes how we make decisions – while one person may arrive at the same decision as their peers, their reasoning is probably different.
Same decision, different motivations
To demonstrate this concept, we can look at three of our Gen Z Segments that are often found on campus – the Dutiful Accomplisher, the Earnest Striver, and the Hustling Hedonist. These three segments may choose an institution for ostensibly the same reason – say, its academic reputation. However, a Dutiful Accomplisher may prize academic reputation because they want to meet parental expectations, while an Earnest Striver sees academic reputation as proof (to themselves) that they’ve succeeded, and a Hustling Hedonist knows a top school will look good in the eyes of a prestigious future employer. One choice, one stated reason – but underneath, three different drivers rooted in Social Values. Understanding these distinctions can support institutions in demonstrating their value proposition in different ways to resonate with different audiences.
Below we’ve pulled a few more key insights from what we know about how our Social Values impact post-secondary decision making.
Dutiful Accomplishers:
This segment scores high on duty, vitality, and enthusiasm for technology. Their key priority is making their family proud. For some, post-secondary education represents the logical next step in the journey – it’s non-negotiable. Deeply invested in how others perceive them, they’re driven by the accolades that come with achievement in school and their career. This may drive them to attend a school that will impress their most important influencers – their parents. Their penchant for technological change may also draw them towards an institution that focuses on innovation and hands-on learning, providing opportunities to directly engage with emerging technologies.
Hustling Hedonists:
These members of Gen Z score high on pursuit of intensity, importance of aesthetics, attraction to crowds, and need for status recognition. They may be attracted to a similar school as the Dutiful Accomplisher, but more for the bustling student life, myriad of opportunities that await them on campus, and the accompanying social credit. While attending post-secondary to prepare for a career, they’re also there to take advantage of every experience and come out the other side ready to impress.
Egalitarian Idealists:
Members of this segment score high on civic engagement, fulfillment through work, and social responsibility. They may want to attend a school with small class sizes and a campus that feels like a close-knit community. They may also be drawn to schools where they can make a difference, both in their time at school and as they lay foundations for future careers they hope will be meaningful. Their motivations may be more introspective – rather than impressing family or future employers, they’re likely to be attending school for personal growth and expanding their horizons.
How We Can Work With You To Understand Your Target Audiences
Environics’ system of Social Values helps organizations understand audiences at a psychographic level. We support institutions to discover and understand their stakeholder audiences, using Social Values to provide more depth and identify priority segments. Whether through leveraging our proprietary generational cohort segmentations, or creating custom personas, we support institutions in truly understanding and engaging with their key audiences.
