RNL Releases Research About How Teens Use the Internet to Find Their College

While marketing tactics and tools may look the same across different audience segments the truth is that an effective communicator must know the wants, needs and habits of their target audience. 

By Chrissy Clary

On the higher education front, the annual E-Expectations Report, produced by the industry leader Ruffalo Noel Levitz, has once again delivered must-know information about teens and their digital search for colleges. The 2019 E-Expectations includes data from a survey on high school students from Generation Z with a ratio of 26% seniors, 37% juniors and 37% sophomores. 

The report found that most students go directly to the college’s website to find information. If they want to learn more, they will complete a request for information form. Teenagers are looking for that short and simple form. Forty percent will quit filling out complex forms requesting lots of information (TMI!).   

RNL recommends that marketers communicate as visually as possible. Videos and images are as important as ever; use them to tell the campus story, but keep them short because 83% of students said they’d stop watching videos over three minutes long. Teenagers are turning to campus social media feeds like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube (most used) to see what it would be like to attend a particular college. 

Don’t stop optimizing your site for search on your site and in the search engines. The most frequent search on college websites relates to cost and scholarships. If that info is hard to find, they will turn away. 

And, of course, teens are on their phones (for about 8.5 hours a day) so text them. 

Ruffalo Noel Levitz and the team that produces this report is #Onpoint! Visit the Ruffalo Noel Levitz site to download the 2019 E-Expectations Report

 

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