Tripling conversion rates

De Montfort University

77
percent
Offer acceptance rate
208
percent
Higher conversion for those who engaged with peers

Increasing offer-holder conversions through community engagement

De Montfort University (DMU) is a mid-size, but growing, city-based university in Leicester, England, with around 25,000 students from over 130 countries. With campuses in London, Dubai, Kazakhstan and Cambodia, DMU is known for its block teaching model, modern facilities, and strong industry links, DMU offers career-focused programmes across diverse faculties.

The challenge

In a higher education market that has become more and more competitive, increasing late-stage conversion is at the top of the priority list for many UK universities. DMU is no exception: the Domestic Recruitment team wanted to boost acceptance rates among conditional offer holders by doing a better job of showcasing what makes their university, and their Leicester campus, unique; differentiating it from competitors. In today’s world, traditional marketing – ads and email campaigns – must compete with countless digital touchpoints, making this kind of genuine engagement harder to achieve.

DMU campus centre

Solution

To capture and maintain the attention of offer-holders weighing their options, DMU put their peer community features at the heart of conversion campaigns. They started by actively promoting the student community built on TAP 3 in emails and marketing materials, letting prospective students know they had a space where they could connect directly with current ambassadors and each other. DMU’s mix of eight student ambassadors created daily content and engaged with future students in 1-2-1 and group chats, while DMU put a lot of care into curating a vibrant, informative space that would grab and keep the attention of their visitors.

"I was a bit wary that there are enough social media apps in people’s life," told us Jamie Bradford, Head of Student Recruitment Operations. "Would students want to engage? Would they bother building a profile? But the TAP community was easy to promote to students, and most users created great profiles and actively used it, rather than just viewing it.”

  • Proactive promotion via email campaigns
  • Engaged group of ambassadors
  • A buzzing community of offer-holders

Results

The impact was clear: among conditional offer holders using Community, conversion rates jumped from 25% to 77% - that’s a 208% higher conversion rate for those who engaged with their peers. DMU now plans to build upon this success by introducing the platform earlier in their marketing cycle and expanding its use for international audiences.

Having tried other peer-to-peer solutions in the market, DMU found working with The Ambassador Platform particularly easy thanks to the highly personalised support. In addition to the community features introduced with TAP 3, it was the friendly and proactive approach from the TAP team’s tailored recommendations, that made a difference in maximising DMU’s engagement and results.

"In the future, we want to put more emphasis on the platform earlier in the recruitment cycle, because we know — and have the stats to show — that it leads to more positive, measurable recruitment results compared to the benchmarks we've gathered from broader engagement."

Jamie Bradford, Head of Recruitment Operations, De Montfort University

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