Short conversation with Margot Diepen from Avans University of Applied Sciences
The Brabant-based Avans University of Applied Sciences – over 31,000 students, 4 cities, 13 locations – is a large organization with many programs, all aiming to help and inform prospective students as best as possible. That is quite a challenge. However, marketer & project leader Margot Diepen has had it under control for 12 years already with the student recruitment software from Summit, which has since evolved into Hippocampus.
Where does that control begin?
One of the most important things is knowing exactly which prospective students you come into contact with and being able to follow up properly. And that works with Hippocampus. We also gain many new insights from the system. With this and other data, which you can retrieve very easily, we manage to get quicker buy-in within our organization for new initiatives.
Give an example…
Well, online open evenings, for example. We managed to set those up within a few weeks during Covid, and they still turn out to be surprisingly effective. Many people were glad after the pandemic that it was no longer necessary, but we decided to continue. The data showed that 35% of online visitors did not attend physical events and still enrolled in a program. This percentage is just as high as at our physical open days.
How do you know that so precisely?
Because Summit immediately adapted the system for us at the start of the pandemic. That way we could see exactly who had attended our online open evenings, since Hippocampus had made the Teams links used by prospective students trackable.
That’s convenient…
They can. We have a dedicated project manager who is always available and knows all the ins and outs. We have about a hundred users, though not everyone uses the same functionalities. Every question, big or small, is answered or handled quickly. When you’ve been working together for so long, you know each other inside out.
Does that have more advantages for you?
You can recognize this mentality in the product. The integrated mail program, for example, is a very important tool for us. With that functionality, literally everyone here can work. Because the entire organization does everything from one central point, privacy is also ensured. We also always scan everyone who attends our events. At every location and for each program. That not only delivers exactly the right data, but the scanning itself is also very simple. And that is convenient for our student volunteers, who have to do it. Hippocampus is simply user-friendly for everyone.
