Kalamazoo Valley Community College is a fully accredited, two-year public college with approximately 10,000 students enrolled at its four Michigan campuses. Offering 50 certificate programs and 60 associate degrees—including those in business, health care, human and public services, and technical and industrial occupations—it provides high-quality education for students preparing to transfer to four-year institutions following graduation.
To harness new opportunities for growth, Kalamazoo Valley, a longstanding Liaison TargetX client, recently chose Liaison’s Intelligent Names Explore solution to enhance its outreach and support initiatives for adult learners. As part of its strategy, Kalamazoo Valley wanted to promote the Michigan Reconnect initiative, a last-dollar scholarship program that provides tuition-free community college to adult residents of the state who do not yet hold an associate degree or higher academic credential.
With Liaison’s assistance, Kalamazoo’s efforts resulted in the enrollment of 165 new students and generated approximately $87,000 in tuition revenue — a return on investment (ROI) of nearly 300%.
Data science in action
Intelligent Names Explore provides the names of individuals who, through proprietary data science techniques, are believed to have high intent for new or continuing education.
In Fall 2022, Kalamazoo Valley received a curated list targeting over 15,000 individuals with corresponding contact information (e.g., address, email, phone) and limited to those with the highest educational intent classification. The Liaison Data Science team’s intent scoring is developed using a proprietary blend of national surveys, consumer data, and AI models to measure individuals’ intent for education.
The key to success hinged on three key pillars:
- Identifying the right audience (Liaison Intelligent Names)
- Determining the right outreach and engagement plan (Kalamazoo Valley’s marketing)
- Providing a compelling message to the audience (prospective Michigan Reconnect recipients)
“A solution to narrow the pool down”
With the names in hand, Kalamazoo Valley set out to engage those individuals through outbound marketing efforts using texts, emails, and postcards. The campaign’s aim was to encourage new and reenrollment activities during 2023 start terms by directly promoting the Michigan Reconnect program and encouraging the target audience to complete credits at the college.
“In the past, we lacked the ability to identify prospects, as really everyone is a prospect with open admission available to all,” said Kalamazoo Valley Director of Institutional Effectiveness Evan Pauken. “Having a solution to narrow the pool down—without targeting only past applicants to Kalamazoo Valley—was the key to being more pointed in our marketing efforts. Intelligent Names helped us identify the right population.”
Following several months of outreach and list cultivation, Kalamazoo Valley achieved positive outcomes with this campaign, generating nearly 450 applications and 165 enrollments, including 18 individuals who had no prior enrollment history with the college. While most enrollments were among those previously known to the college, Intelligent Names was an important catalyst, informing the enrollment team of who among their dormant student list was a high priority for re-engagement. Taken together, the 165 enrolled students generated approximately $87,000 in tuition revenue resulting in ROI of nearly 3X.
As a calculated estimate for the 2.94% that Kalamazoo Valley attained, the following input and assumptions were used:
- Cost per contact hour per semester: $124
- Cost per semester fee: $158
- Minimum cost per enrolled individual per semester: $530 (assuming a 3-hour course)
“The timing of this was really great, as Michigan Reconnect had just launched an expansion to include 21- to 24-year-old residents through Fall 2024,” Pauken said. “We really appreciate the ability to gain access to additional names through this Intelligent Names collaboration with Liaison.”
To learn more about Intelligent Names, click here.
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