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Managing admissions is only part of a student’s journey into college.
There’s also the matter of convincing the student to come in the first place. That was a key driver in admission-management provider Liaison International’s decision, announced today, to purchase college CRM and marketing-solution provider Spectrum Edu Solutions. It is consistent with a recent trend among some tech companies to buy a marketer so they can round out their offering, such as Cognizant’s recent purchase of Cadient or LiquidHub buying Foundry9.
“The acquisition gives us unmatched capabilities to support admissions professionals and their stakeholders as we can now span the entire lifecycle of admissions management and marketing, from the applicants’ first interest through their first day on campus,” Liaison CEO Michael Behringer told VentureBeat.
The joining of the two cloud-based companies now enables Liaison to provide tools throughout the entire customer journey — counting students as customers — of the college experience. This includes a college’s marketing, recruitment, application and admission management, student credentialing, and personalized student communications.
While some colleges have employed and adapted marketing automation and CRM systems, Behringer noted that Spectrum “was built exclusively for higher education.”
As examples, he pointed out that Spectrum offers personalized microsites for students, including information on their assigned admissions counselor.
Competitors include Hobsons, Ellucian Recruiter, and TargetX, but Behringer said that the purchase gives Liaison “unmatched capabilities to support admissions professionals [from students’] first interest through their first day on campus.”
Spectrum president Scott Mallen will now become president of Liaison’s CRM solutions. Deal terms were not made public.
