It can be intimidating to look at all the different providers filling the exhibit hall at your next conference and wonder what to make of each. How are they different? Do I really need the service or solution they’re offering? Where to begin?

To answer these questions, consider the typical student journey: every enrolled student heard of you for the first time, conducted research about your institution to learn more, applied (maybe with assistance), was admitted, and decided to enroll. They got their visa and got on the plane, too! Now overlay these touchpoints onto a classic enrollment funnel. At the very top, we see the first steps of the journey with the student discovering you and building awareness. Who is responsible for building awareness of the institution internally? Is this person or team focused on international student recruitment, or prospective students more generally? How do you measure their success?

As you progress through the stages that follow, from more serious research and Q&A to application and avoiding the dreaded “summer melt” (where accepted students decide to go elsewhere or vanish altogether), consider your institution’s internal capacity to meet student needs. Some providers offer solutions that target a particular stage of the enrollment funnel. Are you resourced to support each stage effectively? To do so, you need adequate staffing, budget and expertise in an increasingly competitive environment. You may find that you lack the staffing to handle the volume of inquiries you receive, or that you lack the budget to crisscross the globe attending every single fair and recruitment event. Now you have a basis for engaging an external organization to get some help (whether a product vendor, partner or somewhere in between) …

Cut through the elevator pitch jargon and ask third-party organizations which part of the enrollment funnel their solutions address. You’ll find a mix of boutique specialists (think of a small recruitment agency with a strong history and track record in a single priority market), and (increasingly) a range of broad-based offerings that support many or most stages of the enrollment funnel, from digital brand-building and lead generation to student counseling, peer-to-peer advising and yield efforts. If you don’t know what your priority markets are, you might need to look outside the funnel altogether and consider whether your data sources are adequate (longitudinal enrollment data from within the institution is a good start, but doesn’t do much to identify new opportunities). Before assessing whether you’re doing enough in-house to build your brand and generate awareness, consider if you even know where you ought to be doing so, and how you came to that conclusion.

To know with whom you should be working, you need a strong sense of what you need help with and where on the funnel you’re falling behind. In an environment where many providers are saying similar things, having a clear sense of your own capabilities (and limits) is the right place to start.