How Delaware County Community College Expanded Its Use of Liaison TargetX to Manage Enrollment and Personalize Engagement

Delaware County Community College (DCCC), a long-time user of the Liaison TargetX CRM, has been experiencing a notable shift in enrollment dynamics. With an improvement in enrollment for both new and returning students, the institution recognized a pressing need to modernize its engagement and admissions infrastructure.

To support this growth and better serve its diverse student body, including veterans, single parents, and dual enrollment learners, DCCC decided to expand its use of TargetX beyond the Recruitment Suite, which it has relied on for years to increase applications, transform enrollment management, and power admissions productivity.

Improving Enrollment Results

DCCC faced multiple challenges prior to engaging with Liaison, including:

• Managing volume and complexity | A surge in both new student applications and anticipated returning (readmitted) students meant the college needed to track and support students at various points in the funnel.
  
• Ineffective engagement | Generic messaging was no longer effective. Staff needed a way to tailor communications based on each student’s program of interest and personal needs.
  
• Limited data visibility | Without integrated data tools, it was difficult to visualize the enrollment funnel or share real-time insights with institutional leadership.
  
• Community college-specific needs | Unlike traditional four-year institutions, DCCC needed to focus on conversion to registration, not just acceptance. The school also sought to integrate student services and financial aid earlier in the recruitment process.

Focusing on the Funnel

To address its priorities, DCCC began leveraging the TargetX Insights feature to measure the impact of admissions decisions, adjust forecasts, and track progress toward its goals.

The school also opted to implement the new TargetX Communication Planner to customize and manage its email outreach initiatives. The result? A more comprehensive, data-informed strategy for student engagement.

TargetX now centralizes and streamlines DCCC’s enrollment operations. For example, the platform’s Events module allows users to manage recruitment events more efficiently, including sub-events for program-specific outreach. Its Inquiry Forms feature captures detailed student interest data and moves it directly into the CRM for real-time tracking.

Other key benefits and features include:

• Custom admissions processes to develop workflows for complex admission scenarios, such as nursing program petitions.
  
• SIS integration to connect TargetX with DCCC’s student information system, enabling a holistic view of each student’s journey.
  
• Enhanced email capabilities to allow staff to plan, personalize, and schedule communications with greater precision using the TargetX Communication Planner.

“It’s easy to customize email templates in the Communication Planner,” said Programmer Analyst Lea Horton. “And it will be exciting to see our communications plan mapped out.”

Implementing TargetX Insights, a data visualization tool within the CRM, is another turning point in DCCC’s use of the platform. According to DCCC Vice President of Recruitment and Enrollment Management Gina Macklin, the Insights funnel view has helped DCCC accomplish two major goals: customizing and personalizing student outreach.

“For both new students and readmitted students, we can customize how we engage with them in the funnel based on the programs they’re interested in,” she said. “And then we can personalize how we engage with them based on each individual student’s needs.”

TargetX Insights also allows admissions professionals to make decisions backed by real-time data. The tool transforms planning conversations from anecdotal to analytical, giving the team a shared language for progress and performance.

“I came here from an institution with a CRM that was a nightmare,” Macklin said. “I couldn’t even screenshot what the funnel looked like. I wasn’t able to share that information with the cabinet or with our board to give them a picture of where we were in real time. Insights has given us the ability to do that. That has been a game changer for the institution.”

DCCC team members have also begun to participate in TargetX Premier Education training sessions. These live, online workshops help staff from DCCC and other schools interact with each other, deepening their CRM knowledge while sharing best practices and lessons learned.

“It’s helpful to hear from peers at other institutions about what they’re doing and how that’s working for them,” Horton said.

Enhancing Engagement for More Efficiency

Since expanding its use of TargetX, DCCC has seen significant improvements in both student engagement and internal efficiency. Benefits of the new CRM include:

• Improved data clarity | The Insights tool offers term-by-term visualizations of the enrollment funnel, enabling leadership to make strategic decisions quickly.
  
• Increased event engagement | The TargetX Events module supports detailed planning and sub-event creation, allowing for more targeted outreach.
  
• Greater staff efficiency | With self-service tools and automated workflows, staff can focus more on strategy and less on manual tasks.
  
• Enhanced outreach | The new Communication Planner tool will allow for precise control of messaging timelines and audiences.
  
• Student-centric processes | Application flows are seamless, and students benefit from earlier access to services like financial aid and support resources.

Perhaps most importantly, TargetX enables personalization at scale by fostering meaningful interactions based on what students actually care about.

Planning for the Future

Looking ahead, DCCC plans to enhance the integration of student services, such as financial aid and scholarships, earlier in the enrollment journey. The school also plans to incorporate communications to non-credit students into the CRM to better support their engagement and track outcomes. It will continue customizing TargetX to meet the evolving needs of community college students.

As a partner committed to DCCC’s ongoing success, Liaison will also conduct follow-up meetings to assess how the Communication Planner has impacted engagement and to capture additional lessons from the school’s innovative use of its new CRM.

Founded in 1967, Delaware County Community College is a public, accredited two-year institution located in metropolitan Philadelphia. Guided by a mission to provide accessible, student-focused education, DCCC serves a diverse community through flexible, high- quality programs and services by:

• Offering 50+ associate degrees and 40+ certificate programs, including workforce and transfer options.
  
• Maintaining transfer agreements with more than 30 four-year colleges and universities.
  
• Supporting students with 130+ scholarship programs and a range of financial aid opportunities.
  
• Serving students through specialized programs such as ESL, dual enrollment, and U.S. veteran services.