Keeping the Personal, personal

The beginning of a new year is upon us.

Ok, I know the actual New Year began almost two months ago (can you believe it), but that isn't the year I am talking about.  I am talking about the beginning of the 2009 Recruitment Year!  For many of us, this time of year is when we send search mailings to students in their junior year, in the hopes of capturing their attention for a brief moment.  If we are lucky, we may even get them (or their parents) to respond to this first contact, so we can begin sharing additional information on our academic quality, beautiful campus environment and one-on-one, personalized attention.

With the advent of the Internet and digital printing technologies, we have more opportunities than ever for personalizing communications to students.  We can make them feel special and important, or via poor execution, we can make them feel like little more than a number on a data sheet.  And if we do that, we will lose them instantly with very little hope of recovery.

This was made very clear to me recently through the experience of a young woman I will call "Stacey".

Stacey is a high school junior.  Having recently taken the ACT, Stacey is receiving mailings from a variety of different colleges.  Stacey was particularly excited to receive four mailings recently, three of which were for schools that she was considering.  As Stacey opened the first mailing, she was thrilled to read the letter sent to her from the Director of Admissions.  He promised to send her additional information if she would send her back the enclosed reply form, or complete the online response.  Stacey was excited to get more information from this college, but before she ran off to complete the online form, she decided to see what the other three schools had sent.

Imagine Stacey's surprise when the second mailing provided an almost identical letter, response form and message.  Despite this, she moved on to the third mailing and again, found a nearly identical message and request to respond.  By time Stacey opened the fourth and final mailing, the completely impersonal nature of the "personalized" approach (a form letter repackaged for all four colleges) was easily apparent.  She brought them all to her mother (a college admissions counselor herself) and showed her what she had discovered, declaring "I don't care about these schools.  They don't know who I am or even care."  It was clear to Stacey that she was just a name on a list and that her name just happened to be in that week's mail drop.....

What do your external communications say about you?  Does your electronic marketing complement your print collateral?  Do you engage with parents as well as prospects? How do you assure you stand out from the pack?  Do you work with your partners to assure your execution and response doesn't make you the same as everyone else?

Or, are you going to end up in Stacey's discard pile this year too?