Insights on Admissions Marketing

Upcoming Events

The last few months have been very busy, as I know they have been for all of you.  I hope graduations and end of year activities find all of you well, ahead on enrollment goals and preparing for the upcoming fall semester after a well deserved break.

A few updates on where to find me over the next few weeks:

Tri-State ACAC:  I will be speaking at this year's Tri-State conference in Madison, WI.  I will be presenting on effective integration and use of video in your Admissions process, as well as a presentation on our annual E-Expectations research.  The conference begins May 19th.

I will also be presenting at this year's NYACAC conference, which is held June 3rd-June 6th, in Purchase NY. 
Finally, I will be at the annual James Tower Technology in Student Recruitment conference which will be held in Chicago June 16th and 17th.

I hope to see you at one of these events.  Stay tuned to my blog for additional information and updates on the presentations I am giving.

2008 OmniUpdate Users Conference

Greetings from Palm Springs, the site of the 2008 OmniUpdate Users Conference.  OmniUpdate, a partner of James Tower, was kind enough to allow me to speak at this year's conference on the topic of blogging for colleges and universities.  As promised during my presentation, I am including a copy of my power point for attendees from the conference to use as needed.

Download blog_eat_blog2008omniupdate_user_conference.ppt

It still surprises me, even with the growth that blogging has seen in the past year on college campuses, how many institutions are still clinging to their desperate hopes of controlling every aspect of their message.  As such, they are not even entertaining the possibility of blogging or are restricting/preventing comments in the blogs they do maintain.  I spoke with a number of attendees about this very issue and to a person, they all got it.  Their struggle is in convincing administrators that simply do not understand the way in which the Internet is ingrained in the daily lives of their students and that the digital revolution is already here!  For some, they have simply by-passed their administration altogether in favor of an "unsanctioned" site for allowing a blogging program to exist and for users to provide an authentic voice about their institution!

There are a number of ways to mitigate that, many of which I have previously discussed in my presentation.  One I will add to the mix is OmniUpdate's product, OUBlogs.  Check it out.

Thank you again to Lance and his entire team.  It was a phenomenal conference and I hope the James Tower Technology in Student Recruitment conference in June will be just as informational and valuable for attendees.

More on yesterday's post

My co-worker and friend Jennifer Ringler shared a few very good points with me yesterday following my blog post.  I didn't necessarily finish as strongly as I could and she had comments that I thought were insightful.

So, instead of taking credit for Jen's brilliance, I offer up her feedback for your review.

"Think you are personalizing when you are really not?” Personalization takes time, money, and effort – schools know they need to personalize, but too often take a quick, simple approach and it is doing them more harm than good.  Personalization is about more than slapping a first name after the word “Dear”."

Jen, I agree completely.  As we all recognize, prospect outreach is something that must occur.  However, in this case, it was the execution that thwarted these four colleges in their attempt to initiate dialog with Stacey.  The vendor in question failed all four institutions in the name of expediency.  While I am sure that all four institutions will see results from this campaign, Stacey is just the one example we know about.  How many other Stacey's might there be?  How much better could the results have been with only a little more effort AND an attempt to truly present a unique face in prospect outreach by any of these institutions?

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?

2008 Technology in Student Recruitment Conference

James Tower has announced the location and dates for the 2008 "Technology in Student Recruitment" conference.  This year's conference will be held June 16th-18th in Chicago, IL.

More details will be forthcoming.  If you would like to stay informed however, please register for updates on the James Tower web site:  http://www.jamestower.com/techconference08preregistration.asp

I hope to see you at this year's event!

Growing Up Online

From this week's Monday Marketing Minute, in case you missed it.

A Frontline documentary aired last week on PBS, Growing Up Online, digging into what we know as social networking – self-created, virtual societies. The most popular of these are obviously MySpace and Facebook. The documentary covered many social networking issues and was very insightful and engaging with first-hand accounts from teens, parents, and researchers.

Citing that the Internet has created the greatest generation gap since rock 'n' roll, it is critical for those of us working with teens to understand the motivation behind social networking.

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One thing you can pull away from Frontline’s documentary is that social networking is not going away. It is not a passing fad. Teens today are immersed in a virtual world that is not a separate place, but a continuation of their existence. Your recruiting efforts should, if they do not already, support this.

Today's students largely have no concept of life without the Internet. They are the first generation to come of age with the Internet. What does this mean for your admissions website?

• Your site has to be interactive. Why? Because teens’ expectations come from years of sitting in front of a screen and clicking a mouse. And, they are starting earlier, with sites such as Club Penguin and Webkinz attracting young elementary-age kids.
• You are not off the hook in providing an interactive “friending” experience on your website because a special Facebook group exists for your next incoming class. Prospective students trust you and your site when it comes to complicated and life-impacting decisions such as the college search, admission, and acceptance process. And don’t forget – they are highly capable of managing profiles on multiple sites.   

I leave you this week with a couple of questions:

• Check out "Growing Up Online".  Once you have, does it provide any insight into changes you may want to make to your website?
• How will your website help you cut through the electronic noise and engage your students?

Monday Marketing Minute

Happy New Year!
Some of you may be aware (and others may not be) that James Tower provides a weekly "Monday Marketing Minute" via email to all that subscribe.  The Monday Marketing Minute is information on and suggestions for making your prospective student communications more effective, your web site more impactful and other tidbits of useful information.  If you would like to subscribe to the MMM, please do so at this link.  Otherwise, I thought I would try and share the information with you here.

Monday Marketing Minutes for January 14th.

It is that time of year, when many of us reflect on the past year pondering how we can make the new year the best year ever. I’m hoping you will take this opportunity to reflect on your Web site and resolve to put it on a strict diet in 2008.

Eliminate the Junk. Like you would your own diet, look over your Web site. Remove all the junk (dead links, out-dated pages, old campus maps, past event registrations) and start monitoring what you put into it.

 

Reality: Not everything needs to be on your Web site at the same time. Be judicious. Think about your audience. What is going to make a student apply? What is going to make a student enroll? Make sure the information students and parents need is up-to-date and presented in an interesting way that’s easy to find.

 

Challenge: Take inventory of your Web site in a basic Excel document. You need to know what is on the Web site, who put it there and who is responsible for maintaining it. If it’s old, outdated or incorrect, update it or eliminate it.

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Take Care of What’s There. Like your body, your Web site needs exercise. It’s not good for your Web site to just hang out. Make sure there is plan in place and time on the calendar for updates and enhancements. Make a routine, just as you would for your own workout.

 

Reality: The more activity on your site, the better the results. To get more activity, your content needs to change and be interactive. Visitors will not come back if they cannot complete critical tasks and get answers to questions.

 

Challenge: This year I challenge you to look at the content on your Web site and think about delivering it in a more interactive way using Web 2.0 tools.  For example, do you have pages of information on the financial aid process or hundreds of FAQs? I am not recommending you get rid of these, rather get your site into better shape by presenting the financial aid information or FAQs using short videos.

 

Monitor your Progress. We all hate stepping on the scale, but how else can you make sure your diet is working? The same goes for your Web site. Make sure you  monitor traffic, redirects and downloads to see what’s working.

 

Reality: Data abounds. Tracking provides you an advantage over your competitors so you understand what is working and what is not within your web site.  If you have important information on your site or new functionality that you have added, you can confirm whether people are finding what you have to offer.  If they aren't, you can respond and plan accordingly as opposed to just "going with your gut."

 

Challenge: Think of how much time and energy is spent by committees to determine color schemes, navigation and photography for your site. My challenge to you this year is to take all this effort and get a Web site maintenance plan in place. In addition, identify the key Web metrics that make a difference and report on those each month.

 

Keep these resolutions all year and your Web site will be fit and in tip-top shape.

 

Thanks for taking time to read the Monday Marketing Minute in 2007. If there are questions you’d like answered or a topic you’d like to discuss,  please let us know  or post it in the comments section of this blog and we will add it to our editorial calendar.

For a full listing of past Monday Marketing Minute messages, please visit our archive.

Happy Holidays!!!

To friends, colleagues and anyone that simply happens to stumble upon my blog as they surf the web during their extended vacation....have a very happy holiday season and a fantastic New Year!

 

Darren

2007 NACAC in Austin, TX.

Wow....
September is nearly over and I haven't provided a post the entire month.  I really must apologize.

I leave tomorrow for the 2007 NACAC conference in Austin, TX.  I hope that I will have the opportunity to see you there.  If not, please tune in to my blog this week, as I plan to provide a first person perspective on NACAC events and hopefully some insights.

If nothing else, please stop by and introduce yourself.  I would love to see you on the exhibit floor.

Darren

And thus....it ends....eduWEB 2007

Close the book on another eduWEB.

I understand next year will be in Atlantic City, NJ.  I hope to see many of you there again and if I am chosen to speak, I promise to try to bring value to our time together.

A few observations I would like to share regarding the closing day of this year's eduWEB:

First, thank you so much to all of you that provided me wonderful feedback on my presentation yesterday.  I have posted the Powerpoint in my blog so that you may download it for your own use and reference.  If anyone needs additional feedback or reminders on points that I have made, please don't hesitate to contact me.

• The last day of presentations were unusual.  I heard at least 10 people express concern over a vendor presentation because it was confrontational and self serving.  However, I think that same presentation was also approved of in other venues.  I wish I could have participated myself and shared an opinion.
• The more I see vendor presentations on the social web and social networking tools, the more I realize that too many people think that they get it, but really don't.  In fact, so much so that I think I will do a fact-based presentation that provides practical solutions for using social media next year.

Here's the thing-social networking has less to do about using EVERY portal, web site, widget and tool out there.  It has everything to do with connections and content.  It doesn't matter if you are on Cyworld, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter....whatever, if you have nothing to say you are just creating work without any reward.  Successful outreach and communications in a social networking context has to be a process.  By taking a cavalier and random approach, you set yourself up to fail.  And in some cases, because you don't know the rules, you may make yourself and your institution look inept in the eyes of your prospects.  So, what should you do?  Cower in fear?  Charge blindly forward and hope for the best?

Here are a few suggestions as you approach ANY NEW social networking initiative:

1. Figure out what you are trying to accomplish and then develop a strategy to accomplish it.
   • Are you trying to enhance perceptions of student life on campus.
     • Maybe you should a blogging program that uses current and incoming students.  Maybe you could set up an IM capability on your site for current students to answer future students questions
   • Are you trying to raise awareness of your institution and programs?
   • Maybe you could create a series of YouTube videos or have your students do it for you, via a contest.  Perhaps you can create a presence in MySpace and Facebook.  Maybe you just need to update your Wiki!
2. Once you have a strategy developed, assign it to a champion.
   • If you aren't passionate about social networking, then find someone that is and have them champion your initiatives for you.  If there isn't an enthusiasm for what you are doing, it will reflect in poor content or general disinterest.
3. Review, report adjust and repeat
   • Review what you are doing and the progress and results you are achieving.  Make sure that you can access reports specific to traffic, responses and other metrics.  If necessary, adjust your approach or the solution you are using.  Once you find a successful mix, try and repeat the process, if appropriate, in other venues.
   • Makes sure that you are complimenting the other things you are doing in your other external communications as well.  Make sure everything works together, not at odds.

Many of these are fairly simple insights, but I think sometimes we loose track of individual trees in the technology forest.  (or maybe it is the technology jungle.)

Last, but not least, I would like to extend kudos to the entire eduWEB team.  This year was a good conference, well run in a great location.  You deserve a pat on the back for your efforts.  I look forward to participating next year and would encourage any of you that were not able to attend this year to consider it next year.  (obviously, only after you attend next year's "James Tower Technology in Student Recruitment" conference though....)

Safe travels home to all attendees.