Education: Getting the next student
She started going through her college recruitment mail when she was 17, with the determination that she’d read every piece before she made her decision. This is the final stack!
(Her friends have been retired for 20 years.)
We all know the drill. Pummel prospective college students with as much direct mail as your budget allows, then add 20% for good measure. You also know that the high school kids are not looking at every piece they receive. Not even a small fraction of it. But we send, because we’ve always sent. We have gotten to the point were kids are saving all the college recruitment mail so that they can toss it on the floor, spread out in it and take a selfie. At best, the mail has become a background prop.
It no longer serves the purpose for which it was sent.
Our education clients have two primary objectives:
- Get prospective students excited about the university during the recruitment process.
- Keep current students engaged and excited while attending.
We also recommend an active Alumni program to keep your largest group of advocates excited – your graduates!
We count direct mail cost on a per piece basis. You’d probably be shocked if you could calculate the actual cost per piece-read.
At iPromo, it is not the cost per item, but the cost per helped student. Logoed items are more than just impressions, they generate actions. Combined with direct mail, they create a powerful introduction.
Not all prospective students are the same, just as not all schools are the same. Each area of study, in each school presents its own opportunities to capture and hold prospective students’ attention.
Your first introduction
Get their attention early! This isn’t about an expensive giveaway. It is about something that the students can use regularly and is given early in the relationship. For example, a simple drawstring bag is not expensive to purchase, but has a very high perceived value for the students and their parents. These are lightweight for easy mailing and have an amazingly high utility for active students.
As you consider the early communications, think about ‘easy to mail’ items that are beneficial to high school kids or even their parents. Give them a reason to pull your direct mail piece from the pile.
Just as important as the item is the messaging; both for the student and for those who see the student with the item (other prospective students). More than your school logo, think about actions. Messaging about “Future Student of…”, or a website url of “www.collegename.edu/Attend/”, or “Talk to us about a great future at 555-555-5555”. It is not just about your school, but about your school in relation to the students. Put your school in context, and you will grab much more attention.
The visit
You got their attention and now they want to come see you. Make the visit memorable.
We often see really great promotional items given out in a way the detracts from the experience. Remember, the first college visit is a major experience and you have a chance to make it great or make it dull. So, consider how you present gifts. How about incoming visitors pass by a long line of current students handing them gifts? For lighter weight items, tied to the end of a helium balloon waiting in the hall as the exit the presentation? As they are on tour, RAGs (Random Acts of Giving) by students along the way? Get creative in how you present gifts, and the giving becomes as much apart of the memory as the gift itself.
Most visits include some kind of campus tour. In the northern states, it’s often cold, but sometimes hot during the tours. If you have a variety of items, you can present the items that can be most useful at the time of the visit. An embroidered scarf for colder climates, or a baseball cap for sunnier days, or a small pack with bottles of water for warmer days; you get the idea. User your knowledge of past sessions, climate and type of tours – campus wide or departmental, season, indoor or out. The more thought you give to the context the more impact your decisions will have.
Some of the most fun we have is helping our clients create new ideas to make memories for their students. So give us a call and we can help. We’d really enjoy that.
Next time
We’ll talk more about approaches for the other objectives in education in future posts. But, the general philosophy of creating an experience by thinking about the context and the actions will continue to be a theme in those threads as well.