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Render authenticity (Part 2)

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authenticity_erasedIn last week’s Recruitment Minute, Render authenticity (Part 1), I talked about why it is important to render authenticity in your campus visit experience.  In this week’s conclusion, I want to help you understand a few ways you can move that process along on your own campus.

College is a transformative experience.

Most colleges and universities hope to light a spark within their students, encouraging them to spend their lives learning something new, trying something different and striving to be their best. Institutions want students to participate in class, sign up for an internship, study abroad, engage in community service, live in the residence halls — and most importantly — ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Change, College Recruiting, Experience, Experience Economy Stuff, Millennials, Storytelling

Render authenticity (Part 1)

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be-authenticIt’s that time of year. The ball is no longer in your court. Your accepted students are in control and they decide which institution they attend next fall. It’s time for you to get real, ditch the script, and connect with your best-fit students.

Authenticity. It’s a topic mentioned both directly and indirectly in higher education circles and in articles talking about ways to get the most from your college visit experience. However, it isn’t always the easiest subject for campuses to wrap their head around, especially this time of year.

Admissions leadership is constantly forced into a corner, thinking “Ok, accepted student, I know you want to see what is real, ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Blogs, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience, Uncategorized, Yield

Have you seen the restrooms?

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Do you have a driving route that you normally take for family vacations? One where you know all the proper places to stop and use the restroom? For example — my family stops at the Dunkin’ Donuts before we get on the NY Thruway.

We have all had moments with friends or family where they need to use the facilities and we say “Wait. Don’t go here, the bathrooms are gross, wait until we get to the next place, the restrooms are cleaner.” Clean restrooms are such a priority for people that a close friend of mine recently introduced me to the iPhone app, “Where to Wee.” The ...

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Categories: Blogs, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, College Recruiting, Experience

Campus Visit Tip: Reveal Outcomes

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Each month the Experience Team from TargetX will share with you a Campus Visit Tip, Trend and Talk. All of the “three T’s” are designed to give you a bit of insight into the work we do, the people we work with and the places we pull our inspiration from. Here is this month’s “Tip”.

Reveal Outcomes

Open up a newspaper and you are bound to see an article that questions the value of higher education. Heck, this morning on the Today Show there was an entire segment on it. The articles and stories all ask the question “is college still worth it?”. It is the question on the minds of most families as they come to campus for a visit or ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Campus Visit Three T's, Campus Visit Tip, Experience, Graduate Recruiting, Storytelling, Student Recruiting, Yield

Campus Visit Talk: Brittney Joyce and Furman University

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Each month the Experience Team from TargetX will share with you a Campus Visit Tip, Trend and Talk. All of the “three T’s” are designed to give you a bit of insight into the work we do, the people we work with, and the places we pull our inspiration from. Here is this month’s “Talk”.

This month’s featured Talk is with:
Brittney Joyce, M.Ed.
Campus Visit Manager
Furman University, Campus Visit Client since 2009

Q: How did you work to create change within your campus visit?
If I can pinpoint one single thing that I helped to orchestrate that created change for our campus visit, it would be the ...

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Categories: Blogs, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Talk, Campus Visit Three T's, Change, College Recruiting, Student Workers

Campus Visit Talk: Jodi Bailey and Alfred University

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Welcome to the first of a series of posts related to the Campus Visit! Each month the Experience Team from TargetX will share with you a Campus Visit Tip, Trend and Talk. All of the “three T’s” are designed to give you a bit of insight into the work we do, the people we work with, and the places we pull our inspiration from.

Recognizing that so many of us learn from the stories of others, we want to give you a glimpse inside the experiences of our clients. Each month we will profile one of our campus visit clients with the hopes that you can learn from them and ...

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Categories: Blogs, Blogs/Diaries, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Change, Experience, Storytelling, Student Recruiting, Student Yield

3 mistakes that are killing your marketing efforts

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I admit it.  I was pretty jazzed about the Spice Girls reunion at this year’s Olympic Closing Ceremony.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em — for me it was a fun journey down memory lane with the gals who literally laid the soundtrack for the era of “girl power” (plus I’ll take anything that brings me back to the 90′s).

In honor of those brassy Brits, today I’m relating some advice on how to, ahem, “spice up” the writing in your marketing communications.

It comes from “copyblogger,” a favorite of the Marketing team here at TargetX.  If you don’t already subscribe, you should.  I mean it.  Don’t even read the rest ...

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Categories: Blogs, College Recruiting, Communication, Communication Plans, Email, Email Recruiting, General, Marketing, Online Experiences

More marketing is paying off

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Does it seem like your competitors are more marketing aggressive these days? Do they appear to be all over the Internet?

It’s not your imagination — they are. And they probably think the same about you.

A new survey shows that colleges are increasing their spending on marketing communications, especially interactive tools like student blogs, online tours and microsites. In fact, say the study’s authors, “marketing is being increasingly regarded as a ‘mission critical’ process in higher education, worthy of significant investment.”

The trend has been building for a decade, according to the “Report on Marketing Spending at Colleges and Universities.” But momentum has been especially strong in recent years as higher ed marketers become more and more interactive.

A majority of institutions have ...

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Categories: Blogs, Budget, College Recruiting, Online Experiences

No. 1 in social media

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Higher ed has a reputation for being a couple laps behind the rest of the field when it comes to marketing innovation. One historical rule of thumb is that hospital marketers are about five years behind their corporate brethren, and colleges are about five years behind hospitals.

But that seems to be changing as higher education reacts to tougher times with more aggressive and effective marketing communications, and nowhere is that more evident than in the explosive growth of social media.

A staggering 95 percent of colleges are using at least one form of social media to recruit prospective students, far outpacing the rate of adoption in the corporate world, according to research from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Among the findings:

- ...

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Categories: Blogs, College Recruiting, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter

Changes that work

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Butler University’s deposits are up, and it appears to have less to do with the basketball team’s exhilarating run through March Madness and more to do with an impressive overhaul of the school’s recruiting communications.

Kristen Raves responded to last week’s Recruitment Minute about the common refrain on America’s campuses this year: “Apps are up, deposits are down.” Not at Butler, she said. “We have integrated new ideas into our marketing plan throughout this year and we are up in deposits!”

Here’s a small sampling of some of the things they did:

  • Deciding that fresh content was essential, Kristen told her student bloggers that they must post at least 3 times a week and include 2 links and a photo or video each ...
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Categories: Authenticity, Blogs, Change, College Recruiting, Student Yield, Twitter, Websites

XpertTip No.127: Blogging lessons from M.I.T.

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Those of you who have seen me present know that I often use M.I.T. as a prime example of student-blogs-done-right.

They first caught my attention back in 2007 with their timely, honest response to the scandal that caused M.I.T.’s Dean of Admissions to resign. This was no ordinary cat blog.

For me, their call for transparency and openness during a time of scandal was a refreshing shift that exemplified what admissions blogs can and should be. Just read the “Message from Ben and Matt” post from April 2007 and you’ll understand what I mean.

And though there have been changes on staff (hey, it is admissions), it seems they haven’t let up since then.

A recent article in the New ...

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Categories: Blogs

XpertTip No. 121: Hire better bloggers

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“I’ve found that the quality of the blog depends far less on compensation than on choosing a good person for the job.”
@annmwhite of Oklahoma Christian University (from Twitter)

If you’ve ever struggled to attract and retain reliable and interesting bloggers — today’s message is just for you.

Here are 5 tips that could just help you assemble the best darn group of bloggers ever:

1.  Represent (your student body).
Whether you’re a huge state school, a small commuter campus or have a super-diverse city environment — make sure the bloggers you choose represent the true makeup of your student body.

2.  Look beyond your office.
Don’t just hire the “good kids” (i.e. your student ambassadors).  Many of them are ...

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Categories: Blogs

Smart Signature Moments and Memorabilia

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Two of the tenets of The Experience Economy are Signature Moments (think throwing a coin in the Fountain Trevi in Rome and having your photo made with Mickey Mouse at a Disney park).

Recently I’ve come across three really great ones:

San Francisco Zoo

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Created posters with various animals parts, guest stand in front of them and they take photos where it appears they have wings, antlers and other animal parts. And as reported in Advertising Age, they’ve created an online gallery for guests to upload them and share. As put them out on city bus shelters as part of an award wining outdoor ad campaign.

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Categories: Authenticity, Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Campaign Intelligence, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience, Experience Economy Stuff, Lists, Uncategorized, Website

New visitor spaces at University of Akron and Kennesaw State University

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Nothing makes me happy like change on a client campus!

Last week Trent Gilbert, our Experience Evaluator, and I attended the “reveal” ceremony of Kennesaw State’s Insight Room. This is the room where they host their guests and conduct the information session. Along with a long list of improvements to the visitor experience and tour, KSU had created a one-of-a-kind mural. It’s from the perspective of standing on the center green of campus and reveals many traditions. It’s also a provides storytelling talking points for presenters. It’s got great energy and has transformed a boring stale corporate room, into one with a fun, collegiate feel.

KSU Insight Room Before

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KSU Insight Room ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience, Lists, Uncategorized

FLIP for a better campus visit evaluation

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flipevaluation

All campus visits should be evaluated by students and parents. (And each should have different evaluations.) And the data for evaluations should be constantly used towards improvement.

The problem is most schools provide detailed, 20+ questions on two-sides of 8.5″x11″ paper and the whole thing is too taxing on those filling them out and those processing them.

This weekend I ate at FLIP burger boutique here in Atlanta. (By Top Chef contestant Richard Blais.) The place is contemporary homage to an American classic. But I’m not here to review restaurants.

Tucked inside the bill folder was a simple evaluation form on card stock. It asked to rank five simple topics ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience, Experience Economy Stuff, Lists

Two best practices at Occidental College

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Last week I returned to Occidental College near Los Angeles for some follow-up campus visit work. Trent Gilbert, TargetX’s Experience Evaluator joined me. We were really impressed by three best practices:

1. Self-guided Tour and Literature Stand
Not all visitors come during office hours, so each evening, Joan in the Oxy admission office ensures that their literature and self-guided tour racks outside of the admission house entrance are filled (they bring materials in during hours, since they have different materials for their registered guests). Security also directs guests to these stands during off-hours. They told us that the materials are frequently taken and that guests follow up and plan admissions tours.

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Categories: Blogs, Campus Visit Experiences

Baldwin-Wallace College knows "It Takes a Campus" (to Stage a Campus Visit)

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Baldwin-Wallace College near Cleveland, is a TargetX client and I completed a campus visit consult there last year. I ran into their Director, Pattie Skhra at OACAC and she shared with me how they implemented many of my recommendations. One of the best she said is sending a daily email about each day’s prospective student visitors. It is sent to the entire faculty and staff by their campus visit coordinator, reveals the prospective students name, high school or transfer institution, academic and other interests. And, it encourages faculty and staff to interact with the visitors and welcome them to campus.

Here’s part of the email (I’ve deleted last names):

B-W EmailContinue Reading

Categories: Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Campus Visit Experiences

XpertTip No. 101: Student Blogs: Fill in the Blanks

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When it comes to social media, Chris Brogan is one of the coolest kids in the sandbox. Mostly because he gets that the zeitgeist of the web is social — it’s about people and conversations, not technology.

He recently did a great post entitled “20 Blog Topics to Get You Unstuck.” It made me think of all of those student bloggers out there, anxiously staring at blank screens and wishing some “admissions blogger muse” would enlighten their thoughts and bring poetry to their paragraphs.

Well, if there is an admissions blogger muse, she certainly eludes me (hopefully not on purpose;) Lucky for me though, looking outside of higher ed for inspiration usually does the trick. And ...

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Categories: Blogs, Social Media

The Ohio State University does it again

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If you’ve seen my presentations you know that I reference The Ohio State University and I’ve presented with them and Hendrix College at NACAC the past two years.

OSU is the largest university in the state and they stage a top-tier visit. So if they can do it, there aren’t excuses for other schools.

Jill Hampshire, Senior Associate Director and Visitor Relations sent me a copy of their new memorabilia. When accepted student visit at the beginning they take their photo with mascot Brutus and at the end of their visit they give them the photo in the OSU themed card. (That’s Jill standing next to Brutus.)

It’s a great yield tool. It’s authentic to OSU. It’s emotionally engaging.
What are ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Campus Visit Experiences

XpertTip No. 98: Great minds

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You know the saying: “Great minds think alike.”

I consider it an honor that in preparation for today’s tip, I ended up thinking just like Brian Niles. We both came away from the closing “Conversation on Yield” at this year’s Xpert Summit with the same nugget to share.

The idea? Allow students groups like your ambassadors or bloggers to register for classes early as an incentive (if you can’t afford to pay them much — or at all;)  Brian did a great post about it here on the iThink Online blog over the weekend.

Hey, we all know that bloggers, tour guides, telecounselors and other student workers are important kids. As the voice of your current students, they’re out ...

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Categories: Blogs, Campus Visit, Student Workers, Xpert Summit

Leaving Las Vegas (and bad customer service)

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February 25-27 was the TargetX Client Xpert Summit in Las Vegas. We had some 60+ clients from some 40+ colleges and universities from across the country participate. (Some of whom paid their own way to attend because of travel/budget cuts.)

The presentations were engaging and featured many clients.

The conversations and networking even better.

The Experience Excursion an experience.

But customer service in Las Vegas was terrible.

Ironically on the flight out I was reading a two articles in the 3/2/2009 Businessweek that I found relevant:

BTW – What Doesn’t Happen in Las Vegas
Short article about the decrease and cancellations of business meetings in Las Vegas. While perception is everything the article says,

“But in December, the number of corporate meetings was down ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Blogs, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience Economy Stuff, Lists, Uncategorized, Xpert Summit

XpertTip No. 93: Sharing the knowledge

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Most of you know that, along with our tools and services, we like to provide “best-practice” information in an effort to educate and help you recruit more effectively.

Pardon my bias, but as a result, I maintain that our clients are some of the best and brightest in the business.  And part of my job is to make sure it stays that way;)

If you are a loyal XpertTip reader — my sincere thanks.  You’re incredibly kind to devote time each week to my musings.

But as much as I enjoy my role, I’m not the only one around here researching and following current trends and issues in our industry.  To be honest, at times this place can feel like an admissions “think ...

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Categories: Blogs, Outside Resources, Research, Uncategorized, Xpert Summit

XpertTip No. 91: Get connected in '09

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December always brings a bit of upheaval to my daily routine.

With all of the additional commitments and responsibilities that come with the holidays, it becomes so easy to skip working out, eat and drink too much, sleep way too little and let some of those “non-essential” work tasks fall by the wayside.

I know that for me, one of the things that suffers most is my attention to “research.”  I put off reading articles, blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, etc.; opting to revel in my non-connectedness for as long as possible and enjoy the simple (a.k.a. “offline”) life.

But alas — it’s my job to keep up with all of the craziness and keep you informed — and I do quite enjoy it.  ...

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Categories: Blogs, Summer Projects, Twitter, Uncategorized, Xpert Summit

XpertTip No. 75: What to blog about (a new list)

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We’re midway through September, and friends, I’m starting to see it already.

Those excited and eager student bloggers you trained just a few weeks back begin to morph into posting procrastinators — a deflated version of their former, highly-motivated selves.

To help you cope, a few months ago I did a tip with a list of possible topics for student bloggers. It seemed to help; I heard from many of you that giving your students more direction really kept them focused on posting (ahhh… Millennials;)

The response was so great that I made a note to revisit the subject again.

This new list comes on the heels of new research that showed less than 20% of bloggers acknowledged the specific audience ...

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Categories: Blogs, Lists

XpertTip No. 71: What guidance counselors want

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Two of my best friends and college roommates are high school guidance counselors.

When they aren’t working with students on the college selection process (or wearing one of the myriad other hats that come with the counselor gig), they rely heavily on technology to keep up with their personal lives.

They text message, share YouTube videos and post to photo-sharing sites. And they’re on Facebook. A lot.

Is this your image of the school counselor? If it isn’t, perhaps the way we communicate with prospects isn’t the only thing that needs to change.

Modern guidance offices want what we all want — a better way to keep up. That means making it easier for them to stay updated on important things like new ...

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Categories: Blogs, Chat, Communication Plans, Email, Email Campaign Ideas, eXpressNet, Invitations and Reminders, Lists, Misc., Summer Projects, Uncategorized

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