Archive for 'Branding/Marketing/Recruiting'

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Let’s get visual

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I consider myself a “visual” learner. Draw out my thoughts on a whiteboard, watch a video tutorial, type out my weekly tasks in Evernote. So I wasn’t surprised to see Fast Company’s article “Fast Talk: The Visual Shift” — where industry experts were asked to weigh in on how businesses can adapt to our image-obsessed culture.

Experts from retail, news, government and more shared tips on how to infuse more imagery in your user and online experience, and they had some valid points that translated well to higher ed.

The Creative Visionary: Joe Stewart, partner and global creative director at Huge
“Consumers expect the same level of quality and service from digital that they would get in a store,” says ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication, Experience, Marketing, Online Experiences, Social Media, Storytelling, Student Recruiting

Where everybody knows your name

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When the CEO of Groupon, Andrew Mason, resigned in February, he shared this tidbit, ”If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart upon you: have the courage to start with the customer.” I recognize in higher education using customer as a synonym for student may ignite an interesting debate with faculty. However, the enrollment management side of a given institution will see the merit in the interchangeability of those two nouns.

What Mr. Mason recognized in his exit was this basic concept: retention equals relationship. Groupon’s business model failed to recognize that serving the customers needs (whether good or bad) builds relationships and brand loyalty. Think about your favorite restaurant or coffee place. What is ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Change, Cloud, Communication, Retention

Sending signals

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There are plenty of ways for admissions officers to listen and follow what prospective students are saying about their institution. But what if the tables were turned?

An increasing number of students are sending digital supplements along with their applications. Considered “add ons” to the application, they come equipped with web analytics, allowing students to monitor which items have been viewed and opened by admissions officers. In turn, students are making assumptions on the level of interest an institution has before they receive a decision.

Chris Peterson, admissions officer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, knows this all too well. In a recent blog post for The Chronicle of Higher Education, he describes a recent experience where a student ...

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Categories: Applicants, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication

Lessons learned from the Cloud

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Last week I joined 10,000 of my Salesforce friends at Cloudforce in NYC. If you aren’t familiar, Salesforce is a cloud computing company and Cloudforce is one of their annual, regional conferences. It was a day packed with product announcements, client success stories and information sessions.

And even though as a product implementation specialist at TargetX, my favorite part of the day was geeking out in the “developer theater” – I also found the client success stories featured in the opening keynote were both remarkable and thought provoking. Companies like GE, Toyota and Coca-Cola are using the Salesforce.com platform in incredible new ways.

Listening to executives speak about their innovations, strategies and successes, I couldn’t help but draw ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Conferences, CRM, Data

Don’t hate on us

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In September 2000, I walked into the exhibit hall at the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) conference in Washington DC for the first time as a vendor. For many years I had attended this event as an admissions counselor, director of admissions or marketing coordinator.

But this was the first time I was on the other side. And I was overwhelmed.

Not because it was my first time as a business owner and exhibitor, but because I couldn’t imagine how anyone in admissions could enter the hall and know where to begin, who to speak with, what to look for.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that this overwhelming feeling has gradually turned to a sour distaste for the exhibit ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Conferences

It’s all about the experience

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As I was flying home from TargetX’s annual Xpert Summit last week, a light went off above me. I wish I could say it was some great idea; however, it was our plane getting hit by lightning. Many of us have been through some pretty strong turbulence, but that was the first time I experienced rolling side-to-side.

My mind flashed to my kids, but I was quickly brought back to the moment when the young man next to me jerked his head to look at me with fear in his eyes, that I’m pretty sure read, “Help me, Mommy!” Now you may think I was shot back to reality by his fear…it was actually the fact that he looked ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Experience, Free on Friday Webcasts, Professional Development, Xpert Summit

A president’s perspective

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Coker College’s singular ambition, Redefining Ready, was not intended as an institutional mission. Rather, it was something of a personal mantra for chapter one. It crystalized my work when, just after the college’s 100th anniversary, the Board of Trustees voted to appoint me, an accountant and business school dean, as the school’s 16th president.

Despite the good effort of loyal alumni, faculty and staff, a decade or more of economic decline in South Carolina before I arrived had taken a heavy toll. Enrollment had dipped below 600. Faculty had been asked to teach heavier loads without additional pay. Our athletic teams slumped. Over time, our once-elegant campus, with its wonderful Georgian-style architecture and impeccable landscaping, ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Change, Leadership, Overthrowing Dead Culture, Xpert Summit

Social helps relieve summer melt

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School’s out for summer — but the work is far from done. Colleges are often concerned with summer melt — fearful that their enrolled class (and hard work over the year) will slip away. So what’s an admissions staff to do?

That’s where social engagement comes in.

Social sites aren’t your magic bullet, but they can certainly help you to stay connected. And if you do it right — you might just keep those incoming students engaged right on through til move-in day.

Business writer Courtney Rubin blogs about “The Secret to a Perfect Facebook Post,” and shares some insights from a recent Buddy Media report for businesses using Facebook to interact with consumers. And guess what? They just so happen ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication, Facebook, Social Media, Summer Projects

A little less conversation

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Change.

It’s an emotionally charged word in higher education, if not a dirty one.  And it’s been the war cry here at TargetX since day one.

When I joined the company back in 2005, I was quickly immersed into a culture of higher ed professionals trumpeting the need for industry change.  Defects from a world of cushy benefits and questionable accountability, they struck out on their own to become a voice of change in an industry sliding desperately into denial.

Together the team here wrote blog posts and email newsletters outlining how colleges needed to engage a new generation and operate more efficiently.   We spent years speaking at conferences about the impending shifts in technology, generations, demographics and more.  We even created our ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Change, College Recruiting, Leadership, Marketing, Overthrowing Dead Culture, Uncategorized

Are you paying attention?

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Before parents and students set foot on your campus for a tour, you can bet they’re searching for reviews of your college online. You may have an archive of wonderful case studies, interviews or testimonials from recent grads and current students on your website, but do you know what the sad truth is? Parents and students don’t always trust them!

After surfing admissions site after admissions site and flipping through countless viewbooks, most of the marketing messages from each college begin to sound the same. So what are students and parents doing? They’re hitting up Google to find college reviews from each school on their list.

What can you do as a higher ed marketing professional? ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Website, Websites

A New Year’s Resolution Toward Authenticity

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Most of my friends and colleagues know I’m not one for the November and December holidays. My nickname is Scrinch , a combination of Scrooge and Grinch. But, I do love New Year’s. It’s global, non-sectarian, and is about a fresh start and beginning.

For years I’ve been preaching about the experience economy and what it means to recruiting students, especially through more authentic, engaging, and memorable campus visits.

I have two titles at TargetX: VP, Consulting and Apostle of Authenticity. My mission as the Apostle of Authenticity is to get schools to be comfortable with who they genuinely are and to embrace their core DNA.

But our industry is overrun with a generation of leaders (most of whom have been raised ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit, Millennial Generation, Millennials

Season's E-Greetings

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Holiday emails are a great opportunity to engage prospective students. You can share with them the celebrations and traditions of your institution, or share all the fun and interesting activities that the New Year will bring to your college. Not sure how to execute the perfect holiday greeting? You’re not the only one.

“Season’s E-Greetings! Great Examples of Year-End Outreach” by Jennifer Doak provides us with some best practices for creating effective holiday e-cards, videos and messages that resonate with your audience (and she shares some examples from colleges and universities too).

Here are a few tips from Doak’s post to keep in mind while creating your college or university’s message:

Tap into student and alumni talent. Alumni can tell stories of their ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Email, Email Campaign Ideas, Email Recruiting, Videos

Tracking trends

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Keeping up with what’s happening in higher education is easier said than done. So when articles like Nancy Griesemer’s “15 College Admissions Trends Worth Watching” comes out — it’s perfect for “on-the-go” counselors and directors of admissions.

Griesemer’s 15 trends come from the 2011 State of College Admission report provided by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). This collection of data from NACAC, the College Board and the federal government makes up a comprehensive document with significant information about college admissions. Here’s just a sampling of Griesemer’s list and what it means for admissions:

The total number of high school graduates is down. We’ll continue to see this decline through 2015. Enrollment and retention offices will be working ...

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Categories: Applicants, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Change, Data, Social Networking, Tracking

Curb your…Millennial-bashing?

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These days I’m hearing more and more complaints about Millennials.  ”They’re lazy,” “They can’t solve problems on their own,” “They’re so entitled” — you name it and someone’s got a gripe.

Sadly, it seems “Millennial-bashing” has become the obsession du jour for some circles in higher ed.  And I have to say it’s getting a little old.

True, my jaded Gen-X cusper status makes me an unlikely defender of these close-in-age-but-miles-away-in-mindset peers of mine.  But I’d argue there’s not much to be gained from ragging on a generation that will most likely rule the world someday — if not by deservedness then by sheer numbers alone.

From my point of view, we’d be better off spending our time seeking ways to let our differences ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Millennial Generation, Millennials

The pulse of NACAC

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Common themes surfaced as 3,000 plus admissions professionals gathered last week in New Orleans for the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The mood among the crowd was filled with excitement and ideas for change in higher education.

In the midst of the conference action, admissions officers from across the country shared their thoughts with us at the annual iThink event which was held on the exhibit hall floor. We asked our friends and colleagues to complete this phrase — “I think admissions…” — and here’s what attendees had to say:

“Admissions is at a crossroads.” Many factors contributed to this widely used phrase, like the higher ed balance between being market driven and education-oriented, branding versus authenticity ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Change, Free on Friday Webcasts, Misc., NACAC, Webcast

Is branding the solution?

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Vince Lombardi would begin practice each spring by lifting a football and, with deep resonance, announce, “Men, this is a football.”

To winning teams, the fundamentals are etched in stone; they make up the DNA of every player. When it comes to enrollment, many colleges and universities have lost sight of the fundamentals.

Over the years, I’ve helped build the importance of “institutional branding” as it became a taskmaster, dictating to all who follow. Many say that branded messaging is the cornerstone for enrollment success and the engine driving the perception of institutional significance.

After more than two decades of creating institutional brands, my experience has proven otherwise.

Institutional branding should begin to form after the fundamentals have been drilled into the team. When ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, College Recruiting, NACAC, Uncategorized

What Mercedes and other auto brands can teach you about your visit experience

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I’m a car guy.

Back in 6th grade I had subscriptions to Road & Track and Car and Driver. My father sold cars and managed dealerships. He used to quiz me on the year, make, and model of cars we passed while driving – by day and by night (Yes, I can identify a car based upon its headlights).

Take a look at the Global Fortune 500 top 25 companies list. It’s inundated with oil and car companies.

So what does all this mean to you in admissions? At TargetX, we always encourage you to look beyond the school up the road for best practices and to look outside of admissions. Car companies are a great place to look for best ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit Audits Sidebar, Campus Visit Experiences, Change, Customer Service, Uncategorized

What do your walls say?

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While there is no official definition, everyone seems to have something that comes to mind when they think about hotel art. On a whole it refers to those generic art pieces on hotel walls designed not to invoke any real emotion from an individual looking at it. Basically, it won’t offend anyone but makes the room look less empty. Playing it safe.

College admissions spaces have an unfortunate tendency to lean the same way. Your lobby and waiting room walls are frequently covered in historical images of the old gentleman who gave a lot of money to the school and has since died or bragging point articles from years before your current prospective students were even born. The items shown in ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Uncategorized

10 Lessons from Starbucks

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My TargetX colleague, Scott Parks, sent a great blog post link that I’d like to share with you. It’s 10 Lessons from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s book Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul.

The blog post challenges radio broadcasters, who like college administrators are facing challenges, to “think how these lessons apply to you.”  The guts of the post are quoted below. Let me throw out the same challenge: Think how these lessons apply to you.

1.  Don’t Lose Sight of what Matters

“Our strategy was to do more of what worked in the past.  But we were not pushing ourselves to do things better or differently. ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication, Customer Service, Storytelling, Student Workers

Know your niche and market to nobody

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When I talk with admissions leaders, cabinets, or boards, everyone wants to talk about what separates them from the school up the road. Yet, most schools tend to look and sound like the school up the road.

It seems like schools that are trying to be all things to all people are the schools that are having enrollment challenges. Ambiguity confuses the market place. A university president once asked, “What’s the greatest mistake we can make regarding a campus visit?” My reply was to have a family get in the car at the end of of their time on campus and say, “Nice school, but nothing special.”

Great marketing and positioning might offend. It might not appeal to the masses, but it ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit Experiences, Outside Resources, Word of Mouth

This summer I am going to…

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We are just days away from May 1 or May 2 as it might be this year, so I’d like to ask you a question.

What are you doing this summer?

I know thoughts of waves crashing and fruity frozen drinks with the warm sun shining might be the last things from your mind.  This is crunch time in the world of admissions.  Either you are holding your breath for the dust to settle on your class, or you are still running around trying to figure out how you are going to fill your class by the fall.  Maybe you should keep one eye on this year’s class and start focusing the other on May 2012.

It’s amazing to me how the summer ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit, Change

XpertTip No. 163: "Flip the Funnel" part II

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Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned a presentation I’m working on called “Flip the Funnel?“

Well, as usual, the weeks have flown by and tomorrow is the big day.

I’ll be presenting “Flip the Funnel” here in Chicago tomorrow at this year’s EduWeb Conference.  And, as predicted, it’s the day before and I’m still working on finishing my slides;)

In case you missed my initial description, my presentation makes the argument that the traditional “admissions funnel” as we know it has a few, shall we say, “holes” in it.

Sure, “the funnel” does a nice job of illustrating the process most prospects go through to eventually enroll at your institution.

But as the be-all-and-end-all rubric for planning your marketing communications ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication Plans, Student Yield

Increase your digital influence

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In admissions, you often cannot attend every conference you would like to, especially when there are so many throughout the year. So, why not attend the shortest conference ever? 60 speakers in 60 minutes.

ThoughtLead held their first 60 in 60 event on July 6. The Influencer Project: The shortest marketing conference ever, discussed how to increase a business’s digital influence in the competitive world of online media. Sixty speakers provided their personal advice on how you can do this today. After listening to the conference, there were several points that were extremely relevant to recruitment and admissions efforts on the web. Here are just a few:

“Make connections online and then go and meet them in person in the ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication, Social Media, Websites, Your Website

Appeal on an emotional level

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Colleges and universities need to appeal to prospects on an emotional level through storytelling and the campus experience to engage best-fit students.

The recession has made consumers think differently about how they shop, buy and — in higher education — choose a college. Adweek Research writer Mark Dolliver states, consumers want good value for their money; while rational sales pitches and practical benefits have ruled the school of thought for decades, a shift is necessary to more emotional appeals. The same is true for higher education.

Dolliver reviews the results from a survey of client-side marketers conducted by the Association of National Advertisers and they reveal that emotional benefits should be more balanced with the rational/functional benefits. Marketers see the need for ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience, Research, Storytelling

Sell your Ideas.

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It’s May 28th and you have a laundry list of good ideas that you told yourself you would tackle post-May 1st. It’s time to start moving forward. How will you communicate your new ideas to your colleagues, director, dean or VP?

FastCompany.com featured helpful “how-to” tips from Sam Harrison’s new book IdeaSelling: Successfully Pitch Your Creative Ideas to Bosses, Clients, and Other Decision Makers. Harrison shares his top 12 ways to have your ideas heard.

A sampling of Harrison’s tips from IdeaSelling include:

“If they feel they birthed it, they can’t kill it.” Make the idea their idea. Allow your supervisor to help you come up with the idea and the sell will be easier.

“Stand tall, talk short.” No one will ever wish ...

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Categories: Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Change, Communication Plans

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