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A student’s perspective

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Applying to college has been a big part of my life for the past year and a half. It is an extremely important process for someone my age, looking ahead to where I’ll spend the next four years. But it’s definitely a process that could use some work! Here are some of the things I experienced, that I thought might be valuable to share with you.images

I think simplifying applications would be beneficial to all colleges (and helpful to the students who are applying). Sometimes, when completing applications, I felt like the information that was being asked of me was a little too personal.

The fees associated with certain schools’ applications was ...

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Categories: Campus Visit, College Recruiting, Communication, Cost, Experience, Storytelling, Student Recruiting, Student Search

Focus.

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Anyone who has spent any time with me knows that if I try to do more than one thing at the same time, none of those efforts are done well. I’m probably not too different from most of you. So for me to be effective as a manager or a partner or a father, it’s important that I stay focused on one thing at a time. Multitasking isn’t the ability to do multiple things at the same time. It’s a rapid shifting between multiple things without dedicating quality time to any one thing. The key here is “quality.”

For the first five years of TargetX, we provided our email broadcast tool (now called eXpress) to many industries — higher education, ...

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

Do you have a Millennial problem?

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Even though I’m a proud card-carrying member of Generation X, I’ve grown to love and understand Millennials. But according to Advertising Age magazine, they don’t love McDonald’s, a brand to which I was extremely loyal in my youth. Ronald McDonald

As children during the 1960′s, we viewed McDonald’s as a rare treat. But as teenagers in the 70′s and 80′s, its Golden Arches drew us like moths to a flame. It was the place to gather after most high school and church youth group activities. It was for many in our generation, a home (with a red Mansard roof) away from home.

Well, times have changed. A recent article in Ad Age reveals ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Communication, Customer Service, Experience, Millennial Generation, Millennials

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 engagement pays off

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Within higher education’s increasingly competitive environment, admissions counselors are well aware that their outreach involves not simply providing reliable information, but the responsibility to actively seek students who will succeed at their institutions.

Even so, while pressure mounts for counselors to produce numbers (visits, applications, etc.), the most talented representatives will look beyond standard drivers to find creative ways to demonstrate what words can only describe.  For example, the claim that college is a time to explore, learn and create, and that “College X” knows how to support students throughout the process is, at best, a promise.  Easily made, easily broken, and not particularly memorable.

If college is about learning, then we believe that the admissions process ought to be about learning, ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, College Recruiting, Experience, Student Recruiting, Student Yield

Real stories of change

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Each month, the TargetX Campus Visit Consulting team has been featuring stories of change from current clients, tips we have learned on campus and/or trends we have seen that impact higher education.

These posts (the “Three T’s: Talks, Tips and Trends”) are designed to illustrate that change takes time and change faces challenges. Campus visit tips can take all forms and the trends we see in our everyday lives impact the visit and the students we are trying to recruit.

When you read the posts, we want you to think about the experiences you have had that shaped the way you approach recruiting students at your school.

This month, Jennifer McLendon of the University of North Texas talks about how ...

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Categories: Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Campus Visit Talk, Campus Visit Three T's, Change, Storytelling, Student Workers

Campus Visit Talk: Jennifer McLendon and University of North Texas

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Each month the Experience Team from TargetX will share with you a Campus Visit Tip or 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:
Jennifer McLendon
Visitor Experience Manager
University of North Texas, Campus Visit Client since 2008

Q: How did you work to create change within your campus visit?

I’ve been the Visitor Experience Manager for my alma mater, the University of North Texas, for over 11 years now. During that ...

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Categories: Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Campus Visit Talk, Campus Visit Three T's, Campus Visit Tip, Campus Visit Trend, Change, Storytelling, Student Workers, Uncategorized

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 Trend: “How much financial aid did ‘they’ give you?”

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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 “Trend”.

Ten years ago the number one question parents asked during a campus visit was, “What’s the party scene?” Then after the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois the priority question by parents was “How safe is this campus?” After our economy tanked the mainstream media began beating up Wall Street, then they singled out the mortgage industry; now they have their sights on higher education. ...

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Categories: Best Practice Documents, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Campus Visit Talk, Campus Visit Three T's, Campus Visit Tip, Campus Visit Trend, Financial Aid, Parents, Uncategorized

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

Campus tours and the Gilligan’s Island dilemma

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As the “Token Millennial” in the TargetX office, I’d like to put you in a young adult’s shoes for a minute.

Imagine that you’re 22-years-old, getting ready to take a new job and moving from Vermont to Georgia. After discussing it with your family (and posting it on Facebook of course), what is the first thing you do?

You MapQuest it.

You want to see just how long it will take mom and dad to get to you if you need them. The results? 17.5 hours and 1067 miles, minimum. I guess if you need them you better plan ahead — no more weekend trips home to do laundry.

You’re ...

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

Chevy looks to Disney to improve the dealership experience. What does your admissions office look like?

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I’ve often said that much of our automobile brand experience doesn’t just take place in the car but in the dealership. It’s where you buy and get your vehicle serviced that often manifests the brand experience. This is why back in the 90′s I bought Infiniti(s) — they created well designed dealerships (and were early providers of the now near industry-standard roadside assistance and loaner vehicle).

Similarly we often say that your admissions office or visitor center space is the first, often the longest and last impression of your school. The importance of the campus visit and campus visitors are both on the increase. This crucial first “impression” is why so many schools are investing in new or renovated spaces. (Continue Reading

Categories: Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience Economy Stuff

“I didn’t know we had a pool”

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There’s a scene in Disney/Pixar’s WALL-E where the humans are in their space cruiser, floating about on hover chaise lounges, focused only on their computer screens and oblivious to their surroundings and to reality. Two of the characters’ computers break and they have an epiphany. They discover that their space cruiser has a pool and they dip their toes in and begin splashing about. They live in the moment.

It’s summertime! And millions of us are escaping our offices and computers (do you go off the grid on vacation?) and are heading to the pool, beach, shore, mountains and amusement parks. And many prospective families are including a visit to your campus as part of their summer ...

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Categories: Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Marketing, Uncategorized

Time to start asking “why?”

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As admissions professionals, we often go about doing things the same year after year…after year. We continue to do search the same way, we are still producing thousands of full-color glossy view books that we know students throw away, and we are still hosting the same events the way we have done them for years — no matter the outcome.

In today’s market where there are decreasing numbers of high school students, increasing options available after high school, disappearing budgets, reduced staff levels, more demands by your prospective students, more applications and more visitors, it is time to start asking “Why?”

I know it sounds like a simple question to ask but often we get caught up in the ...

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

How to redesign a website

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When Marketing VP Adrienne Hamson decided to redesign the TargetX website, she immediately thought about making it faster and simpler to navigate.  She knew it had to be more interactive.  And she vowed to make all the product information easily digestible.

But the real challenge, she realized, was to build upon all the best-practice advice that TargetX has become known for — and make the site a place where admissions professionals can go for content that will make them better recruiters and marketersShe succeeded, and TargetX just launched a new website that offers:

  • A video library consisting of the company’s popular “Free on Friday” webcasts aimed at admissions officers.

  • The iThink Blog, a compendium of posts about student recruiting from a variety of ...
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Categories: Campus Visit, College Recruiting, 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

It's all about the experience!

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In 1999, I read a review of the groundbreaking text, “The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre and Every Business a Stage” by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore. Finally someone so intelligently explained what I always believed about business: it’s not what you say or do, but how you make people feel.

With The Experience Economy as our blueprint, TargetX Campus Visit Consulting began six years ago this month. Our first client was Rider University. Since then we’ve taken thousands of campus tours and worked with hundreds of colleges across the country to help them stage authentic, engaging and memorable campus visits designed to connect with more best-fit students and help reach enrollment goals.

An updated edition of the book has just been ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Experience, Experience Economy Stuff

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

Campus tours are important, why?

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News reporters seem fascinated by the campus visit — sometimes because their own kids are in the middle of the whirlwind process and sometimes out of journalistic curiosity. “Why so much attention to such a low-tech endeavor?” asks the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff Gammage.

As many reporters have done in recent years, Gammage ended up interviewing Trent Gilbert, one of the nation’s leading authorities on the impact of the in-person experience on student recruiting.

“I get that for students or parents who are going to spend $30,000 to $50,000 a year, it’s crucial to see the place before making a final decision,” Gammage said to TargetX’s Chief eXperience Officer. “I’m less clear on why it’s important for colleges to stage a good tour.”

After ...

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Categories: Campus Visit, College Recruiting

You travel too

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Welcome to iThink’s newest blog! At TargetX we think higher education needs to look outside of itself to learn best practices so my blog, Lessons from the Road: From Atlanta to your campus and back will help you do just that! It will be tough to rival the masterpieces of TargetX’s other bloggers, but I’m up for the challenge!

For those of you who know us, you know the campus visit team is always on the go. Since joining the team a year ago, I have been on 83 different airplanes, driven many rental cars, stayed countless nights in hotels, and been on as many as four different campuses in a single week. Unless I experience excessive delays or cancellations, you ...

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Categories: Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Uncategorized

A simple solution for summer

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In college admissions, summer is a popular time for new initiatives and revamping processes. A simple change to make, yet we often forget, is the value of good customer service for your prospective students and parents.

Andy Hanelsman writes that Apple is a great example of exceptional service, with intensive training for employees who consistently provide a customer-friendly environment in their wildly popular, 326 Apple stores.

In a Wall Street Journal article, the Apple “steps of service” were identified, revealing that the acronym “APPLE” is used to provide a roadmap for successful customer service:

Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome.
Probe politely to understand all the customer’s needs.
Present a solution for the customer to take home today.
Listen for and resolve ...

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Categories: Campus Visit, Customer Service, Uncategorized

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

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