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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

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

How to connect with prospects

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Here’s someone who seems to understand college-bound teens, respects them, treats them like adults and assumes nothing when it comes to their understanding of the often bewildering process of choosing an undergraduate institution.

Catherine Sloan is a former enrollment officer at Washington State University who now works for student-coaching company InsideTrack. She offers one of the better collections of best-practice tips for engaging — and eventually recruiting — traditional-age students.

“The key to turning prospective students into enrolled students is to form early and meaningful connections,” she writes, “and to let them know you have their best outcomes in mind.” Here are some of her 13 suggestions:

Leverage a student’s own momentum. When students engage with you, make sure that next steps are ...

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Categories: College Recruiting, Millennials, Student Recruiting

Growing up techie

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We’re living in hyper-connected times and Millennials from a very early age are growing up with everything at their fingertips. But is that “always on” mentality helping or hurting our youth? And how will the increased use of technology affect higher education?

The Pew Research Center along with Elon University conducted a survey of over 1,000 Internet “experts” (with the majority coming from education and technology fields) asking respondents to select whether growing up constantly connected will be a positive or negative.

Fifty-five percent of respondents took an optimistic point of view. They felt that Internet use provides young people with a unique skill set, including knowing how to solve problems through cooperative work and knowing how to quickly and efficiently ...

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Categories: Generations, Millennial Generation, Millennials

“Take Your Parent To Work Day” and other tales of helicopter parenting

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For over a decade we’ve been attempting to understand Millennials and their relationships with their helicopter parents.  As a former latchkey kid, maybe I’m jealous of this dynamic; my own parents were fairly absent from a host of major and daily milestones in my development. Now I am a proud and somewhat bitter GenXer who is a bit fed up with Boomer narcissism and Millennial entitlement and having to see members of my generation serve as the managers in the work place caught in the middle of this overindulgence.

The helicopter is still hovering. Take a moment to see where and how.  Ranging from insane to the hilarious, here are some examples:

More parents helping adult children get homes, ...

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Categories: Generations, Millennial Generation, Millennials, Uncategorized

What the Superbowl can teach higher ed

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According to the Neilsen Co., an estimated 111 million people watched last year’s Superbowl. But I wonder how many people took their bathroom break during the game and stuck around for the commercials.

This advertising juggernaut has brought us some of the most iconic 30-60 second ads of all-time. Brands bring out the creative “big guns” to catch people’s attention and hopefully have them talking about their product long after the Lombardi Trophy has been awarded.

So you are probably asking yourself, “What does the Superbowl have to do with higher ed?” Well, if you’re in recruitment marketing those ads are doing something that colleges and universities need to be doing much more of — using creativity to grab ...

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

Mailing Millennials

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Talking about “snail mail” as an effective recruitment strategy is sure to raise an eyebrow or two, but don’t discount its benefits and the value it adds. In the second half of this year’s recruitment cycle, admissions offices are thinking more about acceptance letters, open house invitations and financial aid packages — all traditionally print recruitment pieces — that still work according to Deliver Magazine.

In the article “Making sense of the Millennials” by Allan Nahajewski, Millennials don’t mind direct mail. According to one study, Millennials say 75 percent of the mail they receive is valuable, and 73 percent of them have used direct mail coupons.

With this in mind — what’s the most effective way to use direct mail? ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication, Communication Plans, Marketing, Millennial Generation, Millennials

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

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

Persuading the parents

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Beware the parents, says popular thought leader Jeff Kallay. They’ve morphed from the relatively benign helicopters to more savage stealth bombers, and you’d better be prepared to make a good case for why they should pay all that money to send their kids to your school.

Today’s college-bound students are the offspring of Generation Xers, who are more cynical, skeptical and stealthy than the parents of your previous classes. So forget the hype, be authentic, demonstrate your return-on-investment, said Kallay in a rousing conclusion to TargetX’s Xpert Summit — the company’s annual event for users of its technology and consulting services.

Kallay’s concluding keynote was not the first time many of the attendees thought about parents during the two-day conference. In fact, ...

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Categories: College Recruiting, Communication Plans, CRM, Email Recruiting, Generations, Millennials, Parents, Xpert Summit

Millennial myths

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You know all those social media-obsessed students you’re chasing on Facebook? You might want to hold off for awhile and consider a new study by a company that researches online experiences.

The Nielsen Norman Group suggests that you reconsider the recruiting efforts you’re putting into social networking sites, including the ubiquitous Facebook.

“While it’s no surprise that organizations targeting students try to reach them on the web, they’re mistaken if they think the best path is through social networking sites,” according to the firm’s Jakob Nielsen. Students are enraptured by social media, he added, but they reserve them for private conversations. When Millennials want information about an organization, they turn to search engines rather than company-built fan pages.

The study addressed several other ...

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Categories: College Recruiting, Facebook, Millennials, Social Networking, Websites

What should I wear?

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I get asked some of the same “hot topic” questions about the campus visit from many of our campus visit clients and during the countless campus visit presentations that we do.  One question that keeps coming up:  “What should our tour guides wear?”

I ask a question or two in return.

“What do the students wear on campus to go to class?”
“What is most real and authentic to the student experience?”

In a recent issue of BusinessWeek (Let me disclose. Jeff Kallay forwards along the important articles) about the rise of Millennials in the workplace, I saw this cartoon and just had to share as we discuss the tour guide uniform.

etcequetteschool1

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Categories: Authenticity, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Audits Sidebar, Campus Visit Experiences, Generations, Millennial Generation, Millennials, Student Workers

Marketing to Millennials

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The youngest are only 10, so you’re going to be dealing with the Millennial generation for years to come. That means you should overcome your sense of Millennial overload and continue to welcome new insight into how to reach these “vocal, demanding, discerning, shrewd and, yes, narcissistic” prospective students.

Advertising Age’s Thomas Pardee has written another psychosocial look at those born between 1982 and 2000, and he concludes with five tips for marketing to them.

  • Be fast. “For Millennials, there’s nothing worth saying that can’t be said in 140 characters or less. It’s not that they can’t handle long-form pitches, they just know you can do better. So do better.”

  • Be clever. “Smart and funny is the new rock ...
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Categories: Authenticity, College Recruiting, Communication, Generations, Millennials, Word of Mouth

WOM for Higher Ed

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Fueled by the social web, Word of Mouth has become a billion dollar marketing engine. It even has its own professional organization — the Word of Mouth Marketing Association — with conferences, webinars, tutorials and a strong emphasis on ethics.

If you haven’t visited the WOMMA website yet, it’s worth the time. It offers a number of resources for any level of WOM practitioner. And perhaps in recognition of the overwhelming influence of social media on young people, it has dedicated a branch to higher education.

Spearheaded by DePaul University’s Deborah Maue, WOMMA created the Higher Education Council to help college marketers “use social media to their best advantage.” Mostly, that means helping them recruit Millennials, who have elevated word of mouth ...

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Categories: College Recruiting, Millennials, Social Media, Social Networking, Word of Mouth

Introducing the iGeneration

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Feel like you finally understand the Millennials, confident in your grasp of what they like and what it takes to recruit them? Well, USA Today has some bad news for you. Here come their brothers and sisters — the iGeneration.

If you thought the tech-savvy, marketing-averse Millennials were a challenge, wait till you a get a load of their younger siblings.

“They’re still kids,” writes reporter Sharon Jayson, “and although there’s a lot the experts don’t yet know about them, one thing they do agree on is that what these kids use and expect from their world has changed rapidly.”

And it’s all because of technology. “It’s simply a part of their DNA,” says child and adolescent psychologist Dave Verhaagen. “It shapes everything ...

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Categories: College Recruiting, Generations, Millennials

Understanding Millennials

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The Millennials are a mystery for many people.

Is this a generation indulged to the point of helplessness by helicopter parents or destined for greatness through technological savvy and commitment to social causes? Are they easy to market to because they’re always online or difficult to persuade because they’re marketing averse?

Last week’s Recruitment Minute on a new TV show about four Millennials prompted some readers to ask about other sources of information on the 75 million who will dominate undergraduate and graduate recruiting for years to come.

Here are some sites that can help you get to know the Millennial generation a little better:

The Next Great Generation
A blog by Millennials who describe how they live and what they ...

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Categories: Generations, Millennial Generation, Millennials

A bucket list for Millennials

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In the ever-expanding effort to understand the Millennial generation, college recruiters have a new resource. MTV is offering an unusual look into the minds and souls of four students making their way across America in a quest to complete a list of 100 things to do before they die.

“The Buried Life,” which debuted this week on MTV, has been called a bucket list for the four twentysomethings. But it is proving to be much more than that as the foursome is inspiring other young people to create their own list of things to accomplish.

Albion College’s Kevin Kropf was especially intrigued by the group’s response to a reporter’s question about other young people they’ve met, and how their generation sees the ...

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Categories: Generations, Millennials

Disney Stores, iPhone Apps, AR (Augmented Reality) and your campus tour

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So let’s connect some experience economy dots and make them all relevant to your campus visit programs.

Disney to finally make their Disney Stores an “Experience”
Disney Stores have never really matched the Disney Magic. They’re just stores. Passive buying. Not an experience and not at all reminiscent of a Disney park.

As reported in the New York Times:

“The world does not need another place to sell Disney merchandise — this only works if it’s an experience,” said Jim Fielding, president of Disney Stores Worldwide. The company plans to unveil the new look in May in Southern California, Long Island and Madrid, and is close to signing a lease for that Times Square flagship.

Theaters will allow children to watch ...

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Categories: Authenticity, Campus Visit, Campus Visit Experiences, Change, Experience Economy Stuff, Millennials, Mobile Marketing, Outside Resources

XpertTip No. 115: Don't miss this conversation

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Have you heard?

Our CEO Brian Niles is going to be joining Abby Laporte, daughter of Leo Laporte from the popular “TWiT” podcast (This Week in Tech), as she and other high school seniors share their thoughts on the college search process.

It’s definitely a don’t-miss opportunity for all of us admissions-folk.

Brian and Abby’s video feed will be streaming live on Monday, July 13th at 1 p.m. Eastern Time (one week from today).

You don’t need to register to participate — just click the link below to listen in:
http://live.twit.tv/

This special live event will be part of a larger series of “Abby’s Road” podcasts that Abby Laporte is recording to document her college search experience.

For more information, check out Brian’s blog ...

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Categories: Millennial Generation, Millennials, Outside Resources, Podcasts

XpertTip No.86: Chiefs, chefs and eManagers

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Last week’s tip touched on the hot topic of adding a staff member to handle interactive and social media efforts for admissions.

I was glad to see my client and friend Nikki Chun from the University of Miami join the discussion. As Miami’s “eManager,” Nikki has a fair amount of experience in this type of role. She shared a bit of what she does and how she came to be queen of all things “e” for the Hurricanes.

In her post, Nikki wrote: “I actually wonder if my job will be kind of obsolete in about five years. If things keep going in this direction, everyone on the admission staff could be an eManager in some way, shape or form.”

It’s a great ...

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Categories: Communication Plans, Millennials, Misc., Outside Resources, Research, Social Media, Social Networking, Uncategorized

XpertTip No. 83: 'Please close the editor'

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I’m often asked “What are some of the most common mistakes your email users make?” Immediately two things come to mind.

The first is sending messages that are way too long — which is pretty easily remedied in most cases.

The second, however, is an error that is made quickly but can cause permanent damage (and some pretty big headaches). It only takes one click but can cause you to lose hours of work in some cases.

That mistake? “X-ing out” of the html editor window instead of using the “Close Editor” button at the bottom.

If you’ve spent time composing html emails in our system, it’s probably safe to assume you’ve done this before. Even yours truly has made this mistake and gotten ...

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Categories: Email, Millennials, Uncategorized, Your Website

XpertTip No. 73: The Gen-X Parent

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My colleague Jeff Kallay and I spent last Friday on campus at Philadelphia University, where we helped the “Rambassadors” prepare for another semester on the front lines of the campus visit.

At lunch, we got to talking with our clients Christine Greb and Kathy Kissane about what to expect on campus tours this year.

Our response? “Different parents.”

We were referring to the fact that the parents of visiting prospects are beginning to shift from “Boomers” to “X-ers,” and that with this shift comes a whole new set of values and expectations.

Jeered as the “Baby Bust,” members of Generation X were born roughly between 1965 and 1980. These “latchkey kids” are marked by the emergence of working moms and the prevalence of divorce. ...

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Categories: Millennials, Parents, Research, Uncategorized

XpertTip No. 64: The power of the hyperlink

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It seems that the more messages I review for clients, the more I encounter a very serious problem: putting too much information in an email.

Want a quick tip for writing better messages? Don’t forget the power of the hyperlink.

There’s no need to try and stuff every last fact about an event or program into one message. It only muddles your point and clutters the call to action, ultimately negating your original intent to provide information.

A better strategy is to think of the email and your website as partners, working in tandem to deliver content and invite interaction.

Think of the email as the “hook,” or a quick teaser that serves to drive readers to the web. It really can be just ...

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Categories: Email, Invitations and Reminders, Millennials

XpertTip No. 60: Social networks combat summer melt

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“You just don’t know for sure whether students are coming until you see the whites of their eyes and their butts in the seats.”

The May issue of Lawlor Focus addresses a dreaded phenomenon in the “battle” for enrolled students: summer melt.

The newsletter outlined some of the major factors influencing decisions these days, including economic instability, student loan woes and the much-talked-about “wait-list shuffle.”

Their recommendation for those of you seeking to “minimize the melt” this summer? “Stay in touch with your prospects.”

I’d add that social networks take “staying in touch” to the next level; providing dynamic, interactive opportunities for prospects to make connections with you and each other.

Have you considered the power of social networking to combat summer melt?

Online ...

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Categories: eXpressNet, Millennials, Social Networking, Summer Projects, Web Traffic, Your Website

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