Being responsible for data can be a scary thought, even to those “techie” people in admissions who claim to love it. One hazard that CRM expert Mark Miller warns about is data paralysis. Sometimes knowing that all the data is out there waiting to be put to good use can be enough to stop you in your tracks. So, let’s talk baby steps.

Miller offers three suggestions for bringing things under control:

1. Favor smart data over big data. What data points tell the most about the students you enrolled last year? Geographic information? Academic profile? Can you harness that information to more accurately predict the behaviors of your applicant pool? Miller writes, “Smart data is about understanding the value that the information brings to your business.”

2. Use analytics to mine your smart data. Mining the data will help you understand everything from why students choose your institution to how your tuition discounting plan impacts their choice between you and your competitors. Web versions, even free ones like Google Analytics, can highlight the pages on your site that are getting the most traffic. Shouldn’t we spend the most time and energy on the pages getting the most hits?

3. Create a roadmap using data and analytics. Take your analyzed, smart data and build a plan. Determine the students who are most likely to enroll and spend time recruiting them. You might not discard the others — remember it’s just a model — but by focusing your resources it might start to feel a little easier.

Start small. Choose one piece of data that tells part of your enrollment success story from last year. Use that knowledge to learn something about this year’s class.

Read Mark Miller’s article, “Three Steps to Dealing with Data Paralysis”

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? Here are 4 steps for building a strategy around reviews of your college on other sites:

1. Do the research first. Search for college reviews on popular college search sites to see what people are saying about your school. You might even want to check your school’s Google Places page by seeing what external review sites are automatically being aggregated.

2. Sync up with your alumni office. If your admissions and marketing departments don’t communicate with your alumni office, you’re missing out on tons of excellent collaborative opportunities. Suggest that in your next alumni newsletter you include a recommendation and a link to leave a school review on one of the third-party sites you’ve discovered.

3. Don’t be shy! Write a review yourself when you can. In some cases you don’t necessarily have to be a student or an alum to write a school review. For instance, StudentAdvisor accepts reviews from school faculty and staff members in addition to students and grads.

4. Seeing stale reviews? Make it a yearly effort. A lot can change at a college in just a few years. If you notice that there haven’t been any new reviews of your college on third-party sites in over a year or so, it’s time to encourage your community to write some fresh ones.

Just like scouring restaurant reviews to find out if the new restaurant in town is any good — your prospective students are yearning for that coveted inside scoop. So be aware and prepare a strategy for your campus.

Learn more about monitoring (and encouraging) reviews. Read “College Reviews on Third-Party Sites: Are You Paying Attention?”

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, cars

USA Today 2/2/2012

“They’re seeing their kids struggle,” Welborn says. “And they’re a generation for whom upward mobility has just been an expectation, so they’re realizing they have to sacrifice to make sure their children aren’t on the street.”

He recounted a case in which a retired widowed client nearly depleted her retirement savings to buy her daughter a car. As a result, the mother had to come out of retirement and start working again.

Helicopter Parent Hover In The Workplace

NPR, All Things Considered 2/7/2012 (read article or listen to story).

“Michigan State University surveyed more than 700 employers seeking to hire recent college graduates. Nearly one-third said parents had submitted resumes on their child’s behalf, some without even informing the child. One-quarter reported hearing from parents urging the employer to hire their son or daughter for a position. Four percent of respondents reported that a parent actually showed up for the candidate’s job interview.”

Check out the Sidebar about Books on How to Raise Your Adult Child

SNL “You Can Do Anything” Skit with Daniel Radcliffe that spoofs Millennial high self-esteem

(click link or image to watch video on NBC’s website)

IFC’s Portlandia Helicopter Parents

(click link or image to watch video on hulu)

Millennials and their parents be they Boomer Helicopter or Xer Stealth are our co-purchasing target audience for traditional undergraduate, so learn to understand them all better and have a few laughs along the way.

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 the attention of key audiences.

A recent whitepaper developed by comScore addresses advertising strategies for Millennials. Given their size and purchasing power, Millennials are valuable to marketers but they’re the most challenging demographic to reach — something we’re all too familiar with in admissions and higher education.

comScore reports that Millennials tend to be more difficult to capture their attention, impress, convince and entertain. This multi-tasking age group has low tolerance for marketing messages, but they are highly engaged in the media they choose to view.

So what’s an advertiser to do — and more importantly, what can we learn from it?

The comScore report provides two suggestions. First, ads need to be creative and tailored to draw Millennials into the story. Second, this generation is drawn to powerful and differentiating reasons to buy. So identifying what’s unique about your institution and building out your story is critical to your success. Hundreds of emails or print pieces fill students’ personal and digital mailboxes — they won’t give you a second look if you aren’t telling an authentic story and doing it in an interesting way.

Don’t be afraid to take a page out of the Superbowl ad philosophy book and take a creative risk. Chances are — it might work.

So pass the chips and grab a cold one — you may not be an advertising agency with a “Super Bowl budget,” but you might find some inspiration this Sunday.

Download the full comScore report (Please note that in order to receive the report you must complete a form).

Here are two great articles relating to the comScore report that you might also enjoy:

AGBeat’s “Millennials more difficult to reach, but respond well to creative ads”

MediaPost’s “Advertising to Millennials”

[go ahead, guffaw]

An NPR reporter recounts the old joke in a recent piece on how new trends could be challenging the notion that specialization in higher ed is the only path to success. They go on to tell the story of how food giant ConAgra — think Chef Boyardee and Marie Callender’s — has revamped their internship program to include the recruitment of such “off the beaten path” employees as journalism or biology majors.

Could it be? Are media outlets finally recognizing that there is value in educational pursuits that don’t reduce to 1′s and 0′s?

USA Today seems to think so. In their article “Liberal arts education lends an edge in down economy,” they highlight a study by the Social Science Research Council last Wednesday. “Recent college graduates who as seniors scored highest on a standardized test to measure how well they think, reason and write — skills most associated with a liberal arts education — were far more likely to be better off financially than those who scored lowest.”

The article goes on to say that “Students who had mastered the ability to think critically, reason analytically and write effectively by their senior year were:

-Three times less likely to be unemployed (3.1% vs. 9.6%).
-Half as likely to be living with their parents (18% vs. 35%).
-Far less likely to have amassed credit card debt (37% vs. 51%).”

Certainly a different take on how to succeed in business without really trying.

Listen, I get it. We all have bills to pay. So it’s easy to understand why it’s so attractive to eschew the pursuit of “loftier” topics and embrace your inner techie (or vo-techie). Doubly-so in a crap economy with a job market that seems to all but demand it. There’s always going to be a need for those skills.

But doesn’t it make you sad to think of learning as simply a means to an end?

Maybe I’m just nostalgic for the transformative classroom experience that changed my life, but we can’t deny the benefit of pursuing knowledge — not just skills. We can’t just prepare graduates for that first job out of college, as it will most likely be the first of many. And most grads will not only change jobs, but also careers and even industries in the course of their professional lives.

Historically, the liberal arts were those subjects that were considered essential for the free citizen to study (where are my Latin geeks? “liber” = free). These great societies valued Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric in a way that today we seem to only reserve for keeping up with the Kardashians. Too harsh? Perhaps, but you get the point.

Sure, I’m biased. And yes, I know we have an issue of college cost and access to education in this country. I don’t have all the answers — but I do have friends, now doctors, who shined in med school interviews because they could talk as much about Plato as platelets.

Bottom line: not every high school graduate belongs in college. But we can’t discredit the value of teaching tomorrow’s leaders how to speak, think, write and make decisions effectively.

That’s the power of a liberal arts education. Let’s value that. And for those admissions-folks out there struggling to explain the benefits of your institution: let’s sell that to prospects and parents.

Listen to the NPR story or read the transcript

Read the full article from USA Today
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Want to be a guest writer for the Recruitment Minute? Submit your idea to RM@targetx.com and we’ll be in touch.

I’ve also heard the most irrational reasons to support their choice:

• “It was snowy and everyone was wearing flip flops when I visited in January and I thought they were cool.”
• “My mom is afraid to drive over bridges, so I decided when I was crossing the Delaware river on the Ben Franklin bridge while driving in for a campus visit.”

As an emotive marketer, I was thrilled to read an article in a recent issue of The Economist about Ernest Dichter, an acolyte of Sigmund Freud who revolutionized marketing in the 20th century.

Some highlights:

“Humans, it turns out, are impressionable, emotional and irrational. We buy things we don’t need, often at arbitrary prices and for silly reasons.”

“You would be amazed to find how often we mislead ourselves, regardless of how smart we think we are, when we attempt to explain why we are behaving the way we do,” Dichter observed in 1960, in his book “The Strategy of Desire”.

“Emotion is back in, the unconscious is back in.

“It is now fashionable to study brain waves to see what lights up upon hearing the words ‘Coca-Cola’, or to measure pupil dilation in response to brand logos.”

Read the entire article here.

So much of higher education is caught up in data paralysis. In the core of your gut you know who is a good fit for your school, where they reside, how much they can pay, and why they choose you.  Get real and authentic and send a message that connects to their emotions.

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 contributors.
• Free chapters from CEO Brian Niles’ thought-provoking book, Overthrowing Dead Culture: A Vision to Change the World of College Recruiting.
• Client stories that provide examples of how colleges are using technology and the campus visit to recruit students more effectively and efficiently.
• The opportunity to register for TargetX’s unique users group meeting — the Xpert Summit — scheduled for Las Vegas this summer and open to non-clients.
• Back issues of the Recruitment Minute, the weekly tip, trend or observation about recruiting and marketing that has been around since 2002.

Coinciding with the launch of the new site, TargetX for the first time is inviting readers of the Recruitment Minute and other professionals in the field to contribute their own tips and techniques.  “We want to share all that knowledge and advice that our readers have,” says Hamson, “so we are opening up the Recruitment Minute to higher ed marketers and recruiters, and others who serve higher education.”

Hamson asks that you submit an idea to RM@targetx.com.  Once you get the go-ahead, figure on writing between 300 and 350 words.

And be sure to check out the new TargetX website:
www.targetx.com

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? The answer is: through an integrated marketing plan. According to Eric Cosway of QuantumDigital, “Marketers need to think strategically about using direct mail to drive Millennials online, then provide ways for them to share content with their own sphere of influence.”

Direct mail also provides a level of credibility to multimedia marketing campaigns that other channels still cannot claim, says Nahajewski. Consultants and CMO’s interviewed throughout the article agree that Millennials are suspicious of mass marketing and digital spamming. The solution to ease their minds is simple — use a voice that’s authentic and a message that’s targeted and personalized.

Read all of Allan Nahajewski’s article, “Making sense of the Millennials”

Start your story with something that cuts through the college marketing clutter, say all the experts. But perhaps no one has said it quite like advertising executive Angie Jones.

“I have a Bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in marketing,” Jones writes in a recent blog post. Pretty good, but unfortunately millions of people in America have the same degree and emphasis, she says. “Education-wise, I don’t stand out from the pack.”

Which means she’s not going to lead off her resume with her educational credentials. “If I want to tell prospective employers something that might be deemed interesting about me, my degree shouldn’t be my opener. It’s not distinguishing and memorable enough.”

Her advice to colleges? Think of your marketing messages as a resume you are submitting to prospective students. “To get that interview with prospects, you are really going to have to set yourself apart.”

And most schools are still not doing that, she says. “If I had a dollar for every time I heard, ‘our students receive personalized attention’ or ‘our campus is stately and beautiful’…. Don’t get me wrong, these are all great things to be proud of…. They just don’t move the needle in a prospective student’s mind because the student hears the same thing from all the other schools.”

Identify the unusual and distinctive aspects of your institution — they’re all around you — and put them at the top of your school’s resume.

Read “Stand Out in 2012″

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 in the era of Cold War propaganda and the Golden Age of advertising) who want to control the message. Well, wake up, change, or go ahead and retire. It’s soon to be 2012 and we don’t have time for marketing fluff, BS, and PR spin. Keep it real!

Prospective Millennial students crave and demand it. Keeping it real is the best way to recruit best-fit students.

Don’t just take my word for it.

The December 2011 Deliver Magazine‘s cover story is Piecing Together Millennials. A few quotes that matter:

“But while Millennials may be more accessible than some imagine, marketing to this group comes with its own set of rules — including one especially gilded commandment: Be real.”

“Millennials seek authenticity,” says Leah Reynolds, a consultant specializing in communicating across generational borders. “It’s not the mechanism that’s key — various forms of communication will work — it’s the voice. It’s laser focus on their situation and their needs that will resonate.”

“Millennials can be resistant to traditional mass market communication.” Reynolds recommends that marketers use a more targeted approach. “They’re looking for something they deem credible.”

Download the whole issue in PDF format at http://www.delivermagazine.com/deliver-archive/. Words of wisdom from your target audience.

So what does this mean to recruitment? Consider this expert in a recent Albany NY Times Union blog post entitled “Pace Yourself Victoria” by a high school senior about the application and all-important campus visit:

“I visited Pace University in New York City with my father on Friday, I am obsessed. At first when I started thinking about schools I thought my absolute number one choice in dream colleges was Syracuse University, well that was quickly changed after stepping just one foot on Paces’ campus.
I have always been a city girl. The big apple is where I have always wanted to live for at least a little while, why not spend four years there exploring to see how I like it? The opportunities the students are given with internships at well known, big businesses right in their metropolitan area are amazing.
Our tour guide was a sophomore at Pace and raved about everything, she was very honest when it came to the knit and grit of some topics such as the living situations and food, which made me trust her so much more.”
Key words: honest and trust. That’s what Millennials want. Now I’m thrilled and proud to say that Pace University is a campus visit consulting client. We’ve conducted several rounds of tour guide training and I know it’s positively impacting their enrollment.
So to all you college presidents, boards, VPs, deans and directors, it’s about to be 2012. Trust in authenticity keep it real, and empower those who work for you do the same. It is a resolution that will impact your bottom line and enrollment.