Direct Marketing

“I’ll think about college…later.”

The target demographics for Undergrad Direct Marketing campaigns are high school sophomores, juniors and seniors—three distinct groups in very different stages of their search for a college or university.

A behavioral trait they all share, however, is one of frequent email usage and also, well… procrastination. Often, the urgency to seek out college information is not felt until later into one’s junior year and into the fall of their senior year.

Email communication, while always making an impression and getting the word out to the target audience, can be overlooked during the busy social and academic times of a high school student’s life. How can your school reach these prospective students when other priorities get in the way?

An effective approach to reaching students while they are thinking about their post-graduation plans is to reach out to them when they are showing signs of interest through their email activity and behavior. Students who are opening your emails but not taking the next step to get out of the inbox are exhibiting a behavior of interest, but inaction as well.

What is the extra push they need to click through? Were they simply on-the-go and unable to read and act on the email? Were they not completely sold by the content and maybe will “check it out another time”? While we may not know their particular reason for not clicking through, we do know that if they’ve opened the email, your school is now on their radar.

This time period after opening the first email is one you should take advantage of by getting back in front of these prospective students with a follow-up email to those who have opened but taken no further action.

PlattForm’s tests of Wednesday follow-up emails are currently showing an average open rate 9 times higher than the initial email deployed an average of 3 days earlier. By isolating the active group of students who opened an email, you can personalize the content to engage them further and –peak their interest once again. We know that “traditional” response rates are dropping, so attention must be paid to other behaviors that students are engaging in to increase the chances of a click-through and ultimately, increase the amount of inquiries and applications coming in to your school.

For years, tracking response rates was the gold standard for determining the effectiveness of college Search campaigns. No longer. As traditional response rates for many colleges and universities show decline, new marketplace dynamics are exposing the need for colleges to open up to the idea that though Search remains a supremely effective way to reach prospective students, many long-held conventions of Search programs are rapidly losing their currency. What is needed – and, in fact, what is emerging – in this era of technology-driven consumerism is an outcomes-based approach that allows for a more accurate and comprehensive evaluation of Search return on investment. In this white paper, we will address the evolution of student Search and discuss why a new generation of Search marketing tools must also be complemented by new strategies and more comprehensive performance measures. Download the white paper to read more.

The digital channel has completely transformed the way higher education marketing is done.  Through email, social media marketing and smartphone technology, we can now reach and interact with prospective students at every stage in the recruitment process up until (and beyond) the moment they first step foot on campus. So a question my fellow Direct Marketing team members and I have heard all too often is: “Is direct mail dead?”  The fact that the answer is a resounding no is not nearly as important as the reason why. That reason – and what is being buzzed about in the direct marketing world – is called the “mail moment.”

So what is this mail moment and what does it mean? To explain, let’s start with some stats:

•  98% of consumers bring in their mail the day it’s delivered

•  Of these, 72% bring it in as soon as possible 

•  77% sort through their mail immediately (Source)

These numbers speak to the behavior of retrieving the mail, but what about the emotion that follows doing so? Seeing that you have a letter addressed to, not “Resident at,” but your own name? To me, this is what the true “mail moment” sentiment speaks to  and where our schools have a unique advantage to connect to prospective students during a very emotional time in their lives. A United States Postal Service survey found that two- thirds of all  consumers “do not expect to receive personal mail, but when they do, it makes their day.” Students searching for the perfect school are seeking a personal connection to the school, a “feeling” that it’s the right, personal choice for them. The mailbox presents a unique opportunity to get off the screen and into the students’ hands with something more tactile, more special than a digital message.

Technology is, in a word, awesome. And it isn’t going anywhere! So while the challenge of getting the right message in front of students on their smartphones and computer screens remains, mail cannot be neglected. Multiple channels serve to strengthen a school’s overall outreach marketing plan and direct mail delivers a personal touch, a unique moment about your school straight into your potential students’ hands.

Just finished my travel plans for the NAGAP conference in Washington D.C. I’m excited to be presenting on Thursday, April 7th during the 1:15-2:15 breakout session. Presenting with me will be Marcelo Parravicini, Director of Marketing at Post University. The topic is Best Practices in Interactive Marketing and New Technologies. We will cover how to implement interactive marketing best practices, using ROI to drive interactive marketing strategies, and how to correlate traditional media activities and the impact it has on your interactive channels.

So, if you are attending NAGAP please check out my breakout session, if not, you can stop by and see me at booth #21 - PlattForm Higher Education. Or you can always reach me via email: jeremys@PlattFormad.com