Starting out slow is one key to enrollment success

Everyone wants instant results. That's why people check their smart phones 30+ times a day, or drive 10 miles/hour (or more) over the speed limit, or get frustrated when getting a Latte and they have to wait for an extra 4 minutes for the person in front of them to get their custom order. I would say that it's time to slow down. Why? When waiting for a Latte, or driving fast may get you results more quickly, you are also not committing to getting a degree that will take years, and cost tens of thousands of dollars.

So, what can you do? I would propose that there are three basic types of people out there. The first are ready to move forward, They have made the decision to complete their degree, or get an advanced degree and it's all a matter of picking the best school for them! Second, are those that have flirted with the idea of going back to school but haven't decided on committing the time and energy needed to get a degree. This is a harder sell and is filled with people with MANY reasons not to go back to school. Third are those prospects who have NO interest in going back to school. The time, effort and money don't seem to meet their needs.

So, what can you do about group two? My guess is that there are two approaches to this group. The first is to mail them, email them, see if you can give them a reason to go back to school through the long process of beating down their defenses until they block you, or register. The second, and I think the best way, is to offer an incremental step for them to get back to school. Beyond the cost of getting a degree, you will have family, job responsibilities, lifestyle/recreation conflicts. Until most of these are analyzed and resolved, the prospect will have a great deal of difficulty in returning to school.

So, how do we do an incremental prospecting program? Start small, offer a low cost entry level class for them to take so they get used to being on campus. Make it easy for them to return to school, make the credits apply to their ultimate degree and see what happens. Think about this for a minute. You're a retailer looking to attract new customers and you sell $2,000 televisions. Do you push the $2,000 system up front? Maybe you do one time, but the best way is to offer a smaller item first, maybe a $75 pair of ear buds. then the next sale is a $250 clock/radio/alarm. From there you increase the offers to something in the $1,000 range and finally their prospect is ready to buy the $2,000 TV.

The point is, you get them used to the fact of buying, going to school. And over time, up sell them to getting their degree. Instead of them committing to a $40,000 degree program, they are committing to a $1,500 class that can lead to the full degree. Quit thinking about what the institution needs (I know, that's hard to do), but rather, think about what your prospect is thinking and what their needs are.

Start small, one step at a time, and ultimately you will have full classrooms. In the mean time, you will have new students to "sell" on the idea of coming back and completing their degree.

For more information or to visit our website go to www.marketmappingplus.com/education. or write david@marketmappingplus.com.

What medium works best for different Adult Prospects?

I find this an interesting topic. When I started Market Mapping plus back in 1990, one of my mantras over all these years has been "Track response". Why? If you don't track where your prospects and students are coming from, how do you know where to allocate resources?

Yes, 26 years later I keep asking clients "what gives you the best response?" and they have no idea. The opportunities for spending your marketing dollars are expanding significantly. In the past, you had direct mail (postal) as one of the only and primary methods of advertising. Since then the market has expanded to include Billboards, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, the CAS Devices (like the Amazon Echo) which are new technologies that dilute your marketing budget. But how do you decide which method to fund?

I had a client many years ago who hired me to evaluate their Adult Student marketing program. I evaluated all of the methods of advertising, told them to start keycoding ads/direct mail pieces to identify where a lead came from. After the first quarter of testing this new coding system I had a meeting with the VP of Enrollment Management and asked him which methods were the most effective? He gave me his top 3. Of his top 3, there were zero leads from the top two. The #1 method of advertising was direct mail postal postcards. Marriage mail and newspaper insert programs generated nothing in terms of response. So they reallocated their budget to become more effective in their marketing efforts.

The ultimate question is "How do we track all of these marketing programs?". The key is integrating some method of knowing where a lead came from. For printed marketing materials a user code to identify the source of the lead, and in some cases, the source of the name. Where did it come from? What list? For Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter use a unique code to identify where a lead got motivated to contact you and enroll.

There is an easier way to track campaign success. For every Adult Student who enrolls, give them a short survey. Ask them what got them to enroll to get their degree. This is the best and easiest method of finding out what's working.

If you need help setting up a quality tracking program give me a call. David Fant, Market Mapping plus Inc. at 616-956-7129, or write me at david@marketmappingplus.com.

Don't call us, We'll call you.

I saw a promotion for the above titled webinar. I looked back at the direct marketing field and started thinking about what response looked like in the past. Thirty years ago people got a mailing for a product or service, (postal only by the way) and either went to the store to make their purchase OR, made a phone call if it was for a catalog. Then, email became a household method of communication. Although visiting a store and calling a call center continued to be key, people got used to seeing an email, clicking on the link and ordering their product or service.

Life got easier, more streamlined, but as with all new methods of marketing it too had it's problems. People would load their cart, then abandon them. They would respond to an email, click through and discover that what they thought they wanted, wasn't really what they expected. Forms asked for too much information so people just left, or they found that there are many more interesting things to click on than fill out a form or order.

Fast forward to the current environment and phones are as complex as a home computer. Everything that used to require a printed catalog and call center are now in our hand, accessible 24/7. I believe we have become overwhelmed with information. Everyone wanting a part of our time, a piece of our life. To the point where people no longer want to give their information to companies without a compelling reason to do so. Why? They know that the followup inundation of mail, phone calls or email will be more than they wanted. Which, brings me to the title of this blog.

People have developed the attitude of "If I want what you're offering, I will call you". I admit, I do this a lot. I get more advertisements (mostly email) from list managers pushing their latest and greatest list. Are these valuable to me? Not really. It's just more junk to delete and not particularly relevant. There are two sources that list every direct marketing list on the market. SRDS and NextMark and primary search engines for direct mail/email/telemarketing lists. Why keep or respond to an email for a new, updated list, when I can type in a few keywords and get a complete list of all lists on the market? It turns out, I have been using the Don't call us, we'll call you approach for years! I just didn't realize it.

What else does this new attitude toward our marketing message mean? Tracking sales is more critical than ever. Where did an order come from? If you do an email campaign, get an order but not from on line, where did that customer get the information they needed to order or attend your school? I guarantee you that if you have been doing billboards, broadcast ads, direct mail and email campaigns you likely have NO idea where your leads are actually coming from.

I had a client who spent hundreds of dollars on inserts in coupon packets. I did an analysis (at their request) of performance, added a user code, tracked it for 3 months and discovered that what they thought was a fabulous lead generation tool, generated zero response. NO ONE used their coupons to call and attend their school. Instead, their direct mail program generated over 50,000 leads over a period of years. Enough for them to call and follow up to attract new students.

The key to all of these changes in customer response is to build a system to track where your customers are actually coming from. Ask them. If you're a school in Higher Education, go to your Adult Students and ask "What brought you to our school?" It's simple, Ask and you will find out so much about your prospects and how to reach them. BUT, remember they are likely calling YOU, not responding in a way that you expect or anticipate.

Baseball has 3 outs, how many outs do you have?

I am constantly being asked to review email creatives and landing pages for my clients. What surprises me is the number of clients who fail to understand what their ultimate goal is. Let's look at this from the end result to the beginning.

First, the goal of any campaign is new students. So, consider your landing page. What should it contain? A list of benefits! A matching message from the email that they got. A form for them to fill out to indicate interest. A phone number in case they want to call. That's it! NOTHING ELSE.

Why nothing else. The reason is simple, if you give them any other options such as links to Facebook, LinkedIn, your website, even a program related portion of your website they are gone. They leave your landing page, never fill out the information, you never hear from them again UNLESS they decide to contact you in some other way other than the landing page. I constantly see reports where people click through to the landing page and then disappear in to the outs that you gave them. Why give them ANY choice but to fill out the form, or call you? It's self defeating and it dooms any campaign to the failure category. This is a sample email I sent in 2014, Notice that even I didn't know the best practices back then. Now, there are key Call to Action (CTA's) through out the email and NO outs other than to the relevant landing page.

Next, let's move backwards to the email. You craft a perfect message, benefit laden for a prospective student to want to attend your school. The CTA button is below the fold. Will they find it? Very possibly not. Above the fold? Yes, they will click on it if they are motivated. BUT, included in your email are OUTS. Why would you give a prospect the option to leave your email and go anywhere other than your landing page? You need their information. You have peaked their interest. Yet, you let them get away to YouTube, Facebook, or anywhere else.

2014 Email with over 14 outs

2017 Email with zero outs

I recently had a client who had a landing page with 18 outs. And they wondered why no one clicked through. Well, they did, they clicked everywhere but to their landing page to fill out the form! Understand the purpose of your campaign and then design ALL elements to focus on that goal.

Outs are never good. They distract from the purpose of the campaign and offer the prospect a way to go places that you don't want them to go. As an example, say you want to show a video. Most people will put a link to the video, the prospect clicks on it and goes to YouTube. Guess what? You just lost them. They go there, see other opportunities to click on or think about that new video that's out from Beyonce and poof, they are no longer thinking education, but are instead being entertained. The solution? All videos should be put in a shadow box. Click on the link, it opens a box over the landing page or email, runs and then stops, closes and they are back to where they started, your email or landing page. No interruption in thought process and they AREN'T watching a music video!

Keep all of these thoughts in mind,

Increase response by creating an emotional appeal

It’s interesting to work with so many different institutions of higher education. Each one looks at their programs from a unique perspective and feel that they have the best degree programs in their area. I am not qualified to determine if that is true or not, but I do know that finding adult degree completion prospects is a never ending fight for every institution.

 

What makes my job difficult is that everyone creates marketing plans that focus on the institution and on some of the roadblocks that people have for returning to school to complete their degree. They talk about: 

·         Flexible classes

·         Fast degree programs

·         Convenient location

·         Some mention daycare

·         Low cost is referred to by most 

Yet, the one thing that most marketing campaigns miss is EMOTION. People frequently make decisions based not only on facts, but on their emotional feelings toward a given subject. Take a quick look at Harley Davison. What is it that they sell? In their ads, in their stores? Motorcycles? Not exactly. If you ask Harley Davison that question they will tell you they are selling a lifestyle. A way of living that INCLUDES a motorcycle. 

So, the question is, what is YOUR emotional message?  

US News and World Report recently published an article that referenced the fact that college graduates will earn an average of $20,000 per year more than not having a degree. My question is, what could someone do with $20,000 per year? Strike an emotional note with the following approach: 

Life is filled with ups and downs. What is it that you would like to do in your life that you can’t afford to do today? Maybe you are looking to: 

·         Take that historical trip to Machu Picchu.

·         Buy that one car that you’ve always wanted.

·         Invest in a house for you and your family.

·         Visit every baseball stadium in the country.

·         What is YOUR dream activity if you had the money? 

No matter what your dream is, a degree will allow you to earn as much as $20,000 more per year compared to not having a degree. Attend Xyz College and let us help you attain YOUR dreams. 

Emotion, draws them into thinking about what they can do with a degree and increased income. Benefits, not features. Focus on what they will get out of their degree and how you will help them achieve all that they want to do.

What makes a strong offer?

The first questions is, what is an offer? We all know the answer to that so I won't go to the Dictionary to give you the formal definition of an offer. Yes, is the word "offer" the right word? The offer states what you would like someone to do. Whether you are selling toothpaste, a car, a college education the offer creates the groundwork for a prospective student to decide to move forward and actually buy.

Remember the offer is the first step in the sales process. Your goal is to get people to buy, not browse and "kick the tires" so to speak. So the offer has to have some serious incentive to get someone to move forward. Let's look at a couple of examples.

You are selling a tube of toothpaste for $2.95/tube but the offer is $.50 off the retail price. The savings is 17%. Not an insignificant savings.

You are going to buy a car, It's retail value is $15,000, you offer a $1,500 discount plus a trade-in guarantee of $1,000 for a total savings of $2,500. The savings for this offer is 16.6%.

Now, you send out a mailer, offering a student a degree completion offer with a total projected cost of $20,000 and you offer to waive the application fee (estimated at $75). The total savings for this offer is .37%. Pretty pathetic when you compare your offer to offers people see every day in the overall marketplace.

People have come to expect something for their investment. Whether it's toothpaste, a car, or an education. I find, that most Higher Education institutions don't recognize the fact that to attract more students (note, I did not say prospects) they have to give them something that they consider valuable! And keep in mind, that doesn't have to be money. Meeting the needs of a busy family, a tiring job, a busy work schedule and around hobbies and other areas that conflict with them completing their degree can be more valuable than a cash outlay. However, it's YOUR job to translate the intangible benefits of your institution into a strong offer.

One negative example comes to mind. I have a good friend, single mother, child under the age of 10, who was working on completing her degree. She registered for a class, started taking it, and due to a work/child scheduling problem missed two classes. When she returned to class after her mini crisis she was told by the professor, she had been dropped. She knew, going in, that she was only allowed one absence/semester. Now, this may have been a totally unreasonable professor (by the way, it was a required class) yet, had the institution had a resource to help her work through that issue this could have been a huge offer to make. We have an office to help you with a flexible schedule. Had this institution done that she would have remained in school or that class she would have felt wonderful. As it was, she finished her other class, dropped out and completed her degree at another local institution.

On the other hand, a positive example. A Midwest University wanted to increase enrollment to their degree completion program. After three email deployments, 75,000 each they ended with 112 new REGISTERED students. How? They offered each of them a $1,000 scholarship, no strings attached. It's the offer and how you communicate the offer to your client that makes the difference.

My recommendation is, don't think institutionally, think like a prospective student. What do they want and from there, create the best offer possible. The offer is what get's them to buy.

Why prospect three times a year, when potential students are looking for degree information on a daily basis?

My past 23 years has taught me a few interesting things about Universities. First, and foremost they are "traditional" in their approach to marketing. They think that there are two key semesters per year, and one summer session (by and large). So, they market three times a year. Yet, prospects are a fickle bunch. They go on line, research for information and want to make a decision when THEY are ready, [...more] not when you advertise to them. So, the question becomes, how do we reach prospects when they are doing their immediate search, OR, as close as possible to the time when they are doing their research.

As most advertising articles will tell you, customers frequently select an item based on their last impression. What I am saying is, when presented with a number of options to buy from a given company/institution, the one that last contacted them (or, in the case of Higher Education was the first) is the one they choose. Degree program offerings, cost, location are all factors, but when you get right down to it, if you have the right program, at the right price in the right place, you will capture them as a student simply because YOU were the one to contact them.

Let's say there are 20 different institutions of higher education in your market area. Prospects are confused, curious as to which one is best for them, and yet, the one that is responsive, contacts them first, follows up with good information in a timely manner will likely win. So, how do you do that?

Change your mindset from marketing three times a year, to marketing monthly, weekly and if possible daily! Imagine one week after searching for a degree program in business, a prospect gets an e-mail from your institution offering them a free consultation (for not only the student, but their family as well), give them a counselor that is uniquely theirs to contact, invite them to visit a class, whatever you are able to offer to get them moving forward. They expressed interest in completing their degree or getting an advance degree only 4 days ago. Now your message goes out, offering to help! Kind of like setting up a school Concierge program.

We do the e-mail campaign, you get the response in a timely manner. Change how you think about marketing. Focus on what the prospect wants TODAY. A quick reply to their search. Market Mapping plus LLC can make that happen. Contact us today for a quote and to discuss how to implement a program that targets your best audience in a timely way.

When did you last talk to one of your adult students?

When did you last talk to one of your adult students?

This is an interesting question that often goes unanswered. Why? Most of us are sitting in our offices, toiling away at each daily project given to us by our boss, a department head or some other project that is critical for our institution's success. We know there are adult education classes on campus (or on a nearby campus) and we know that there are students in those classes (after all, we in Marketing were instrumental in getting them there) yet, we rarely if EVER go talk to them! The excuses are many. "These are night classes, I have to be somewhere." or "What can they tell me? What would I ask them?" or maybe "I don't get paid any extra to stay late and track down these classes, talk to the professor, get permission to talk to a few of the students either before or after class, what a hassle!"

Well, let me tell you, you are missing a fabulous opportunity for some primary market research. Research that will answer any of the following questions:

·         Why did you decide to get your degree from XYZ University?

·         Was cost an issue to you?

·         Who influenced you in your decision to attend our school?

·         Have you had a good experience while attending classes here?

·         What were your expectations when you first started and what are they today?

·         Is there anything specific that you can tell me that made our institution stand out in your mind when looking for a (degree completion, advanced degree) program?

Imagine what you could do with all of that information! Say a majority of the students reference location as a key motivator. If there are a few students who have that point of view, I guarantee there are others who have the same issue. What if they say "fear" was a roadblock to going back to school. Fear of failing. Fear that they will be the oldest person in the class. Fear of not having enough time for work, class, family and hobbies. Ask them how they conquered their fear. Learn from them.

As with direct marketing, each mailing is a new test. What are you testing? If you don't know the answers to the above questions (and those are the tip of the iceberg) you have NO idea how to market your institution. Ask, learn, grow, test new ideas. That's what direct marketing is all about. The ability to test new ideas, new thoughts, new markets. But without a sound basis for the testing you're just wasting dollars and time.

Focus on learning as much as you can about your audience, not only demographically but also psychographically. Get out of your office. Walk around campus, set up a routine EACH semester to visit at least three different adult education classes and talk to the students. If you feel up to it and have the budget (ok, stop laughing now) invite a class to dinner on marketing. A small investment in a few meals will reap huge rewards with marketing success.

Contact David@marketmappingplus.com for more information on how to identify and reach your target markets.

Content Marketing in Higher Education

Content Marketing is the latest trend in marketing. You build content based on your prospective audience and then find the audience to drive to the content. That sounds simple, yet it's not. What is included in Content Marketing? Well, basically everthing you do to market your College or Univeristy. Direct mail, e-mail, website, blogs, FAQ's, billboards, newspaper/radio/television/cable ads all contribute to the overall marketing of your Content. The difficulty with Content Marketing is that the content must constanly change, be updated, be new, and most institutions aren't very good at keeping things fresh. New videos of campus, new blogs from either marketing or the world of academia you are promoting.

Imagine a blog(s) sorted by field of study, written by not only professors (I know, thats a major topic in and of itself) but by students in the program. Maybe a video of a "fun" class. Lab work. An experiment where something blows up! You never know what might peek someone's interest.

Transform those blogs into copy for the school website. Include them in a direct mail/e-mail campaign to promote attending YOUR institutaion. So, what is content marketing in reality? Nothing more than a well coordinated effort to promote your institution to prospective students. The difficulty is, your prospect pool is so diverse, you need massive amounts of content to fill that need. Yet, by providing content on Education, Pre-Med, Psychology, Computer Science, Liberal Arts you are finding ways to promote all you have available, on a unique/personalized platform.

Imagine, sending out an e-mail campaign to prospective degree completion prospects, with a list of potential programs for them to consider. Each e-mail lists the degrees with a link to a unique landing page (yes, 10 programs mean 10 landing pages) but each is tailored to a specific degree program. Then once they fill out the form (keep it short), send them to an information/welcome page for that program, then to the admissions site to apply.

All of this is content driven, focused and uniquely yours to implement for YOUR institution. Content Marketing is not easy, but can be HIGHLY successful if implemented correctly.

Have realistic expectations.

Expectations!

What is it about marketers and marketing that makes us suddenly think we are the exception to the rule. What I mean is, we market our University in a way that we ourselves would never respond to. This may be a bit of a stretch, but let me offer a story to help explain my position.

You're sitting in your home either reading the mail, or scrolling through e-mails. There in front of you is an offer from a local car dealership (one you know well). The marketing piece goes on to explain that you can purchase a brand new car, with great features, mileage, styling for only $28,500. You, of course, have been thinking about a new car so you head to the dealership, walk in, tell the salesman you'd like one of their cars and put down your check for $28,500.

Interestingly enough, I doubt any of you would do this. You research the car, IS IT your style? Does it get good gas mileage? What is the repair history on the vehicle? Will it suit your family either in size or comfort? So you research,  check to make sure that THIS is the car for you.

Now, let's fast forward to marketing your University. You prepare what you think is the perfect e-mail campaign, or postal campaign, You drop one message and expect people to flock to your door eager to plunk down $28,500 in tuition for an institution they may know of, but actually know nothing about. How do students actually make a choice as to what school to attend. Either to complete a degree or to get an advanced degree. They do exactly what you would expect them to do. They research, look at who attends your institution, what graduates have done, how much will it cost, will it fit in the family schedule or lifestyle.

There was a time when the expectation was that you needed three contacts before someone was willing to make a buying decision. Yet, most Universities market once, maybe twice and expect prospective students to sign up and attend. Today, the rule of thumb is more around 20 impressions. Now, don't get me wrong, but reality is more than 3, less than 20 for most people. But this includes all forms of impressions. Radio, television, billboards, web surfing, direct mail, e-mail, personal referrals, LinkedIn, Face Book to name a few. All of these give the prospect some idea as to what your institution is all about. So, why do schools constantly do a single, or two marketing campaigns, get few if any responses and then dub "direct mail", "e-mail" a failure? In fact, it's not a failure, you simply didn't give the prospect enough information or time to make an informed decision.

As with buying a car, students need to focus on their needs. For example, if a student is concerned about going back to school they may be asking themselves "Can I do it?". You should offer them a free course to take as a warm up. A course that WILL apply to their degree! You invest in them, they will invest in you. It's in a way, a two month free trial. It's time that schools focus on what it really takes to sell someone on attending their institution. Information, frequent contacts and understanding that THEY are the most important person attending your institution. Give them a free class, one that will get them used to coming on campus, sitting in class and I will bet they will keep coming back.

The reality of Click Through Capture Program

We have a click through program that allows Colleges and Universities to receive 100% of the click throughs when an e-mail campaign is completed. This is a wonderful time saving program that eliminates YOUR need to capture names and addresses on your end. But, there are a few limitations to this program.

First, and foremost, our e-mail files that we send to are double opt-in files. What this means, is that the person receiving the first e-mail (that generated the click through) has given permission for us to send them e-mail messages on a given topic (in this case educational opportunities). The difficulty with this is that when you take possession of the list you are not sending e-mails to them from an "approved" source, but from whatever source you are using to distribute your e-mails. (As a side note, do NOT send from your school's servers. This is a good way of having your school black listed and even though the people have created a business relationship with you by clicking through, you can be perceived by a machine as spamming.) Because you are not sending from our servers, you may, or may not get through the prospective student's firewall, or filtering system. In my experience you can see a 35% to 55% bounce rate for ANY e-mails provided to you using the click through program.

It is for this reason we provide the postal as well as e-mail address of all the click throughs. It allows you a secondary channel to reach these prospects.

Second, People have short memories. They may or may not remember requesting information, or confirming that they want to receive information if time has passed. So, you may have some issues with people complaining or expressing concern that they received mail from you. Out of 4 recent campaigns where we provide click through names/addresses to University clients, we found that fewer than 8 (out of an average of 1400 click throughs) complained. They may be vocal, but they are a very small minority.

Finally, for any given campaign, you need to offer them something substantial to peak their interest. Waiving application fees is nothing in this day and age. Find something of value that a prospective student would feel "supports" their educational goals. Scholarship, book discount for the first semester, free daycare if you offer it are just a few of the options available to you that just might set you apart.

Click throughs are a tool to a goal. Understanding their positive points and limitations will help you better achieve your recruitment goals.

Where do prospect names come from for e-mail campaigns

This is a common question I get from clients and prospects regarding where our prospect names come from for our e-mail campaigns. Eveyone has the preconceived notion that there are bots out there, combing every e-mail server harvesting names left and right. Those names are then placed in a massive database and sold. Actually, this does in fact happen and as you might know, these lists are garbage. We ONLY use double opt-in e-mail addresses. What is the difference between a harvested e-mail list and a double opt-in mailing list?

Basicially a double opt-in mailing list is created by someone REQUESTING information on a given topic not by them having their e-mail address "stolen" from them. Maybe they are interested in boating, hunting, cars, furthering their education, or changing careers. The process for obtaining these names is simple and straight forward.

People start by searching the web looking for educational opportunities, they find our web site(s) or maybe they receive an e-mail asking them if they are interested in getting a degree in xyz field. They click the link and fill out a form asking that they be put on the mailing list for educational opportunities in that field of study. There are over 60 fields of study that we track. This is step one in a a double opt in system.

For the next step they will receive a follow up e-mail asking them to confirm that they did, in fact, want to receive further e-mails from us that are related to educational opportunities. (Or any other of a hundred interest areas.) If they click accept, a cookie is placed on their computer so that further e-mails from us will bypass their filtering system and be delivered to their inbox. It's this confirmation step that makes our database a double opt-in program. This process also makes our lists Can-Spam compliant.

One other key factor to consider is that most  people own multiple accounts. These e-mail addresses tend to be home/personal addresses, but I know in the case of my wife and I we have 9email accounts between us. I have two business accounts and 5 personal accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) and my wife has two accounts (Yahoo, AOL). At any given time I use multiple addresses for form completion or when asking for more information. So it is very possible that someone may have filled out multiple requests using different e-mails. There is no real way of eliminating the duplicates, but where there are duplicates you are assured that they will be receiving your request. We typically e-mail 10% more e-mails than are ordered to cover bounces, but our bounce/non-deliverable rate is typically less than 10%.


One last thought. Many e-mail lists that are created by bots have an infinite life. They use them over and over and over again, even when the address has gone dead. We however, send a confirming e-mail every two months to every e-mail in our database (yes, millions of conformations) asking the recipient if they still have an interest in whatever topic they selected. If they say no, they are removed from the database, if they say yes, they stay. Each e-mail campaign also has an opt-out option at the bottom of the page. A recent campaign of 182,000 e-mails got 24 opt-outs. Not a significant number, and a testament to the quality of the names on the list.

I hope this helps! Contact us for your next e-mail campaign and we will help you reach your needed student prospects.

Targeted E-mail campaigns are the key to success

I have been running a number of E-mail campaigns for Universities across the country. An interesting phenominon has occured in that the smaller the campaign, the higher the response. The key has become how to focus on the EXACT market segment you want and then focusing your message on those prospects. I have recently gotten over 50% open rates and as high as a 32% click through rate for two schools on highly targeted campaigns which delivered over 1,200 new prospective students to these schools.

What are the keys to their success?

1) Their market segments they are reaching were very specific. RN's and MBA degree prospects.

2) They identified the benefits of attending their school over their competitors. BENEFITS, not FEATURES.

3) They know who their key competitors are, and focus on pointing out why they can exceed their competitors programs.

4) The message is simple, 5 or 6 bulleted points at the most.

You don't need to have a complex message filled with graphics and images. Keep it simple, to the point and those who have an interest will follow.

If you need to learn more about E-mail marketing and prospect development contact us today and we will be happy to help you acheive your admissions goals.

David Fant
Owner
Market Mapping plus LLC
David@marketmappingplus.com

E-mail campaigns designed for success

We have been doing a number of e-mail campaigns for clients of late and always hear the same question. "We have over 800 or 1000 click throughs but don't see anyone responding. Why?" The answer is mulitfaceted but has two fundamental answers.

First, prospects are used to seeing a message more than once, particularly for something that is time intensive or potentially expensive. They need an incentive to take the next step and give you their information for follow-up. Basically, what this means is that you don't just want to send a message out using e-mail and hope for the best, but you need to give some incentive to complete the form with their name and contact information for follow-up. Remember, you want THEM to select you to be their school of choice to complete their education.

What this means is, multiple deployments should be considered for the maximum response. Give them a STRONG reason to contact you and register, which means a discount on the first semester's tuition, discount on books (don't give them a sweatshirt, or travel coffee mug), it's insulting considering what you are asking them to spend on their further education. Give them something of substance to convince them to learn from you.

Second, and most importantly, use a unique code or process to identify who is applying. If you offer a discount on tuition, use a discount code (for example, AE1020 may reference Adult Education 10/20/10 campaign. That way you know the source of the new student. Make this unique for EVERY campaign.So, if you do three deployments over 2.5 weeks, the first may be AE102010, the second AE102610 and the third AE103110. That way you will be able to track performance by deployment.

As an example, here are some actual numbers from a client who did a campaign like the one described above.

Each of these deployed 75,000 e-mails, spread over six days.

Deployment 1
   Opens 13,471 or 17.9%
   Click Throughs 1015 or 7.53% of the opens
   Confirmed registrations 4

Deployment 2 - 2 days later
   Opens 16,004 or 21.3%
   Click Throughs 1855 or 11.59% of opens
   Confirmed registrations 33 new students

Deployment 3 - 4 days later
   Opens 17855 or 23.8%
   Click Throughs 2280 or 12.76% of opens
   Confirmed registrations 75

They used a unique registration/discount code for each deployment and offered a discount on tuition for this campaign. The acheived 112 new students from this campaign and are now rolling out this program for every recruitment semester.

Learn how a program like that can assist YOUR institution. Contact us today for a count and quote.

Why? A critical question before using new media.

Why? A simple question that is rarely considered when jumping into something new. It's a simple question, yet the answer can be very telling and more important, will give you direction to your use of (or choice NOT to use) a new medium for prospecting.

Why use Twitter?
Why use Facebook?
Why use direct mail?
Why use billboards?

The answer to these will dictate how to use each medium AND will guide you to create tracking/performance strategies to show that the medium that you select is effective and meeting your needs. How can you determine if your use of a given media choice is effective if you don't know why you are using it? What do you hope to get from your use and most importantly, how can you track whether or not your use is effective?

Let's look at an example. The President of your institution announces "This Twitter thing is huge, we need to use Twitter to reach new prospects!". Not an uncommon event where the word for action comes down from on high. Yet, even though Twitter IS huge, can it be used for his intended purpose? I would state, without hesitation, that the answer is no. Twitter has no way of identifying people who want a degree or who want to return to school to finish their degree. Twitter is a highly effective way of communicating with people who ARE interested in what you are selling, but is a very poor tool for raw recruitment. The question has to be asked, WHY?

Everyone at the institution needs to understand the answer to the question "WHY?"! Use this question to do the following:

1. Determine what you want to accomplish.
2. Evaluate how a given medium can help you meet that goal.
3. If your goal can't be met OR measured, move to another medium.
4. Moving forward create and implement tracking methods to determine if your goals are being met.
5. Have everyone involved buy into the goals that you hope to accomplish and on the measurements that will be used to reach those goals.
6. Be prepared that if the goals aren't met, abandon this medium (for the given use only) and try something else.

The greatest failure in most systems is not asking Why? It's determining the answer to this question that will drive it's success or failure.

Looking back at the President's edict to use Twitter, ask them Why? Ask them what they want/think Twitter will do for them or their institution. Then, go do your research and see if it's possible to get more followers than Ashton Kutchner!

I picked up this idea at the STAMATS Adult Student Conference I'm attending as a sponsor. for more information, don't hesitate to contact David Fant, Owner Market Mapping plus LLC

Comments on Stamats Adult Education Conference

I'm attending the Stamats Adult Education conference in San Antonio this week as one of their conference sponsors. Yesterday we had a presentation on Integrated Marketing Plans. It was interesting and quite insightful and unfortunately I can't post the entire presentation here. I do have a few observations/ideas that came from the presentation.

Don't Over Promise - Always remember when developing ALL forms of marketing...What you promise you MUST produce! More students leave an institution when they realize that the promises made in advertising, campus meetings have not been kept.

Tracking Performance - When doing different types of marketing tracking performance is critical. (More on this in a later blog.) When you are measuring your marketing program you are an investment, without measurement on performance and success you are an expense.

Strategy - The purpose of strategy is to differentiate your institution from your competitors in ways that target audiences value.

Commodity vs Brand - Which are you? A commodity is something people select using cost and convenience as the primary decision point. A Brand is selected based on the institutions Brand/Quality/Reputation.

Competitors - Identify the 5 or 6 key competitors in your market area. DON'T market or do what they do, be different. Set yourself apart.

How you think about your performance. - Marketing people tend to look at what they did. I produced 20 brochures, 15 events. Don't fall into this trap. focus on OUTCOMES. I got 200 people to attend an open house. We received 400 leads for Admissions to sell.

Brand Marketing - Who you are, what you are. Basically your brand or what I call institutional promotional marketing/advertising.

Direct Marketing - Designed to create a response. Use this to drive admissions, participation in institutional events.

I found this final comment to be SOOOO insightful. Direct Marketing has never changed, The PROCESS has changed. Don't let the internet, social media, or more traditional methods of marketing shift your focus. Find a way to integrate these new media into your media mix but the new methods of direct marketing are just that NEW. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I will write more. Time for day 2.