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Ruminations on Managing and Working With People

I've been thinking a lot about human resources lately.  It was one of my favorite parts of my MBA curriculum - learning how to motivate people, about all the mythes there are to being a good manager, how to affect change in the deeply embedded culture of an organization.  I've worked at really good places and really bad places and places that were kind of eh.  From that I've come up with my own 40,000 foot rules of managing and working with people.  Some may be a bit idealistic and don't think I don't realize that. But I don't necessarily think the ideal is bad place to start :-)

Set the bar high: Setting a standard isn't a bad thing.  People may resent it at first but eventually, they adapt.  When they start seeing the results of their higher standard, they'll start to live up to it on their own without being forced.  If you set the bar high, you have to give people a chance to live up to it.  This may require letting go of control and delegating responsibility.

Along with this comes treating people like they are responsible adults.  Understanding that there are differences at most places between non-exempt and exempt employees, but as much as possible avoid constricting rules that serve as nothing more than a "gotcha" as long as employees are delivering.  For example, one place I worked at implemented a timeclock for all employees, hourly and salaried. It was nothing more than something to prove that they were in charge and everyone knew it. After a while, a few of us who resented it stopped turning in the timecards (I stopped punching in and out entirely) and guess what - nothing happened.  Since they had no legitimate business reason for it, they ignored all the timecards they forced people to punch in on after the first week.  So they pissed people off and lowered morale, which in turn caused half a dozen people to quit within a  short time period...all to prove they were in charge.  It costs, on average, $60,000 to train new employees.  Do you think it was worth it? 

Offer incentives for great performance: I did a super incentive email campaign for Dartmouth a few months back and was given a $100 reward for it.  It was awesome!  $100 isn't that much money but it was the fact that my hard work was acknowledged.  Small things like that really make a difference with morale.  Even saying "Thank You" can act as an incentive.  I was talking to a friend of mine this past weekend who was telling me about busting her ass at work and she said: "You know, I just want to hear them thank me every once in a while."  It's the simplest thing, but oftentimes seems one of the hardest to put into practice.  Saying please when you ask for something and thank you when it's delivered can go a long way in making people feel as though you value their time and effort. 

If you're going to offer incentives, make sure you follow through with them.  One place I worked at use to always promise a day off and a BBQ if employees met a certain goal.  When they did meet it, there was never follow through on the promise.  After a while it got to be a joke and made the managers that kept promising it look inept.  If they couldn't even keep their promise to give their employees a day off, why should their employees trust them to keep any other promises they make? 

Don't freak out over the small things: Yes, we all want everything to be perfect all the time but life just isn't that easy.  It's OK to acknowledge that there are some things that go wrong that just aren't emergencies.  It doesn't mean that you think they aren't important or that you won't fix them.  It just means you're not going to needlessly upset people over it.  When you freak out, other people freak out and then the situation just gets blown completely out of proportion.  It also leads to people not wanting to work with you in the future. Take a step back, breathe and you'll probably realize that there's a pretty simple solution to the problem.

Sometimes a freak out is unavoidable.  Maybe you're having a stressful day and this thing hits and you just don't want to deal with it.  But you should never put that stress on other people.  Go out and scream in your car if you have to but when you meet with people, do it with a smile on your face. 

Acknowledge different working styles: One of the best things I've done at Dartmouth was take the PeopleMap workshop. It's all about the different working styles people have and teaches you how to communicate with people that have different styles than you do. It's really important to acknowledge that every person you work with has a different style and it may or may not be like the one you have.  That doesn't make their style less effective than yours.  It doesn't make them wrong. It's just different and you need to figure out a way to accommodate them and, perhaps more importantly, put them at ease.   

Never expect something of people that you wouldn't do yourself: There's grunt work in any organization - stuff that is a pain in the ass and most people would sooner stab themselves with a pencil than do. But someone has to do it.  Even if it's not really your responsibility, chip in every once in a while and show people you're willing to get your hands dirty. Pawning stuff off on people is easy.  Showing them you're willing to work beside them creates a true team atmosphere.  

This also goes for fun stuff, like presenting at conferences.  If you supervise people and they see you going and doing cool professional development all the time, but then you don't let them have the same opportunities, they are going to resent you for it.  

Above all, trust people: Trust is the biggest area I've seen lacking in any working environment I've ever been in - whether that be trust between a manager and an employee or trust between colleagues.  Trust that people are not trying to sabotage projects and that they do have the best interest of it at heart.  People's actions are often the true indicator of whether or not they really trust someone - words mean nothing.  You can say "I trust you" or "I'm empowering you" all day, but if you then go and undercut the person you're saying these things too, you aren't really empowering them at all.  People aren't stupid and they pick up on these things...and it usually doesn't sit well. 

Key Takeaways: 

1. Setting a high standard isn't a bad thing.  Reward people who meet or exceed it.   
   
2. Flying off the handle at every little problem only freaks people out.  Being a calming influence is a better way to put others at ease. 
   
3. Trust the people you work with and acknowledge that they may have a different working style than you.
   

So you want to hire an interactive admissions person...

This post is directed specifically at all the Directors of Admissions out there, who are considering the creation of an e-admissions person.  I've heard a number of titles for it: My former one was Interactive Recruitment Manager; another popular one is Electronic Communications Coordinator.  What you call it is really immaterial.  What's really important is finding the right person with the right blend of experience, and then treating the position as it should be within the context of the office.  

80% Admissions/ 20% Web: I always thought that the main reason I was successful in this type of position was the fact that I had previous experience as an admissions counselor.  I had worked directly with the students and their families and so understood their needs at all stages, done the recruiting events, and knew the cycle of the admissions process.  This type of position is primarily a marketing position and understanding the point of view of your audience is really key to developing any marketing program. This position should be pegged, at minimum, as an associate level position since you should only be putting someone with at least three years of admissions experience in it.  It's that experience that will make or break the person's success in the position. 

That being said, if you hire someone that doesn't have web experience you are doing nothing but setting them up for failure.  Typically, this position is responsible the admissions web presence and you can't maintain a proper web presence if you have no previous web experience.  Having a MySpace and a Facebook profile do not count as web experience.  The web is not magic - things don't just appear from nowhere.  They have to be built.  You wouldn't hire someone to paint your portrait if they had no painting experience and the same goes here.  If you insist on not heading this advice, be prepared to dedicate some bucks to professional development to teach the person what they need to know to be successful.  

This position is NOT a counselor position!  Yes, this person should have previous admissions experience but that does not mean that you should make them your go-to person when you need someone to do a college fair, work an open house or do prospect interviews.  Give the person in this position the respect they deserve so that they can focus on the task at hand.  Believe me, in the first two years of the position when the program is being built from scratch, there will be more than enough for the person to do without you overburdening them with "other duties as assigned." 

Pay them what they're worth: If you're lucky enough to find a person that meets these qualifications, fight for a salary that lines up with them.  When I originally started my former position, my salary was pegged at $36,000/year.  That was far too low.  I fought it and got it brought up to $42,000/year, which is still too low in my opinion given the unique skillset required.  The incredible thing is that I know others who currently have this type of position and they are making significantly less than I was.  That's not OK. I get that it's higher ed and that no one is going to get rich doing it...but I still work in higher ed now doing a very similar job and make significantly more. So yes, it is possible. 

Building a program takes time and involvement: If you are starting a position from scratch, be aware that it will take one to two years to get a program build and running efficiently.  These things take time and you have to give the person in it the latitude they need to get things in order.  One thing that will help them is to include them in all counselor-related meetings and trainings: getting them involved in the day-to-day office activities will allow the person to assess where your gaps are and how they can work to fill them. Just because they aren't a counselor doesn't mean they should be cut off from the counseling staff, a mistake I've hard of some offices making with this type of position.  It's not helpful and it just pisses the person in it off.    

Trust the person you hire: This may be the hardest part for most Directors - if you are creating this type of position you are doing it, at least partly, because you don't know how to do it.  That's ok.  Admit it.  It's OK not to know everything.  Now, hire a person that DOES understand it and trust them to do a good job.  When they give you a recommendation that you don't agree with, give them the benefit of the doubt - they are doing it for a reason.  There are nuances and best practices to this that fly directly in the face of many common admissions tactics.  Because of that, the person in the position is going to tell you that you can't do things that you want to do.  Trust them and then work with them to come up with an alternative solution. 

Key Takeaways: 

1. The person you hire should have at least three years of admissions counseling experience.  At the same time, you should never use them as a stand-in for admissions counselors - the position is completely different.
2. The person you hire should have previous experience building and working on websites. 
3. Trust the person in the position when they tell you things you don't want to hear. 
4. Pay them what they're worth. 
5. Give them the time they need to build a program. 

Using "International Talk Like A Pirate Day" for marketing

My boss got this email today...I wish more companies had the balls to be this creative: 

Fast Tip Friday: Don't Talk Geek (but talking like a pirate is OK...just for today)

Most of us can throw out every piece of computer/web jargon in book...but that doesn't mean we should.  A few years back I forced myself into the habit of explaining all but the most well-known concepts in plain English to my colleagues at all times.  When I used jargon, most of them didn't understand what I was saying and it was creating far too many channels of mis-communication.  It was my job to know the technical end and as long as my colleagues understood the concept, that was sufficient. 

If you're going to do an integrated e-marketing strategy, that inherently involves working with people who work with computers as a matter of function, but don't know them or the web like you do.  To many people, the web is still the unknown and can be a scary thing and if you talk to them in jargon they don't understand, that's just going to freak them out.  Coming down to their level in this area is an easy way to increase their comfort level so that they will be more receptive to your ideas and strategies.

On a separate note, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!  In honor of it, I give you this video that was making its way around my office yesterday.  Happy Friday!

When in doubt, use hot people in your Facebook ads

Typically Facebook ads that we run get anywhere between 0.05% and 0.3% click rates, with a high water mark of about 0.5%.  So you can imagine my surprise when I logged onto our account yesterday afternoon to see that the ads we started running a few days ago to recruit currents students to our call center were getting 1% click rates and were maxxing out the ad budget daily!

The key to this success?  I believe it's threefold: 

1. The ads feature pictures of real Dartmouth students and are targeted to the same population.  In other words, they are seeing people like them.
2. The ad has the salary for the job in it up front, and as I understand it the position is one of the higher-paid student positions on campus.
3. But of course the main reason these ads are working is that the kids in them are hot: 

I rest my case.  The best 150-character marketing copy in the word doesn't have nearly the impact of a pretty, smiling girl that might sit next to you in class :-)

OmniUpdate does it right

I got my free uwebd mug yesterday from OmniUpdate and I have to say kudos!  OmniUpdate gets it!  They understand that as a human being, I am selfish and don't want/won't use a mug (even if it's free) that comes with some crappy company logo on it.  Instead they sent me (and every other member of University Web Developer Ning Network) a mug with ZERO branding on it and free chocolate/candy/other yummy goodies!  The only sales pitch in the whole package came in the form of a 25% off coupon for implementation services, exclusively for people who got the mug.

OmniUpdate, I salute you!  You gave me something not only cool but useful and, even though it doesn't have your logo on it, I'm not likely to forget where it came from.  

The Cool Kid Syndrome

I came up with the idea of the Cool Kid Syndrome when I was an admissions counselor and was required to work with faculty members to make admissions decisions on some students.  Now, anyone who has worked in higher education for any period of time will tell you that faculty members fall into three categories: 

1. The really good ones, that WANT to help
   
2. The apathetic ones who could give a damn and won't show up to meetings
   
3. The uppity, mouthy, loud, god awful ones who know more than you about every possible subject and won't hesitate to tell you such. 
   

The original Cool Kid Syndrome theory was developed to explain the last category of faculty.  I believe that a person's experience in high school is a fairly good indicator for how they will turn out later in life.  For example, most of the jocks/cool kids marry young and never leave their hometown whereas most geeks get out of dodge and go on to be really successful in what they choose to do.  Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, but more often than not it works out like this.  

In this particular instance, I theorized that the uppity faculty were the geeks in high school and always resented it.  Now that they were the "cool kids" of the institution - basically the most powerful members of it - they were going to use their newfound status for evil instead of good, since that's the way they were probably treated by the cool kids in high school.  In reality, they're just very insecure and being uppity as a method of self-justification.  If they are louder than everyone, and can barrel through their ideas into implementation, then it only encourages that behavior in the future. 

Fast forward a few years: a friend of mine presented at Izeafest this weekend and he turned me on to the live streams they did over Ustream on Friday and Saturday (they also recorded the streams so they are still available to view).  So I'm watching all these widely-read bloggers get up and talk about their blogs...and making money with their blogs...and generally being awesome on their blogs...and having the audience fawn over them with stupid questions like "what is the coolest thing that's happened to you from being a blogger?"...and it occurs to me that the Cool Kid Syndrome is really applicable to bloggers too: Geeks in high school, now ruling their respective roosts but still typically pretty insecure and try to use their blogging success as a means of self-justification.  They're not necessarily uppity like faculty members, but many of them clearly need people to agree with them to feel justified in their opinions.  They surround themselves with like-minded people (or people that look up to them as "celebrities").   It's a constant means of self-justification: if they can only get enough people to agree with them and think they're cool and awesome, it'll all be OK.  

I see these common behaviors in so many people I read and the ones I'm lucky enough to know personally only reinforce my theory by being some of the most insecure people in the world.  I don't say it as a bad thing - I'm probably the most insecure of any of them.  But I'm also very conscious of the fact that running my mouth on a blog isn't going to fix that.  People thinking I'm awesome online doesn't amount to a hill of beans in my real life - it's not going to get me a raise or a promotion at work, its not going to gain me the respect of my off-line peers and it's certainly not going to help my love life.  When I was blogging politics, sometimes readers would send me free stuff like DVDs in the mail, but that was about the most exciting thing that happened.  I had a top 10 blog on MySpace (when MySpace was still worth logging onto), thousands of people reading me every day and in my real life, all that happened was that people thought I was a super big loser for blogging so much.

Ultimately, here's what I'm trying to say:  If you're going to do something like this, you should really sit back and think about why you're doing it.  To listen to some of the presenters talk at Izeafest, you'd think that the best reason to do it is for other people - give readers what they want so that they'll think you're awesome.  I couldn't disagree more strongly with that.  I've said it before, but a blog is a labor of love in a lot of respects and I think the really good ones out there are the ones where the author is doing it because they love doing it.  It's not to make money and its not to be a blogging "rock star" with all sorts of fans - they do it because they like writing or they like teaching people or it helps them to accomplish something in their lives.

And it's not going to fill some crazy void that you've had in your life since high school - your colleagues won't care.  Your families won't care (my parents have never even visited my page!).  Your friends won't care (unless they blog too, then they'll understand).  If there's one thing I've learned in the past nine years of blogging in one form or another, it's that it will never make you the cool kid - it's just going to make you the geek sitting behind a computer screen writing all the time.  And that's OK...but you have to be OK with it :-) 

Fast Tip Friday: Having a schedule gives you MORE flexibility

So I had a whole different topic for today's post...and then I had my quarterly job review this morning.  We were talking about creating a master email calendar and the challenges that might arise in meeting that goal, the key one being that people will think that having a schedule will inhibit flexibility.  Meg (my boss) offered that the way to go would be to argue that having a schedule actually gives you MORE flexibility.  If you need to change something, you can easily look and see if or how it would affect everything else going on.  

Flexibility is important - but when you work in an environment were multiple offices are communicating with the same audience, so is coordination.  Ultimately a coordinated effort will produce a better user experience, which will lead to you meeting more of your marketing goals. 

The revised Commandments of Email Marketing

I did a presentation today at work where I used my Five Commandments of Email Marketing.  When I originally did them, I geared them specifically towards admissions email marketing.  I decided it was time to revise them slightly to be more broadly applicable.  Without further ado...

A bit of commentary: 

1. Thou shall send using an external service provider: Outsource, baby, outsource.  There is little to no reason to send your own email.  At one cent per email or less, let someone else handle it.  You'll still get massive ROI.
2. Thou shall make your template simple and unobtrusive: Simple templates are just more effective in getting the user to take the call-to-action as they don't provide any distractions along the way.  You can get super fancy with your design...but if your goal is to get them to DO something, there really isn't any reason for it.  
3. Thou shall make messages as segmented and timely as possible: See Barack Obama's email campaigns if you want an example for how segmentation and timeliness should be done.  The closer you can get to your recipients and their wants and needs, the higher percentage of users you're going to make the sale to.  
4. Thou shall keep copy short and calls to action obvious: You can't take a print letter and literally translate it to email.  Be short, succinct and redundant.  Ask for the sale in every paragraph and in the PS.  Your users are just going to scan the email and look for what you want them to do.  Make it easy to identify.  
5. Thou shall only send messages that offer value to the recipients: Providing value is the hardest Commandment to follow.  I just wrote a post for .eduguru about a book I read over the weekend called Neuromarketing, which talked about our self-centered nature.  You can email people every day of the week without turning them off if you provide them with value.  You can turn them off by only emailing them once a month but giving them nothing.  

What do you want to hear about?

So I have a bunch of presentations coming up in November/December.  They are all brand new (as in, I've never done them before and they are still in various stages of creation) and I'm looking for input into what you guys want to hear about.  I'll consider any and all advice, but particularly from those who will be attending the presentations - this is all about you guys getting out of it what you're looking for.   

Here are the presentations and a brief description: 

Eye on the Prize: Implementing Technology with an Eye on ROI

November 6 @ 1pm - Stamats Integrated Marketing Conference

Integrating technology in your marketing plan isn't about doing it just because all the cool kids are - it's about accomplishing a goal.  This session is going to discuss how to plan your technology implementations so that, down the road, you can evaluate whether or not they have been a success.  

Taking Email to the Next Level: Practical Advice for Creating an Integrated Email Marketing Strategy That Will Get Results

November 17 @ 11:15am - American Marketing Association Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education

This presentation is all about giving practical, applicable advice for building an integrated email marketing program or improving the one you already have in place.  This is not 40,000 foot view, theoretical nonsense.  My goal is to give you strategies and tactics that you can take home and implement immediately.  

Marketing to Inboxes: 5-Step Plan to Effective Email Campaigns

December 2 @ 1:00pm - Higher Ed Experts

This is similar to the AMA presentation, but a bit more focused on helping those who already have an email program in place improve on what they already all.

Comment, email me or IM me and let me know what you want me to talk about within the presentation topics and I'll do my best to accommodate.   

Fast Tip Friday: Being easy to work with can go a long way

I woke up this morning to an email that said the two-person department made up of my boss and I were the easiest to work with at Dartmouth.  What a great compliment!  It's not because we automatically say yes to everything or allow ourselves to be walked on.  Rather I think it's because we listen to what people want/need and we do our best to fulfill that need.  This applies especially to the little stuff.  Don't dismiss requests as unimportant and never say "no".  Instead, give alternatives.     

This seems like something that wouldn't need to be commented on, but in the six years I've worked in higher education I've found that more often than not, people like to make things difficult just to prove they are "in charge" of something.  Then they find themselves excluded and complain about it.  It's unnecessary.  If you're laid back and easy to work with, then people will want to include you.  If you're not, then they'll try to work around you.  It's as simple as that.

My "prospective Dartmouth student" experience.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and I didn't really have a lot going on in the office (plus my boss had been bugging me to do a campus tour) so I got my butt down to campus and played prospective student at Dartmouth for a day.  

The first stop was an info session in the admissions office, given by their senior assistant director of admissions.  The first thing that struck me was the complete lack of photography in the admissions offices - I've seen some great, dramatic and powerful photos taken by the school's photographer but the walls were completely bare.  I thought that was odd - an admissions visit is just as much about selling the school to the students as it is the students selling themselves to the school.  If not photography then put something up to make the room a bit warmer and more inviting.

The information session I was in was great.  It was probably the most unique way I've ever seen a school do it.  The presenter talked a little bit about why all admissions visits at all colleges seemed the same and then just opened the floor up to questions about anything - Dartmouth specifically or just generally applying to college.  She acknowledged that Dartmouth wasn't a perfect place.  The whole thing just came across as really authentic - it was about helping the students and their families instead of selling the school with a boring presentation that is the same as every other school out there.    

She gave KILLER advice on the essay - having read about 9 billion essays during my time as an admissions officer I was totally with her: Get a copy of the application and your high school transcript.  Then get a piece of paper and make two columns on it.  In the first column, write down all the things your admissions person is going to know about you based on your application and high school transcript (for example, you played soccer for four years, captain of the team, youth coach in the summer, etc...).  You'll find that an admissions person will know very little about you from that information.

In the second column, write a list of reasonable assumptions the admissions person can make about you based on the information in the first column.  So in the soccer example, you can assume the kid has persevered, has leadership experience, has learned all sorts of valuable lessons from playing sports, etc...

Now, based on the information they already have on you in those two columns, figure out an essay topic that makes you a real, three dimensional person.  The kid in the soccer example is probably going to write his essay about soccer and all the valuable lessons he's learned...but the admissions officer already knows that.  It doesn't give them any more information than they already had to really make the case for why a school should except you.  A real person is much harder to deny.   

Another thing I liked is that Dartmouth actually requires a peer evaluation on their application. Most schools require a guidance counselor recommendation (and they're usually just a form letter and boring) and a teaching recommendation but a peer evaluation allows them a different perspective on a student - one from someone who knows them well and is not in a position of authority.  I thought that was a great idea and probably much more interesting to read than the usual letters.

So then I moved on to the tour.  I'll be honest - the tour didn't really do much for me.  I've only been to campus a few times and had already seen everything they showed us so walking around and seeing the outsides of the buildings yet again really wasn't that helpful.  Plus the tour guides annoyed me with their presentation style - you could tell they were friends and they spent most of the time talking to each other ("You really do that?!  Oh my God!") instead of to the audience.  I also thought they came across as a bit fake - like they had really been trained about what to say and what not to say.  I felt like I left it with no additional information than when I started it, aside from places to get free food on campus.  Maybe the prospective students ate it up though?  I'm not sure.  

All in all, it was good, but a bit anti-climatic after the killer info session but still better than I've seen other schools do it.  Plus I got to be outside on a nice day instead of stuck in the office, so really I can't complain :-)

Empower Yourself

Everyone complains about the slowness of higher education and one of the most common excuses I hear is that people don't feel empowered to make decisions and take actions.

Let me ask you this: Has anyone specifically told you that you CAN'T make decisions and that you CAN'T take action?  If they have, I would consider looking for a job at a place where you're a trusted and respected employee.  If they haven't, then stop making excuses and empower yourself.  Start making decisions.  Start DOING things instead of talking about them on your blog.

What's the worst that can happen?  Is the sky going to fall?  Is it going to be the downfall of your institution? Sure, you might catch hell for it but that's about the worst of it.  But if you do, take responsibility.  Stand up and say "Yes, I did it, this is the reason I did it and I would do it again in a heartbeat!"  No one is going to be right all the time.  I'm far more impressed when people fall down hard but had built a good basis to be able to stick by their work than people who have great ideas but don't have the balls to try them.  

There are all sorts of day-to-day things that don't need to be run by committee and that you are the best person (with the most expertise) to be making decisions about them.  Just do it and deal with the consequences later.  I think most of the time, you'll find that it'll really be OK.

Fast Tip Friday: Google Analytics URL Builder

If you are using Google Analytics on your website, it's also helpful to instrument outside links with campaign URLs to better track referrals and purchases.  We use these campaign URLs on all of our email campaigns as a secondary form of tracking since they allow us to know which customers made gifts after clicking on a link in the email and how much their gift was for.  We also use them for unique URLs in print pieces, by creating a short URL and redirecting it through the GA tracking code.  Use their handy URL builder to create your links: 

Then, you can go into Google Analytics and find your results under Traffic Sources => Campaigns.  In this case, we are looking at the e-commerce screen. 

Using this method will give you much more data to work with when you do your eventual ROI calculations. 

The Internets isn't just something the kids use...you can raise big bucks on it too!

The Chronicle of Philanthropy released its annual online fundraising statistics this week and I'm sure many old-school fundraisers (who think the Internets is just something the kids use) were surprised at the results.  

One article discussed the findings of the Defenders of Wildlife that email communications to donors can lead to larger online (and offline) gifts: 

• Donors who contributed through traditional means (mail, phone) and who did not receive email communications gave an average of $40.
  
• Donors who contributed through traditional means but did receive email communications gave an average of $59. 
  
• Donors who gave exclusively online made average gifts of $65-$70
  
• Donors who gave both online and offline made average gifts of $105-$110.  These donors were also the most likely to make repeat donations. 
  

The organization also found (not surprisingly) that people are much more likely to give more if they receive an e-mail appeal right before or right after a print appeal, though the follow-up was more likely to have a bigger effect. 

In the same issue was another article discussing donors who make larger gifts online.  Increasingly (and I think in no small part because of the Wired Wealthy report, released back in March), non-profits are becoming open to the idea that it's OK to ask donors to make large gifts online.  Though some experts say this is most effective for donors who will make gifts of up to $10,000, there are organizations out there who have reported receiving gifts of over $200,000 online.  This means you have to make sure that you are capable of accepting large gifts - we had an incident a few months back where a donor tried to make a gift over $50,000 online, but our system wouldn't let him!  We don't traditionally court donors with asks of over $25,000 online, I don't think it occurred to anyone to make sure we could accept large gifts.  This has since been fixed (pushed up to $150,000, which is the limit of the bank) and I believe since then we've received another large gift ($83,000 if my memory serves).  Not too shabby, but I have to wonder what would happen if we started actually ASKING people to make larger gifts online!  

Key Takeaways: 

1. Email leads to larger gifts, online and off
2. People will give you large chunks of change online if you ask them
3. Make sure your systems are set up to take large gifts, whether you are asking for them or not.  You don't want to lose out on $100,000 because your website can't process the credit card. 

Ode To Twitter

In honor of my 1000th Tweet, an Ode to Twitter.  (Ok...yeah...it's really not that clever, I know.) 

Twitter, my world hasn't quite been the same since your birth

140 characters to articulate my random thoughts to all corners of the Earth

Twitter, oh Twitter, you are so very cool

you let me hear the wisdom of gurus like Kathy Sierra, John Maeda and Jared Spool. 

though there are some that i'd rather hit

like CSS guru Christopher Schmitt 

it's oh so terrible that you can't figure out a way to get paid

but at least @jetblue will let me know if my flight is delayed

off in the distance, we can see large banner ads lurk

still, (unless you fail) you allow me break up my day at work

they say no one's figured out how to use you as a marketing tool

I disagree...@amazondeals gives me discounts on all that is cool

@barackobama tells us where the next President will be a guest

plus, as a bonus, we can rip apart Sarah Lacy for that lame ass interview at SXSW

but most of all twitter, i love the conversations you allow to take place

all sorts of people with different experiences to showcase

the occasional debate with @brianwmniles or @bradjward

direct messages from @debrouillard to get me fired up make me feel so adored

from anticipating the next smartass remark from @tsand

or @tonydunn announcing a new Tales From Redesignland

to @wnalyd antagonizing me with the latest news about "email's death" being to blame

and random updates from the original doteduguru, @kylejames

and to all the others whose name I didn't say

when I chat with you all on twitter, you make my day

and so Twitter, on the day of my 1000th post, I salute you

on the 10,000th post, maybe i'll get a Twitter tattoo :-)

What Web 2.0 means to me

Generally speaking, I recoil when the term Web 2.0 is brought up in conversation.  It's a sham term that is generally applicable in every possible situation involving the Internet.  Honestly, if you look at definitions of Web 2.0 out there (and had no experience with the Internet prior to 2004), you'd think things like design, usability and standards just weren't important before Web 2.0 came along to tell us that they were.  

So for me, when I think about Web 2.0, I view it more in terms of a new kind of marketing philosophy. The web has obviously evolved from a medium primarily to gather information to one where people can actually "do stuff".  This has opened the door to new kinds of messaging that weren't available before. 

Push versus pull: There are a lot of definitions of push and pull marketing out there (mostly having to do with tangible products that require distribution channels and such) but when I think of these terms, I think of direct marketing versus stewarding brand loyalty.  In this case, direct marketing is primarily email.  It's an active approach - you're pushing a message out there directly to your users and asking them to do something.  Conversely, I view things like blogs, forums or social networking primarily as pull marketing - you're putting stuff out there but the onus is on the user to visit your blog or participate in your forum/social network.  If you've done a good job of creating brand loyalty, you won't have any problem with finding interested users to participate - but they will typically only be the ones that are super psyched about what you're offering instead of just your run-of-the-mill customer.  It is important to do both types to keep users engaged at the level that they want to be. 

The different between mass messaging and individual message: The days of sending out a message directed at a mass audience are over.  It's the difference between "Dear Sir or Madam" and "Dear {FirstName}".  Users expect you to know who they are and how they've interacted with you before.  Each message you send out should create value on an individual level for each and every person. 

Be authentic: People are thirsty for companies to be real (no spin!) and transparent.  They have a world full of information at their fingertips now so they can check the official company line against all of the unofficial information floating around.  Now, this one is tough.  I get it - when people have a mirror held up to them and they don't like what they see, they tend to blame the person holding up the mirror instead of themselves.  Nonetheless, straight shooting with your customers will build their trust in you and create some deep brand loyalty. 

Let go of control: If you want engagement with your product online, you have to be prepared for the fact that not all the comments are going to be glowing and fluffy.  People are going to say things you don't like, but you have to refrain from trying to control or censor it.  That will only blow up in your face.  The last school I worked at actually had rules against students saying negative things about the institution, and towards the end of my time there, tried to enforce them against online speech.  How do you think that went over?  I'll give you a hint - pretty soon a Facebook group popped up calling for the president's resignation and it had a ton of pretty active, engaged users.  Oops!  Instead of trying to censor, engage your users and show them that you care and are listening to their concerns.  Better yet, show them that you are doing something to fix their problems.  Their feedback is like a constant (and free!) focus group for you to pull information from.  Utilize it for all it's worth!  

Fast Tip Friday: Be Consistent

It never ceases to amaze me how many emails I get with "monthly" or "weekly" in the title which don't actually come out on a monthly or weekly basis.  Someone is too busy, they don't have the content for it...pick your excuse.  Users will notice if you say you are sending regularly but really don't: "What do you mean weekly?  I didn't get anything from you last week!" 

If you know you're going to have trouble being consistent, play off of that in the email - "the every once in a while newsletter" or the "sometimes monthly update".  There's nothing wrong with that - it manages the expectations of your users by letting them know that if you have something to say, you will. 

Getting Real Recruiting Results with Interactive Technologies (eduWeb 2007)

I was surfing the web looking for a something I wrote for my MBA and randomly came across the PowerPoint slides for the presentation I did at eduWeb in 2007 titled Getting Real Recruiting Results with Interactive Technologies.  I still think a lot of the points are very relevant to admissions offices so I thought I would throw them up here in case someone found it useful.

Getting Real Recruiting Results with Interactive Technologies

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

I believe in Santa Claus

Nothing drives me crazier than the "I believe" argument.  

"I believe email is dead"

"I believe you shouldn't email people on Fridays"

"I believe that teenagers will respond better over social networks"

Well I believe in Santa Claus.  Does that make it so?  I have no verifiable evidence to back up my assertion (and, in fact, there are mountains of evidence against it) but that doesn't matter.  I've made a pronunciation about my belief in Santa Claus on a blog and people will buy it. 

"But Karlyn, that's CRAZY!  Obviously Santa Claus isn't real!"  

But is it really that crazy?  None of the above pronunciations are any more real than Santa Claus, yet they've been made and people eat them up!  No statistics are offered to prove them and, when they are requested, never given.  

If you call yourself a marketer, you have to do all the steps - not just execute the tactics.  How do you know if what you did actually worked?  Stats are important and can oftentimes be very surprising.  We all carry around pre-conceived notions of what we think works but we can't be so pompous as to close our minds to the reality of what the statistics tell use work.  An honest look at the numbers always reveals the truth.  It's just not sexy, so most people skip it altogether.   

So I beg you: Never believe a pronunciation you hear someone make until you've tested it for yourself.  A helpful guide it may be, and if it works great.  But do your own research and figure out for yourself what will work.  Don't be afraid to try something that 90% of the people out there say will be a failure.  Never assume something was successful or unsuccessful because you hear anecdotal evidence - there are always ways to measure quantifiably.  All any of us speak from is our own experience and your experience with your audience may be completely different.

And never get in a discussion with me where you say "I believe" without giving stats.  It just doesn't fly :-) 

Fast Tip Friday: Exclamation points do not make things more exciting.

I've decided to add a new weekly feature.  Since we all have the attention span of 5-year-olds on Fridays in anticipation of the weekend, I've decided use it as a time to write short posts about a topic that can be digested in a minute or less.

The first topic: Exclamation points

You can always tell when a person is inexperienced in writing marketing copy based on the amount of exclamations points they use.  They rely on them, instead of words, to make boring copy more exciting.

Repeat after me: An exclamation point at the end of a sentence does not make that sentence exciting if the copy is boring.  Two or three exclamation points just make you look silly.  To avoid the appearance of being an immature writer, follow these simple rules: 

1. Limit your copy to one exclamation point per page
   
2. NEVER use multiple exclamation points
   
3. Proofread, proofread, proofread - really ask yourself why you selected the exclamation point in the first place and what you're trying to convey.
   

Happy Friday!

Failures can be more interesting than successes

I was talking to my boss about blogging last week and she suggested that I include posts about failures in here.  Everyone has failures so I'm not ashamed of admitting mine.  It's about reflecting on them and learning what you can.  So here goes: 

Two years ago I put together a strategy for the last school I worked at to include video on our website.  The original point was that it would be shot by current students and be really true to their experience.  It was purposefully going to have an amateurish quality to it, since I think that adds authenticity.  I got approved to get a ton of video equipment, final cut and an iMac but it took a while to get it ordered and delivered so I didn't actually get my hands until Spring 2007.  I had been toying with the idea of having a student do a video blog for a while and I recruited a kid that I had known for years to be my guinea pig.  He shot video for about a month and then came to ask if he could take the camera on his trip to London.  I said sure, not seeing any real downside to the situation.  Unfortunately said student thought it would be a good idea to ignore signs at Westminster Abbey that warned him against any photographic devices and had all of his tapes confiscated.  He lost everything.  

So Summer comes and I had nothing to work with.  Plus there were very few students on campus at this point so really there was nothing to shoot.  But I was lucky to have a very industrious student interning for me named Geoff Ankuda.  Now hear this: if you ever get the opportunity to hire Geoff, do it.  Even as a student, I viewed (and treated) him like a professional and he lived up to every expectation I had. 

I gave Geoff a lot of freedom that summer to work on projects he wanted to and one of them was video.  The college had a great summer program for high school students that recruited a lot of students for the school so Geoff decided to take on shooting video of the camp and edit it as one of his projects.  I was thrilled.  Not only would this be great recruiting material for the camp, but it would also be great for former campers to really show pride on their social networking profiles about what they had done over the summer by posting the videos (we were just going to use Google video to host the files).

Geoff spent weeks laboring over this - when the summer camp was running, he was out there every day shooting.  In between, he was sitting in my office editing.  He ended up creating dozens of short video clips about this camp, which not only included some of the interesting activities they did but also really candid interviews with the campers.  The end product was exactly what I had envisioned it being.

But I wasn't the one who had final approval on it.  The people running the camp did.  And they didn't like it. It was a bit too real it seemed, and lacked the sort of marketing fluff and dramatic music in the background that are typical of recruiting materials.  So well I put it up on Google video anyway (where I'm positive you can find it to this day), it never made its way to the main site like I had originally intended.  Both Geoff and I were disappointed.  I felt terrible that he had put so much work into something only to be told no.  While it's a harsh reality that you have to deal with in the real world, I was hoping to shield him from that while he was a student and still gaining confidence in his abilities.  

This project for me was like a comedy of errors and there were definitely times throughout it when I looked up to the sky and, with my palms turned out, said "why????"  Every time something started to go right, something else would happen that would blow everything off track.  By the time I left this school in the fall, we had used some video on the site, but were certainly not at the level I had hoped for.  

What did I learn and what would I do differently: 

1. Manage expectations.  I think the primary reason the video never got used was the fact that people didn't really understand what YouTube style video meant.  They thought it was going to be professional quality recruiting style video, when that was never the point.  Next time I would make sure everyone understood and had viewed and approved an example of the type of video I was talking about.
   
2. Set ground rules.  I'm known to be pretty lax with student workers.  I think if you trust them (and play a major Catholic guilt trip on them), they will usually rise to the occasion.  In the name of authenticity, I basically gave a student a video camera and said "don't break it and don't film anything that could get you expelled or arrested....go!"  It never occurred to me that the student would lose a month's worth of footage by bringing it somewhere he shouldn't.  If I ever do this again, I am definitely going to come up with a few common sense guidelines.
3. Time management.  I'll be the first to say it - I am HORRIBLE when it comes to taking way too much stuff on.  I know it sounds like one of those fake answers you give when you're interviewing and they ask what you're weakness is, but its true.  Looking back, this video thing was huge and I just didn't have time (along with everything else going on) to deal with it.  I also didn't want to stand up to my former employers and tell them that, because it just wasn't something that was done in the culture of that office.  I wanted to be able to do it all...and that's good...you want employees that are excited about their jobs and have high goals...but sometimes you just can't achieve it all. 
4. Some things are just out of your control.  Well it's important to reflect on the things you could have done differently, its also important to say that some things are just out of your control.  I couldn't control the fact that the director of this camp has a vendetta against Geoff for not being a cadet at the school and therefore wasn't inclined to use something he produced.  I couldn't control that they decided showing students use a wooden (fake) knife in survival training was just too scary a scene for prospects and parents when they didn't have a problem with us filming it in the first place.  You're always going to have things in a project that you just have no control of mitigating and for your own sanity, its important to acknowledge them.   

Have you had any projects that were colossal failures?  Share them in the comments, along with what you learned!

IE6 margin fix

You'd never guess it from some of the posts in this blog, but in addition to marketing, I do actually build websites ;-)

I was finishing up a project yesterday and (predictably) when I went to test in IE6, it was all fouled up.  Here's how it looked in Safari and FF: 

And here is how it looked in IE6: 

Basically, IE6 has decided it wants to double the margin on the floating sidebar I have on the right.  So I did some research and found a super-easy method to fix this: add "display: inline" to the floating element.  

Magically, it works!

Just thought I would share in case anyone else found this useful :-)

Look mom! I'm a .eduGuru!

Last week, Kyle announced a new format for .eduGuru by making it a multi-author site.  I'm thrilled to be one of the two new authors, along with Michael Fienen.  Most of you know that I'm a huge fan of Kyle's - I think he puts out some of the best blogs out there, and he does it on subjects that are sexy enough to be tackled by other bloggers.  He's got a great new direction for the blog and I really can't wait to see where it goes. 

Read my first post: New Standards for Email Subject Lines »

But fear not, faithful readers - just because I'm blogging at .eduGuru now does not mean that this blog is going anywhere.  If anything, I'm looking at this as an opportunity to focus and refine the content of this blog.  I'll be the first to say it: Most of the time I don't put a heck of a lot of advanced planning into what I write on here.  I have an idea or I'm working on a project and I just feel like writing a blog, so I do.  I think sometimes they come out pretty good and sometimes they come out "ehhhh", but I also like the quality of posts that are too edited and thought out.  I suppose its the difference between formal marketing fluff and being authentic.  I suppose this is just a long-winded way of saying that though the style will stay the same, the subject matter will be a bit more planned out.  

I'm sure if you're reading this blog, you've already found Kyle's but on the off-chance that you haven't, go add it to your RSS feeds immediately.  He and Michael are quality and worth well worth you time reading!  

Pop Quiz: What went wrong with this An Event Apart email?

So why did mailscanner tag it?  How could it have been avoided?  Leave your answer in the comments!

Marketing is marketing is marketing is marketing

Higher ed likes to split things into neat little groups.  These people over here do admissions.  The ones over there deal with alumni. That third group way over in the corner deal with current students.  Oftentimes its portrayed like there's no overlap.  But really, for any of these groups the same base marketing principles apply.

1. You have an audience
   
2. You have a message
   
3. You want your message to persuade your audience to take a call to action
4. You want your message to be continually compelling enough to keep your audience loyal.

Any time you send a message to your audience with the intent to get them to take an action, you're marketing.  Period.  

One of the best books I've read in a while was forced upon me by my boss recently (Ok, forced upon is a bit strong...I was psyched to read it): How to Become a Marketing Superstar by Jeffrey Fox. Fox would say that marketing is defined as getting and keeping customers and that ever action a marketer takes should advance this singular goal.  Here are some other tidbits I picked up from this book.  My personal notes on how they apply back to higher ed are in purple after:

• The definition of marketing is simple.  The doing of marketing is hard.  (K: Everyone calls themselves a marketer - that doesn't mean they understand what marketing is or how to execute it)
• Who pays your salary?  A "customer" paying tuition or making a donation. (K: The sooner we start acknowledging that students and alumni are customers, the more efficient our schools will run) 
• The most important part of your business is the customer - everything is about them. (K: Dartmouth Development has three core values - one is donor-focus.  Apply this specifically to the web and you've got user-focus. Think about how that affects the choices you make)  
• If a marketing idea is important, every single detail in the execution of that idea is important. (K: Or, if marketing is important, you'll be proactive about planning your strategy/tactics)
• Smart marketing starts with smart segmentation.  (K: There's no easier thing to segment in the world than email...)
• If the difference is your selling point, then articulate the difference. (K: Lots of schools talk about great academics, a beautiful campus and a tight-knit community...how does that help you stand out?)
  
• Value is a number, not a superlative.  Attach a dollar value to your message to illustrate the benefit of your product. (K: How much more will you take in your lifetime because of the education we provided/will provide?)
• Even in a declining market, you can still attract and retain customers.  Set the bar high and reward people for achieving it.  Do not reward them if they didn't achieve it, even if there are extenuating circumstances.  (K: The reward is important.  If your staff meets the goal you set and you promised them a reward, don't renege.  It just creates poor morale.)
• Teaser ads are worthless. If an ad doesn't sell than ultimately it is a waste of money.  (K: teaser emails are also worthless - why send someone an email to tell them they will be getting something in the mail?) 
• People don't buy products.  They buy what they get from the product (K: think Kathy Sierra talks about helping your customers to kick ass)
• Always put the brand in the headline. (K: Or the subject line, as it were...)
• Selling to customers who WANT your product is better than selling to those who NEED it - those who need it often have to be educated as to why they need it and this costs time and money.  (K: Think about how this applies to prospective students...)

Experiment: List your job responsibilities and requirements

I had a conversation with a friend today that really solidified for me how ridiculous the expectations are in higher ed for people who work on or in conjunction with the web.  We are expected to know EVERYTHING, be really REALLY good at all of it and do it for exceptionally crappy salaries (for the most part...some schools have learned to pay).

I want to get a sense of just out of hand this has gotten, but I need your  help to do it.  Leave a comment listing your job requirements (how many years experience, degrees, etc...), the required skillset (HTML, CSS, PHP, writing, marketing, etc...I'm looking for the REAL DEAL of what your job requires, which may be different than the JD) and if you want to, a salary range.  If you don't feel comfortable posting a comment, shoot me an email at karlyn@karlynmorissette.com.

Thanks for your help!

   

6 Months

So today is the official 6 month anniversary of when I started this blog.  I'm going to follow Kyle's lead and do a bit of reflection.  Unlike Kyle, this was not my first foray into professional blogging.  Some of you know I ran a blog called Interactive Recruiting for a while.  The content was pretty much exactly like this one (except that it focused exclusively on emarketing in admissions) and it had a decent readership.  Then one day, it up and disappeared.  I refer to this as the day I dropped off the face of the earth. 

So what happened.  Some of you know this and some don't.  Long story short, I was yanked into my former boss's office one day and was told that if I wanted to keep that blog up (a blog I was maintaining on my own time and with my own resources) that they were going to require me to run every post through them so that they could edit it and sign off on it before it was posted.  They referred to this as "helping me" and said they could do it because "my job was my identity".  The real reason, of course, is that I'm opinionated as hell and they didn't want me to be (military school mentality - if you're not a sheep, you're asking for trouble).  Now, those who know me know that noting drives me more batty than censorship so I went home that night, had a few cocktails and up and deleted the thing.  I also decided that it was time for me to quit my job and honestly wasn't sure if I even wanted to be in higher ed anymore, the whole thing just left such a sour taste in my mouth.  I didn't tell anyone what was going on (except Matt because I had been scheduled to present with him at HighEdWebDev and needed to pull out).  I don't regret deleting the blog.  To me, taking an ethical stance is far more important than maintaining an online identity and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had allowed the "editing" to occur.  What I *d0* regret is not saving any of my posts from it so when I decided to start this one, I was starting over again from scratch.

So why do I tell this story - when I first started this blog about a few months later, I was scared as hell.  If you look back to earlier posts (and before I had my bio up or anything), you'll see that I never mentioned where I worked by name.  I really liked my new job (and still do!) but still hadn't quite adjusted to the fact that I wasn't working at a military school any longer and that it was now OK to have an opinion.  I didn't want to ruffle any feathers so my posts for the first few months were really quite innocuous.  Eventually, I calmed down.  My boss is amazingly supportive, even when she disagrees or doesn't understand something I've posted.  Instead of insisting that she should be allowed to edit my blog, we have a discussion about it.  We may not end up agreeing, but that's OK.  Now I feel completely comfortable coming on here and expressing a point of view, which I think makes the blog far more interesting than it was when I first started.     

What I've learned about blogging in the last 6 months: 

1. You need to blog for yourself - not for anyone else.  A blog is a labor of love in a lot of respects and if you're going to do it, you shouldn't even bend to the whim of what you think other people want you to write about.
2. Post often.  It's near impossible to post every day (I tried it for a while!) but you also can't let a month go by without a post if you actually want people to be engaged.
3. Respond to comments.  I'm always amazed when I go to blogs and the authors never respond to readers comments!  Why even start a blog if you don't want to have conversations?
4. People are going to disagree with you - and that's OK.  I actually had already learned this lesson from political blogging.  I joke a lot that I'm the "higher ed web bitch" so expressing further opinions that I know people are going to disagree with is easy.  I'm not threatened when people don't feel the same way I do about an issue, but a lot of people out there are. Still, if everyone agrees all the time, what's the point in talking in the first place?
5. For some people, content doesn't matter.  This was a new one for me and one I'm hoping to move beyond at this point - to some people, the content of what I say actually matters less than how long I've owned this domain name.  I'm not considered a reputable source of information until I've been around for 6 months.  Sad but true. 

My Favorite Blogs from the past 6 months

(in order of date they were posted)

• MIT Does it Right (this isn't really a substantive post, but it is a really fun game that you should all go play.)
  
• Email Basics
  
• Live blogging the Edward Tufte Seminar, Part 1 and Part 2
  
• Show Me The Money!!!!!
  
• The Wired Wealthy Report: Review and Takeaways
  
• Assigning Value to Determine ROI
  
• It's Your Job to be In The Know
  
• Building an admissions email marketing plan, part 1: The Five Commandments
  
• Integrating print, web and email
  
• Segmenting and integrating Facebook Social Ads
  
• An Event Apart, Day 1 and Day 2 and reflections
• Numbers mean nothing without context

And thanks to those who read :-)

I'm humbled by the people who read this blog and the feedback I get from you.  I always say that I do this for myself (and I do) but it truly makes it worthwhile to know that I've helped people to think about things in different ways.  Some people who blog consider themselves to be influencers or rock stars or whatever...I'm none of that.  I'm just a girl sitting in an office or at home on her couch hacking away at a computer and am amazed that people find my musings worthwhile enough to spend time reading.  I hope I can give you another 6 months worth of valuable material (and maybe even a bit more than that if I'm lucky!).

So thanks.  You rock my world :-)

Karlyn

Start with your goals. Then decide your medium.

You have to be impressed with this: I'm was a pig roast on Saturday, which means I've had one or two (or six) beers/fruity girly drinks/whatever by the time I got back to my friend's house and  log onto twitter to see this post by Christopher Schmitt.

And, even being as inebriated as I was, I started waxing philosophical to myself about work while the rest of my crew was watching Child's Play (and we'll ignore, for a moment, the fact that I'm logging onto twitter while I should have been having fun...yes, I know I have a problem).  Here is what I remember of my thoughts that night:  

The web is a marketing tool.  I think its easy to forget that.  You're either marketing yourself or something that you want to sell.  When people think marketing, they tend to jump right to the communications aspect of it, completely skipping over the parts where you plan (set goals) and evaluate (weigh your results against your original goals to determine if you were successful).  

The medium(s) you choose depend on what you want to achieve.  For some things, a blog alone may be perfectly appropriate for your goals.  Same with a website.  For some, a combination of the two is your best bet.  

• My website is a blog.  I don't need (or want) it to be any more to achieve my goal of having a place to write down my thoughts and share them with my community.  I've thought about doing a full-blown site but if I did, the content outside the blog would be superfluous at best.   My measure of success is that people comment, whether they agree or disagree.  If I get feedback of any form, I know I'm provoking thought. 

• If I was selling a product, I might think differently.  With a tangible product, you basically need to provide your customer a way to review the product and (more importantly) and easy way to make a purchase before they have time to second guess themselves.  That's your primary measure of success - a purchase. In this case, the blog could be a distraction from the customer making that purchase.  We could debate things like customer loyalty, building your brand, etc...but at the end of the day, your goal as a business is to show a profit. 

• A service is even more tricky, since it's the most intangible product you can sell.  Your measure of success is still a purchase, but in this case I think it takes a bit more for people to get there.  In this case, a website and a blog may be the most appropriate tools because you need a way to shape the service in the eyes of your customer, which blogging is great for. This is why blogs on higher ed sites are successful - they tell the story of your institution in a way that can illustrate outcomes. 

It's things like this that prove to me that twitter will not be the death of blogging, as some people  have predicted.  There are too many cases when you need more than 140 characters to expound on something. Easy answer: do both. But it gets a bit more tricky when you get into the intricacies of what you want your audience to do and, in those cases, 140 characters just won't do to explain it. 

Live Blogging: CASE Summer Institute session on Integrating Solicitation

Dartmouth is hosting the CASE Summer Institute on Educational Fundraising, so I had the opportunity to go to an elective session on Integrated Solicitation.  Here are my notes.

Quote by speaker: "this is not integrated marketing...this is integrating our solicitation approaches" (this statement scares me - are we not doing marketing with our solicitations?)

Integrated Marketing

• a combination of two or more forms of marketing used to sell a produce or service
  
• a management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, pr, and direction marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.
  

Evaluation of 3 primary outreach methods

Direct Mail: 

• advantages: least expensive, mass outreach potential, informative and creative medium, least invasive to prospect.  
  
• disadvantages: least personal, highly competitive, acquisition is expensive, upgrading is difficult.  

Phonathon

• advantages: still relativelsy inexpensive, more personal than mail, best for acquisition, good for upgrading
  
• disadvantages: can be expensive, negative perceptions of telemarketing, trends to consider.

E-communication

Advantages

• Instantaneous Response
• Mass Outreach with high personalization
• Invoke emotions with sound, visuals, etc...

Disadvantages

• Requires Investment in technology
• SPAM

Reasons for Integration

1. incorporates principles of generational marketing
   
2. maximizes results through coordinated efforts
   
3. reinforces your case for support
   
4. promotes teamwork - 'shared' goals
   
5. demands ongoing planning & evaluation
   
6. avoids negative perception of phonathon
   
7. effective management of resources
   
8. provides better service to your donors
   

Generational Marketing

• Civics: tend to be loyal, respect for authority, direct mail responsive
  
• Boomers: Tend to be non-conformist, like to be recognized, mail and phone responsive
  
• Gen X: Tend to be cynical, phone responsive (when reached), online responsive, poor direct mail response rates
  
• Gen Y: Too early to tell, technology competent, fixed phone numbers, online responsive, prefer IM over e-mail?

Examples of Integrated Strategies: 

• Establish a combined goal for your integrated marketing program to include phone, mail, e-marketing/online giving
  
• Back up important calling segments with broader direct mail appeals and eliminate the hassle, and the cost of "sorry we missed you" mailings.
  
• Promote your alumni website and acquire e-mail addresses through phonathon and direct mail.  Promote online payments on confirmation statements and online giving on direct mail reply cards. 
  
• Use e-communication to deliver timely messages about pledge fulfillment and to promote giving opportunities.  Always provide a link from your web stories and e-newsletter to the online giving page.
• Avoid the negative perception of your phoneathon caused by "don't let us interrupt your dinner" appeals in direct mail.
• Examples of integrated marketing to married alumni couples and young alumni. 

I'm not sure that most of this presentation what really about integrated marketing.  There were a lot of marketing tactics discussed....which is fine...but there was just a lot of talk about what other schools are doing rather than how to really plan to do integrated marketing.  I dunno...could have been better. 

Change happens in the room

I got into a pretty heated debate this week with Drew and Kyle.  They contend that, in order to improve efficiency, its better not to attend meetings unless absolutely necessary.  They say there are too many unnecessary meetings and that no one listens to them anyway so they are just going to cut them out altogether.  They'd rather be in their office working on things they can control.  

I couldn't disagree more.  Are there unnecessary meetings?  Yes.  Welcome to the world of rule by committee that is higher education.  But I'd rather be in the room at those seemingly unnecessary meetings than sitting back in my office flitting around.  Why?  

1. Brainstorming: How many times have you been in a meeting that has gone completely off-topic with an unplanned brainstorming session?  What if you aren't there to participate?  Then the web component gets completely lost in the conversation and people end up making decisions about strategy without any consultation whatsoever.  In the long run, missing meetings where this happens will actually cost you time, as you struggle to bring the web into alignment with everything else that was decided.  So much for efficiency!  


2. Big Picture: Cross-medium integration will NEVER happen if you excuse yourself from meetings about marketing strategies on mediums that aren't the web.  How was I able to integrate all of our latest challenge materials? Because I attend print communications meetings every monday morning.  At most of those meetings, I don't say more than two words.  I'm there to hear everything else that's going on.  As I've previously blogged, it's your job to be in the know. 


3. Out of sight, out of mind: Culture change takes a long time at any organization.  Want the web to be viewed as important?  Than it has to be visible.  And yes, people are going to laugh at you and not take you seriously but if you back down and lock yourself in your office, you've let them win.  

Still want to work on your efficiency?  Fine.  Bring your laptop with you to meetings.  If they are talking about something that doesn't apply to you, do other work.  I do it all the time.  But always keep one ear open.  So what's the worst that could happen?  You've done work, but at a different location than your office.  People may give you the evil eye for having a laptop at first, but if you're consistent about it they get over it and it becomes expected.  Besides, brining your laptop is really great if you need to show someone an example of a web page in order to make your point. 

Kyle says I sound self-righteous with this story, but I'm going to tell it anyway: When I first brought up the idea of using AIM for prospective students to my former bosses in 2003, I was literally laughed out of the room. How could I possibly know what I was talking about?  They knew better and they knew the phone was the only way to communicate.  But you guys know me - I like to run my mouth and I continued to do so for the next few years until they finally "got it" and put me in charge of one of the first full blown e-recruiting programs in the country.  Five years later, they'll deny it up and down if you ask them about it ("we were ALWAYS going to make this change....ALWAYS knew it was the right thing to do") but the only reason that change happened was because I was IN THE ROOM pushing the web.  If I had excused myself from those meetings because they weren't important, I'd still be a counselor.   

I'm not the only one that can tell a story like that. A few years before I got to the development office here, the general consensus among all involved was that the web wasn't going to raise a dime.  This year, the web systems set up before I got here processed in excess of $6 million. I'm sure that progress wasn't made by people who sat in their office and refused to attend seemingly unnecessary meetings.  

A lot of us talk about wanting to effect change in our organization but few of us will actually step up and put the work in to get it done.  Change doesn't come easily and it doesn't happen overnight.  Hell, even if it does come, you may not even get credit for being the catalyst!  But if you really want it, then do what it takes to get it done.  

Managing expectations through authentic marketing

I'm a very big book person.  I read a lot and spend a ridiculous amount of money on new books even though I live about 30 seconds away from a library (I'm the type of person that likes to make notes and highlights as I go...libraries tend to frown on that).  The closest large bookstore to me is a Borders so, of course, I'm in their rewards program.  So I get this email from them today that just threw me for a loop: 

So you mean the old Borders.com wasn't a real bookstore online?  And what about Amazon.com? Plus I was a bit annoyed at their email person for using an all image email, typically a no-no.  I've got them set to download images automatically, but what if I didn't?  I would have seen nothing of value when I opened this message.  

But still, the promise of a valuable coupon was offered and I took the bait.  Here's the website I was sent to: 

Ok, so 30% off is kind of ehhh...I get at least 20% off coupons from them on a weekly basis so that didn't totally wow me.  Free shipping...pretty typical of online bookstores.  Plus I'm still not any closer to finding what what makes the new borders.com a REAL bookstore.  So I click the button to take the tour: 

Alright, now I'm getting annoyed.  I still haven't seen the new bloody borders.com, nor have I been entered in any sweepstakes.  Plus on this page, there are things that LOOK like links that you can't actually click, which made it more confusing.  But I've come this far and decide to press on.

So I click the tour option and FINALLY find out what the new borders.com means: 

Apparently being a REAL online bookstore means that your books are displayed on a shelf that you can move up and down and side to side. Not in an easy-to-use grid format, but a "magic shelf" (yes, that's actually what they call it).  Maybe if I could take the book down off the shelf and flip through it like at an ACTUAL bookstore, that would have been something but alas it's just not nearly that cool.  I think I'll stick to going into the real store, thank you very much!

So what is my point with all this: Don't market something as finally being the "real" thing when its just a lame let down.Someone at Borders should have raised their hands and said "are we overselling this a bit too much?"  Colleges do this ALL THE TIME when they try to make their school look like the perfect place for every possible student out there.  It's not.  No school is.  Authentic marketing will help you to zone in on the students that are right for YOUR SCHOOL, which will help retention rates down the road.  Just because you say it on the web or in email does not give you free license to make stuff up!  People are going to find out eventually and they are going to be annoyed at best.  Sell them a false dream and they'll leave and go somewhere else, plain and simple.