My car was 3,000 miles overdue for an oil change so I finally broke down and dropped it off at the mechanic this morning. While I was there, the manager of the service department reminded me of one of the cardinal rules: treat every customer you have like you know them. I've only been to this place a few times and I know damn well this guy didn't remember when I came in this morning...but he made me feel like he did. And it makes all the difference in the world in terms of how inclined I am to bring my car there again and again, even if they are more expensive than the place up the road.
It's helpful to start thinking of your audience as your customers. They may not be buying things from you like they do from the mall but its a sale nonetheless. Whether you are in admissions, development or anywhere in between, you are selling your audience on your institution being a worthwhile component of their life.
The easiest way to implement personalization into your web marketing plan is through email. I don't think colleges go far enough with customizing their email marketing to the direct needs of their customers. Once you have a template built, employing different techniques to segment your list and varying the message slightly to appeal more directly to the needs of your audience. I use to do a monthly admissions newsletter that was segmented into 21 different parts. Coming up soon, I'm going to be involved in the creation of a challenge email campaign that could have as many as 70 different parts. It's really not any more or less tedious or challenging than any other aspect of working on the web to create that many templates.
Also, colleges should go further with opt-in lists. Sure, we can consider a person to be "opted in" to our communications based on their relationship with the institution, but why not go one step further for people who have told you that they want to receive specific communications? For example, I posted an article earlier today about the wealthiest donors being interested in receiving electronic communications about how the organization has used of the money they've given. The highest end donors are telling you EXACTLY what they want and they are the most important audience out there to appeal to on a one-on-one basis. Giving them what they want reminds them that you know who they are and that you've listened to what they've told you.
2 comments:
I agree 100%. A great example of this can be seen in web forms for institutions.
Students complete inquiry forms or applications (most of which contain a number of seldom utilized fields). Then they want to register to attend an open house, and what do we do? We ask the same questions we asked on the inquiry form and the application as if we had never heard of the student before.
Sorry, it has been a pet peev of mine for the last couple months.
Same here. The argument I always heard back was "what if we've never heard of this student? we'll have to get their info to mail them an inquiry packet!"
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