Chicago here I come!

Yesterday I was invited to speak at the American Marketing Association's Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. I'm psyched! This is one conference I've always been interested in but there was always something that kept me from attending it.

I'll be speaking on the subject of building an integrated email program from the ground up. It's all about practical advice from a 40,000 foot view. I really want people to be able to go home and IMPLEMENT something rather than contemplate their launch strategy from no one giving them a "how to" guide.

The Symposium is in Chicago from November 16-19. (As an aside, a few days after this I'll be running the Philadelphia Marathon...yes, I'm insane). Here is my abstract that was submitted for the call for papers. I hope to see you there!


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

Email marketing is not new to higher education. However, many colleges and universities have struggled to grasp its potential impact on the overall goals of the institution and have relegated it to a second-class status in relation to print communications. This session will seek to change that mindset and offer practical advice for the creation of an email marketing strategy or taking an existing program to the next level of effectiveness. It is based on my direct experience with implementing integrated email marketing strategies as the former Interactive Recruitment Manager at Norwich University Admissions and as the current Web Producer at Dartmouth College Development.

Justifying email as a valuable business component: Many senior administrators still view email as a throwaway: they’re fine with doing it as long as they don’t have to invest a lot of time or money in it because they don’t expect it to return results. This is an out-dated point of view, as email as proven to return a significant ROI to the organization that uses it wisely. Consider the following example from a recent fundraising challenge at Dartmouth: We sent out a number of email campaigns costing the College just over $1,100. Those emails directly resulted in over $129,000 worth of gifts (at an average of $158 per gift) to the institution. Using the AMA’s online ROI calculator, we calculated a return on investment of over 11,600 percent.

Selecting an external service provider: Having a quality email service provider is a vital component to a successful program. Sending email is not a task that a college should be taking on in-house, as external providers offer the benefits of advanced email creation features, spam testing and ensured deliverability. There are dozens of well-qualified providers out there at all price ranges and based on the ROI your campaigns will achieve through increased applications or donations, the cost is easily justifiable. In selecting a provider, make sure you have a solid requirements document in place that takes the following into consideration: list control, message creation, quality control, reporting, deliverability, pricing model and level of support from the provider.

Integrating email and print communications strategy: The key to success in email marketing is not to think of it as separate from your traditional marketing plan. Your email templates should be branded with the same imagery as the print pieces they are complimenting, use similar language and be timed to follow-up to your audience’s receipt of the mailing with an online call-to-action.

Segmenting, customizing and targeting for maximum effectiveness: To really take advantage email marketing, you must build your campaigns to appeal to your user on a personal basis, beyond “Dear FirstName”. This could mean segmenting your mailing and modifying each version slightly to appeal to the distinct audiences, timing the mailing to compliment a specific event or creating email templates with multiple customized fields. During this presidential election year, a great place to look for inspiration for a solid email strategy are emails sent from the different political campaigns, which will be covered in greater detail in the session.

Tracking results and managing expectations: Follow-up tracking provides a wealth of information that will allow you to fine tune future campaigns to your audience. You should be careful, however, not to expect the same results from all your audiences. For example:
• In admissions you can’t expect the same open, click through or conversion rates from your applicants as you can from juniors or seniors (that have not applied) in high school. They are at different stages and have different interest levels.
• In development, you will find different reactions by age. Older alums may open and click through at a higher rate, but are not as likely to make their gift online as they are to mail in a check. Younger classes are more likely to click through from a campaign and complete their gift on that visit to your website.