In today’s world of Amazon, eBay, and Groupon, consumers readily comparison shop online retailers to search for what they want at bargain prices. Meanwhile, those same customers are notified of additional items to purchase based on previous visits and transactions.

Shopping is now all about the personal experience.

Personalization is the e-commerce industry’s secret sauce to success and for good reason.  With customizable filters, online personal shoppers, live chatting, and autofill personal and financial information at checkout, customer experience speaks volumes when consumers are on the hunt for the best bets for their money.

It’s no different in higher education.  Students have an array of choices when it comes to deciding where they want to apply – whether a 2-year or 4-year, profit or non-profit, Ivy League or state, or technical or academic institution.

With all of these choices, how do you convince them that your institution is the right one?

In online education, specifically for non-traditional students, creating a personal experience takes on a whole new meaning.  Our students aren’t sitting in the dining hall on campus, they’re juggling a full-time job, family, and schoolwork at a Starbucks somewhere on the other side of the country.

So, how can we make them feel like part of our campus community?

One way to accomplish this is by reaching them where they are, online. Non-traditional students use various forms of communication to stay connected with their respected institutions.  Some like to text, while others like to tweet, and still others prefer good ol’ email.  So, why can’t we give them what they want?

To achieve a “win” online, you must provide the most personal experience possible.  How? Isn’t it feasible to let prospective and current students choose how they wish to receive communications from us?  Yes it is!

At The University of Southern Mississippi, we plan to do just that! By using our education CRM and another tool that aggregates communications, we intend to empower users to self-select how they communicate with us (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, text message, e-mail, LinkedIn). Moreover, we are also planning to personalize and offer convenient experiences by juxtaposing this initiative with Eagle Learning Online, our online learning network.  This will give our prospective students two-way communication channels that are accessible 24/7.

Video is another way to personalize student experience. By providing as much “face” time as possible with current students, faculty, and alumni, we produced recruitment videos for our programs and then embedded them into communications campaigns and social media. Our prospects now have the opportunity to dive into information from faculty and students who are actually completing their degree in a field they are interested in pursuing themselves.

Of course, social media plays a huge role in today’s personalization process.  Yet, with all the Facebook pages and Pinterest boards out there, how do you navigate the noise to create engaging, meaningful experiences that work with a non-traditional student’s schedule?

Social media contests have been around for a while now and why? Because they work, but only when they’re done right.  Before launching a contest, ask yourself:

• Does this contest make sense for my school?
• Is it aligned with our social media strategy and communications/marketing goals?
• How will it relate to my students?
• Does it offer value to them? How about the institution?
• Is it more than just about winning a free iPad or gift card?

A great example for us higher ed people (feel free to steal) is a “Tweet us a picture” contest. For instance, ask prospects and current students to tweet a photo of their favorite learning space or even a candid of their reaction when they first made it on the dean’s list. This example not only allows you to engage with students based on their interests but also delivers data on how your online students learn best.

Here are a few examples of successful social media contests from the corporate world:

• 5 Social Media Marketing Contests That Boosted Consumer Brands
• 8 Real-Life Examples of Engaging Pinterest Contests
• 6 Stellar Social Media Contests

Personalized communication plans allow you to provide non-traditional students with information that is pertinent to their specific program of interest, learning styles, and initiates discussions about campus services most relevant to them.  This can include: program specific scholarship information, financial aid, transcript reviews, degree and technology requirements, class schedules, campus resource lists, and a warm and fuzzy personal message from program faculty.  We at USM’s Eagle Learning Online like to think our tagline says it best when providing a personalized experience for non-traditional students, “Your Life, Plus College.”

Personalization, it’s all about the secret sauce.  Shh . . . it’s a secret!

This conference renewed my excitement and energy in the field of training and development and ASTD.  Training and development continues to be my passion, but my career has drifted away from this.  Having the opportunity to network and learn from other professionals in the field re sparked my passion and left me with my mind racing with ideas.  The conference had some awesome keynote speakers including Jim Smith, Jr., Lou Russell, and Heather Richetto-Rumley.  All three speakers gave interactive, amazing, and inspirational talks.  I also loved that the conference gave us so many opportunities to connect with others who share the same passion.

I recently was asked to write another guest blog post for Hobsons along with my colleague Amanda Cascio…

As universities and colleges continue to grow, the question of how to manage anticipated growth is always the pink elephant in the room. Enrollment increases often entail additional resources to ensure students receive sufficient support and quality services.  In our case, many students at Southern Miss needed additional provisions for online courses and access to other student services offered on campus, such as: the Writing Center, Speaking Center and the university libraries system.

Most know that additional resources are not so readily available. Consequently, this sometimes means using the resources you have more efficiently in order to sustain growth and institutional progress.

When developing marketing and recruitment plans (Here are 5 Helpful Hints to Prevent Unnecessary Communications Hiccups), it’s important to identify overall goals and to possess a clear vision for how to start your uphill climb.  Here are some things to consider before constructing your plan:

Keep your goals realistic. There is no better feeling than being able to check an item off your to-do list. By setting realistic and attainable goals, you will better serve your students, bringing promises made during the recruitment process to life.

Long-term goals are great to start, but short-term goals get the job done.  Long-term goals keep you planning ahead and focused on a holistic vision for success.  But, if your admissions and marketing teams only have long-term goals, delivery can quickly become overwhelming.

Divvy long-term goals into several short-term milestones.  For example, we created a 3-year marketing plan. By dividing our long-term goals into three years we streamlined efficiencies and made the entire plan seem more achievable.

Goals should be specific and measurable.   Keep in mind that effective recruitment plans are organized and easy to understand. Anyone from new employees to campus leadership should be able to grasp what your plan intends to do and what steps are necessary for successful implementation. Defining goals that are specific and measurable allows you to track progress, facilitates communication across enrollment and admissions teams, and creates well-informed stakeholders.

By applying these key concepts of goal development, your institution can positively impact organizational processes and strategic growth.  This will yield successful recruitment campaigns and provide students with powerful tools that can help them achieve post-secondary success.

Southern Miss To The Top!!!!!!!

*Photo by Peter Griffin licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.

How We Do CRM Implementation at Southern Miss

When thinking about how to effectively implement your customer relationship management (CRM) solution, it is important to review what your overall goals and objectives are for by asking these key questions: 

• What type of student body do we want to attract and create?
• How will implementation improve engagement and promote student success?
• How will CRM shape our current communication strategy?
• How will we analyze and measure the success of this implementation?

Lessons Learned: CRM Implementation 101

A mistake we made at The University of Southern Mississippi in our implementation was that we didn’t develop a comprehensive plan before moving forward.  This created issues when the number of our programs and prospective students grew faster than we could handle.

We also learned that it is just as important to consider your resources as it is your goals.  In theory, it’s nice to think it is possible to facilitate all the functionality within a CRM from the very beginning. Realistically, its best to give some preliminary thought into how this can be achieved.

A quick rule of thumb: it’s better to use a few functions within your CRM well rather than use all of the functions poorly. 

Your goals come into play here when trying to decide which functions are most appropriate to start off.  Begin by evaluating all of the functionality available within your CRM and line those functions up with your goals and objectives. Create a quick matrix like this one to get started.

The next step in your implementation process should be to develop a three to five year strategic plan to map out how you will achieve these goals and how functionality will be incorporated to do this.  Keep in mind that an effective strategic plan is a dynamic, living document open to collaboration.

Once you have your strategic plan in place, it is important to ensure that the CRM is making your processes more efficient, not just adding to your daily task list.  At Southern Miss, we use our CRM to manage the marketing and recruitment efforts for our fully online programs. Since 2009, our CRM use has grown tremendously.  We started with a single inquiry form for one program and have since grown to over thirty inquiry forms and thirty online programs.

Additionally, because of limited resources everything we do has to be scalable.  Using communication plans and workflow alerts, we have developed strategies that allow the CRM to work for us.

In short, having a CRM is a necessary tool when developing a successful marketing and recruitment strategy; just make sure you’re running the CRM and it’s not running you.

What have you learned from your higher education CRM implementation? What advice would you give to those preparing for implementation?

At the conference, along with my colleague Amanda Cascio, we gave a presentation on, “Driving Your Marketing to Increase Enrollment in Online Programs.”  We discussed creative marketing approaches we used to increase enrollment for our online programs, including marketing and recruitment as a new service, implementation of a customer relationship management tool (CRM), development of program specific marketing and recruitment plans, and establishing and promoting our brand.

On the first day of the conference, along with my colleagues Sheri Rawls and Cindy Handley, we presented with ConnectYard.  We have been using ConnectYard for about a year to enhance the communication within our online courses.  ConnectYard provides the ability to set up alternate communication channels within Blackboard so students and faculty can self-select how they would like to receive discussion postings and announcements from their courses. They can select channels such as Facebook, Twitter, cell phone text messaging, or e-mail.  Feedback from our students and faculty has been overwhelmingly positive.  They like the customization of the service and that it allows them to access their messages from anywhere on their mobile devices.  We are currently pursuing other use cases for ConnectYard, such as for marketing and recruitment for our online programs and university wide communications among departments and online students.  To view our presentation, see below.

Along with 3 of my colleagues, we gave a presentation on “Avoid Dead Air: What you Need to Know about Facilitating a Live Virtual Session.”  In our presentation we discussed tips for ensuring a successful and engaging experience. Presentation slides can be viewed below.