College Marketing: New Insights on Student and Parent Digital Communication Expectations
Have you seen the latest Noel-Levitz E-Expectations survey results? The results were very insightful. Here are three findings that surprised (and pleased) me:
1. Nearly all high school seniors and their parents will open an e-mail from a campus they are considering. As a former college recruitment marketing professional, I often wondered if the e-mails we carefully and strategically crafted each year had an impact. It appears students and parents do at least look at the e-mails, as long as the student is already considering your school.
This is good news and validates all the time and attention spent on crafting these e-mails. And it reinforces the importance of e-mail communication with students and parents who have not only inquired, but also who have applied and been accepted to your college.
2. Nearly 40 percent of high school seniors use Twitter. Just a couple of years ago, I heard much debate on college campuses on whether it was time for the recruitment offices to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. At the time, only a small number of teenagers were on Twitter, and at smaller colleges (with smaller communication and marketing staffs) they wanted to make sure they put their resources where they would reach the most potential students.
This new stat means that if your college isn’t on Twitter, now’s the time to jump in. And if the recruitment and admissions team isn’t involved in your college’s social media, now’s the time to get them into the fold.
3. More than half of students and parents are willing to receive text messages from campuses. As smartphones have become commonplace (90 percent of high school seniors and 80 percent of parents have access to a mobile device, according to the survey), it seems students and parents are becoming more receptive to receiving communication from colleges on their personal mobile devices.
This finding is contrary to a commonly held notion that teens think of their device as “their space” and don’t want colleges or marketers to infringe on that space by texting them. It appears texting is becoming a more widely accepted method for colleges to communicate with students. If your marketing team hasn’t yet considered incorporating texting as part of your recruitment communication flow, now may be the time to start exploring it.
Did anything surprise you in the Noel-Levitz survey? Leave a reply here or message me on Twitter @DanasCreative.
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About Dana’s Creative Services
Dana’s Creative Services is a writing and editing services company that helps businesses communicate better with their target audiences. Dana McCullough, owner of Dana’s Creative Services, writes and edits copy for brochures, newsletters, websites, blogs, magazines, and books. Her clients include universities, nonprofit organizations, magazine publishers, and book publishers nationwide. Dana has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and frequently writes and edits copy on higher education, genealogy/family history, health, and business topics.
Amazing Faculty Work and Personal Stories Create Impactful University Magazine Articles
When I was asked to write a couple of articles for the summer edition of Mount Mary Magazine, the magazine issue theme intrigued me: raising women’s voices. For the articles, I had the opportunity to speak with several Mount Mary University faculty about the work they and their students do to help give women a voice and to strengthen women’s voices in the community and the world.
What I found were amazing faculty! The faculty members had very personal stories that impacted the professional work they do, and the women that they teach.
- Dr. Kristen Roche, the MBA program director, witnessed early in her business career how gender may impact job titles given to employees with the same experience. She now is passionate about helping students learn to negotiate in the workplace for better pay, benefits, and jobs.
- Rachel Monaco-Wilcox, chair of the justice program, became a lawyer after being frustrated about the lack of help available for certain populations. Recently, she founded a free legal clinic, Legal Options for Trafficked and Underserved Survivors (LOTUS), to help human trafficking victims and other survivors of crime. She’s also revolutionizing justice education by focusing Mount Mary’s program on a survivor-informed perspective of justice.
- Dr. Jennifer Peterson, assistant professor of communication, discovered how misconceptions about AIDS and HIV impacted women and their voices during a research project in grad school. As a professor today, she teaches her students, particularly students studying health communication, to find a cause they are passionate about, as well as to ensure all people’s voices are present in conversations about health topics.
- Dr. Bruce Moon, chair of the Art Therapy Department, overcame his turbulent teenage years by engaging in art. He’s spent his career helping others cope with their feelings and life struggles through art therapy.
- Dr. Lynn Kapitan, director of the Professional Doctorate in Art Therapy program, began her career as a public school art teacher and ultimately become an art therapist. She travels to Nicaragua each year for community-based art therapy research, which helps women survivors of domestic abuse participate in projects to develop their voices and leadership skills.
To read more about these amazing professors’ stories and work, see my articles on pages 3 through 9 of the Mount Mary Magazine Summer 2014 edition.
About Dana’s Creative Services
Dana’s Creative Services is a writing and editing services company that helps businesses communicate better with their target audiences. Dana McCullough, owner of Dana’s Creative Services, writes and edits copy for brochures, newsletters, websites, blogs, magazines, and books. Her clients include universities, nonprofit organizations, magazine publishers, and book publishers nationwide. Dana has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and frequently writes and edits copy on higher education, genealogy/family history, health, and business topics. Twitter: @DanasCreative
Dana's Creative Services, Dana McCullough, Freelance Writer and Editor 