Even in our electronic world, there are some recruiting efforts that need to be delivered by traditional mail. But students and their parents are just as overwhelmed with postal mail as they are by email, so how do you cut through the clutter to make sure your letter or invitation gets opened?

Here’s a suggestion that’s kind of old-fashioned. Actually, it may work as well as it does precisely because it is old fashioned. Direct response experts guarantee a higher open rate when you deliver your mail by hand — hand addressed, hand stamped, hand signed.

“We know,” say the editors of the Go-to-Market Strategies Resource Center. “In a world where technology reigns, the handwritten direct mail piece seems old fashioned at best…and a LOT of work at the least. But we ask you…when was the last time you threw away a direct mail piece that was hand addressed, handwritten and/or hand signed?”

Here’s why it works:
Read on…

This past Tuesday I was at Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio conducting tour guide training on rendering authenticity and storytelling. (That’s me standing by one of their admissions Minis.)

Yesterday I got an email from Pattie Skrha, BWC’s Director of Admission, telling me how the Chairman of BWC’s Board came to campus with a prospective student and shared with Pattie how “it was the best tour he ever had.” From Pattie’s email:

“Thought you’d love this random, too-good-to-be true story!

It just so happens that our board chair was on campus today, accompanying a prospective student from his home town. He went on tour with her. Upon his return, he came in to my office and said, “I just went on the best college tour I’ve ever had.”

His tour guide was Jarvis — a new tour guide.

When I asked why the tour was so great:
· Jarvis gave honest answers; you could tell he was not trying to “sell” the school.
· It was very real and personal; Jarvis told stories about how things on campus related to him.
· He did not walk backwards! (quote from the chair: “ I HATE when they walk backwards.”)
· There were three students on the tour, and Jarvis personalized the tour to each of them.
· Jarvis gave real college advice. When I probed as to what this meant, the chair said, “he told them to find the college that was the best fit for them. He hopes it will be Baldwin-Wallace, but if we’re not the right fit, that’s okay.”

While I’d like to take credit and think that the three hours of training and lunch made the difference for Jarvis and the other guides, BWC’s students are really bright and personable. And Admissions gives them the permission and guidance to be students — not scripted “tourbots.”

Last week I returned to Occidental College near Los Angeles for some follow-up campus visit work. Trent Gilbert, TargetX’s Experience Evaluator joined me. We were really impressed by three best practices:

1. Self-guided Tour and Literature Stand
Not all visitors come during office hours, so each evening, Joan in the Oxy admission office ensures that their literature and self-guided tour racks outside of the admission house entrance are filled (they bring materials in during hours, since they have different materials for their registered guests). Security also directs guests to these stands during off-hours. They told us that the materials are frequently taken and that guests follow up and plan admissions tours.

2. Admissions Guest Computers and printer
As a national liberal arts college, Oxy has a prospective student base from across the country. So they’ve put in two standing computer terminals for families to print boarding passes and check email.

3. Preprinted direction cards
They provide a number of preprinted direction cards to local hotels, restaurants, other colleges and airports. Trent and I even used the LAX one and it worked perfectly directing us back to the airport.

These are seemingly small details, but they make a big difference and show that Oxy cares about their visitor experience.

On Monday, July 13th at 1:00pm ET, we’ll be on air with Abby Laporte’s show, “Abby’s Road” - a live webcast and podcast chronicling Abby’s search for the right college and her life as a high school senior. We’ll be joined by other high school seniors to talk about their college search process as well. I encourage college admissions officers to listen in live at http://live.twit.tv

About Abby’s Road
Abby Laporte is a rising high school senior who lives in Petaluma, California (about 45 minutes north of San Francisco). I met Abby through her dad, Leo Laporte (see below). This summer he’s giving Abby the “keys” to his recording studio to develop her own podcast — and she’s calling it “Abby’s Road.”  Abby’s Road is intended to be a weekly documentary about her journey from high school to college and life as a high school senior — starting with her college search and continuing through her senior year and into enrollment at college.

About TWIT
Leo Laporte is a former TechTV and MSNBC guy who started his own podcast network a few years ago called TWIT (This Week In Tech - http://www.twit.tv). He does about 15 podcasts each week and the show has regularly been one of the most subscribed-to podcasts for years. He also does a weekend call-in show on XM Radio called “The Tech Guy.” I was in his studios a couple of weeks ago in Petaluma and was on one of his shows last year. He is a wonderful person and very knowledgeable about technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Laporte

• Join us online LIVE at 3pm ET for the Free-on-Friday Webcast and Chat http://www.targetx.com/live #

Trent Gilbert remembers walking into a restroom so small that he longed for the lavatory on the airplane that brought him to campus. Another restroom at another school had all the charm of a truck stop. And was just about as clean.

Time to remind admissions officers of the critical nature of first impressions, thought Gilbert, who evaluates campus-visitor experiences. So he launched a contest to honor the schools that “get it” — that understand one of the first things prospective families see is the inside of a bathroom.

“Mr. Gilbert’s encounters with worn toilets and closet-sized bathrooms led his company to start the TargetX Bowl, a competition to flush out America’s finest campus bathrooms,” reports Erica Hendry of the Chronicle of Higher education.
Read on…

Last week I delivered the keynote speech at the 2009 CIVSA (Collegiate Information Visitor Services Association) Conference in Boston. The host campus was Boston University, and their Yankee hospitality exceeded my expectations. And the program was chock-full of strong content and events.

2009 CIVSA Conference Attendees pose in front of The Castle at Boston University. (taken with my not so steady iPhone camera!)

Read on…

It’s common knowledge that to achieve different results, you have to make different decisions. And this year more than ever, clients have been coming to us to help jump-start that process.

Brian Niles has even joined many of you for staff retreats and other meetings to facilitate discussions about change and “rebooting your recruiting process.”

The results have been so positive that we’ve decided to offer his help with a special discount for clients — and there’s still time to make arrangements for this summer’s planning sessions or followup meetings.

We know change is hard and that throwing “business as usual” out the window can be intimidating to say the least. But as we’ve been known to say, higher ed has reached a tipping point — and these days it’s embrace change or get left behind.
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• Looking for college admissions directors that want to participate in a regular podcast documenting a high school student’s college search. #

The only thing more certain than death and taxes is the demise of Twitter and Facebook. It’s the nature of the Internet.

Like everything that has preceded them, Twitter and Facebook will be replaced by something else. The question that marketing strategist Steve Rubel gets all the time is, “What?”

“I can’t go to a meeting without being asked what will succeed Twitter or Facebook as the future king of community,” he writes in a recent issue of Advertising Age. And he has an answer.
Read on…