Get ready for more work and greater stress — at least according to predictions by some of your colleagues who responded to the question, “What does the future hold for college recruiting?”

For his forthcoming book — Overthrowing Dead Culture: The Vision to Change the World of College Admissions — TargetX CEO Brian Niles is asking admissions officers and their presidents to contribute to Chapter 10: “The Future.”

Submissions so far have ranged from the increasing role of technology to the age-old appeal of storytelling, from the growing importance of the campus visit to the changing nature of graduate admissions.

But one of the major threads is how the difficult job of recruiting students is only going to get more demanding and time consuming.

“Admission professionals will devote an even greater percentage of time providing personal access to students and families,” predicts Barbara Elliott, VP for Enrollment Management at the University of the Arts. “More conversation, more authentic person-to-person touch points will be critical as technology and binary personalization become even more pervasive in daily life.”

The President of Allegany College agrees: “Students of tomorrow require information at their fingertips now,” writes Bruce Exstrom. “Instant communication is critical, and part of the communication is the personal touch.”

“Recruiting in the future must allow students to have a personal, individualized, authentic experience,” adds Wes Waggoner, Director of Freshman Admission at Texas Christian University. “The phrase ‘We’re closed on Saturday and Sunday’ No longer works in retail; and it’s not likely to last very long in the non-profit, educational industry either. To serve our students, we’ll be there whenever we need to be there.”

More demanding, yes, but also hugely rewarding. “The admission world will continue to be exciting,” writes Marianne Inman, President of Central Methodist University, “for the task of enrollment professionals is to find the best match between student and institutions. The diversity of colleges and universities and their mission to serve learners of all ages and interests is the basis for the strength and popularity of American higher education.”

You can add your own predictions — and see what others think:
www.targetx.com/odc

You can also download Chapter 2: “The Change”:
www.targetx.com/odc

You know how this time of year goes — before you can even put your Halloween costume away, department stores will be all decked-out for the holidays and radio stations will be spinning The Waitresses 24-7.*

But while the premature holiday push can be frustrating, it does remind us that the end of the year is coming on fast.

So today I’d like to remind you to start making plans for any special holiday campaigns you’d like to execute in the next few weeks — especially if they involve creative services.

I know it’s early, but you’ll need the time to brainstorm, refine your concepts and get the right people involved (before it’s too late).

Here are a few ideas to help kick your creativity into gear this season:

• Roll out a series of holiday-related questions on your Facebook page or private social network.  Think “What’s your favorite Thanksgiving side-dish and why?” “What are you grateful for this year?” or “What’s the best holiday song?”

• Consider a page on your school’s website or admissions microsite that details what’s happening on campus over the holidays.  Include dining hall menus, photos and/or video content (especially from the dorms) and a schedule of campus events.

• Create (or have us create) an html holiday email.  While I’m a huge advocate for simplicity, the holiday e-card is a nice chance to do something a bit more “festive.” Just keep it short and authentic to you!

• Try boosting engagement with a contest.  Topics like “Submit Your Favorite Thanksgiving Recipe” or “Holiday Photo Contest” can work well.

As with all campaigns, be sure you’re prioritizing storytelling and revealing your school’s traditions.  Remember the goal is to make it as easy as possible for prospects to imagine themselves as part of your community.

This year, create your plan for the holidays early and give yourself plenty of time to execute it.

Then you can relax and enjoy the parties and well-deserved treats (instead of being stuck in your office sending out emails;)

Adrienne

*P.S.  Don’t get the reference to “The Waitresses?”  Congrats — you’ve somehow been spared the cantankerous (yet highly contagious) ballad that is “Christmas Wrapping.”
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Don’t miss our “Xpert Roundtable” Webcast on November 13th.  Learn more and register at:
www.targetx.com/webcasts

Admissions counselor Daniel Creasy loves Facebook, Twitter and the other social media that make it possible for admitted students to feel like they’re part of Johns Hopkins University before they ever attend their first class.

“I hear from people all over campus that with every progressive year, the newest incoming class is the most together and connected group that has ever showed up,” he told the Baltimore Sun newspaper recently. “They’ve already known each other for months.”

But the great rush to use social media also raises questions about privacy and appropriate relations between administrators and students.

“Desperate applicants might attempt to improve their admissions chances by ‘friending’ counselors,” writes Sun reporter Childs Walker. “Conversely, counselors might use social media profiles to search for red flags on certain candidates or to assemble information for targeted recruiting pitches.”

The growing ethical questions surrounding higher ed’s use of social media have caught the attention of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).

“This territory is new and many administrators don’t know where to draw the line,” WOMMA noted in a recent issue of its newsletter. “Should you be using social media to get more applicants or should it be reserved for accepted students? Is it ethical to let admissions officers accept friend requests from potential students? Answers to these questions are rarely discussed. Social media is a new thing for these old institutions. Adjusting can be difficult.”

Given the enormous opportunities and accompanying challenges of using social media to recruit students, WOMMA is developing a Higher Learning Council to address the issues raised in the Baltimore Sun article.

If you would like to know more, WOMMA editor Pat McCarthy invites you to contact her at pat@womma.org

To read the Sun article, visit:
www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.socialmedia30sep30,0,5521473,full.story

We were recently asked by the folks at University Business to give them insight into the most common mistakes that we have been experiencing within the campus visit.  In this month issue of the magazine you can read the mistakes; then watch the video for more in-depth explanation of these mistakes.

If you’ve read Brian Niles’ recent post, you know he’s looking for help with writing the last chapter of our upcoming book, Overthrowing Dead Culture: The Vision to Change the World of College Admissions.

The chapter is called “The Future” and aims to use input from admissions officers to forecast the future of college admissions.

We’ve already received a number of submissions, and I’m floored by how great they are. Everything from storytelling and technology to the changing role of enrollment managers and faculty has contributed to the ongoing thread.

If you haven’t done so already, head over to the site and read about the future as seen through the eyes of your colleagues:
www.targetx.com/odc

I invite you to add your two cents as well if you’re moved to do so — we’d love to know what the future looks like from where you sit (metaphorically, of course — we already know about your ugly office and crappy computer;)

Many thanks to those of you who have already participated and shared your vision with all of us.

Don’t forget, if your entry is chosen for the book, we’ll be sending you a free copy so you can show off your publishing credit to the rest of campus (as if they need another example of your brilliance).

“Futurecasting” the world of college admissions is admittedly no easy feat. But I’m confident that with the help of smart folks like you, we have a pretty good shot at getting close.

Adrienne

P.S. You can read more about our book project and download Chapter 2 for free by visiting www.targetx.com/odc

• TargetX launches free video library. View past webcasts, Xpert video tips and video blogs. http://bit.ly/L1aLB #
• Free Download: Chapter 2 from the upcoming TargetX book, Overthrowing Dead Culture http://bit.ly/wb35f #

So let’s connect some experience economy dots and make them all relevant to your campus visit programs.

Disney to finally make their Disney Stores an “Experience”
Disney Stores have never really matched the Disney Magic. They’re just stores. Passive buying. Not an experience and not at reminescent of a Disney park.

As reported in the New York Times:

“The world does not need another place to sell Disney merchandise — this only works if it’s an experience,” said Jim Fielding, president of Disney Stores Worldwide. The company plans to unveil the new look in May in Southern California, Long Island and Madrid, and is close to signing a lease for that Times Square flagship.

Theaters will allow children to watch film clips of their own selection, participate in karaoke contests or chat live with Disney Channel stars via satellite. Computer chips embedded in packaging will activate hidden features. Walk by a “magic mirror” while holding a Princess tiara, for instance, and Cinderella might appear and say something to you.

It’s your birthday? With the push of a button, eight 13-foot-tall Lucite trees will crackle with video-projected fireworks and sound. There will be a scent component; if a clip from Disney’s coming “A Christmas Carol” is playing in the theater, the whole store might suddenly be made to smell like a Christmas tree.”

Disney will seek help from Steve Jobs and the folks at the Apple Store and spend about $1 million per store renovation.

Lesson: Welcome to the experience economy!
So many campus tours are like the old Disney Stores–They don’t represent the dynamic student experience. They’re just passive death marches of “look at our buildings.” Invest and reinvent your campus visit. The college experience is the ultimate in the experience economy but campus tours don’t incorporate experience economy principles and they should.

Speaking of Apple and it’s popular iPhone…
An entreprenueral student at Yale University has developed an app for the campus tour, uTourX, which will allow for student and student groups to create specific tours unique to their point of view.

As the Yale Daily News reports:

“Yale tour guides, beware: A new iPhone application is vying to take your place.”

“All the tour guides will have an incentive to tell people to buy their tour, because they will get a cut of the profit every time it is downloaded,” Uhlenhuth said.

Uhlenhuth said he hopes to eventually be able to provide a variety of tours for each school. He suggested the “ADPhi Drunken Stumble” and the “Whiffenpoofs Guide to Yale” as tours he’d like to see on campus.”

And tour guides should be aware. Prospective families are craving authenticity and real. They are visiting campuses to find out if it’s a good fit for them. And they’ll be happy to incorporate an iPhone App if it presents campuses from an honest student point of view(s).

Lesson one: Keep it real and authentic. Ditch the spin and the tightly scripted best buildings, grass is always green campus tour.
If you don’t stage a campus visit that is authentic and real your audience will find you ordinary and bland. Millennials cherish and celebrate imperfections and they want a school that is comfortable to do the same. If you don’t show your real school and answer questions honestly, your audience will go around you (think Campus Dirt, Rate My Professor and countless other online resources) to find it. And now “there’s an app for that” when it comes to the campus tour.

iPhones, smartphones and AR - Augmented Reality (soon to be part of the campus visit)
The future is mobile marketing. Countless companies are creating applications and mobile/location based programs that enhance the in-person, in-place experience. It’s called Augmented Reality or AR and basically it layers data on top of iPhone and other smartphones. Some techies predict that “Augmented reality is going to be huge. It might even be big as the web.”

Read more about it in Fast Company Magazine, High Ed Web Marketing Blog and the Adweek Mobile Marketing Guide. It’s going to change marketing and move it all towards location based. Which means more customization and personalization.

From the AdAge Mobile Marketing Guide:

“To understand why people are so excited, look at the impact other digital innovations have had. Search, for example, solved a big part of the “what” problem — helping you find what you’re looking for. And while search didn’t know much about our social filters, social networking came in and offered up a “who” filter. Now we’re looking at the “where.” And it’s the combination of these filters that have the potential to change consumer and marketer behavior.”

“Everybody’s got a website, but nobody has a mobile experience right now,” he said. “Next year, probably the end of next year, if you pull your phone out and you’re in the Hilton hotel and it doesn’t tell you information about the Hilton, either your phone is broken or the Hilton’s broken. If you, as a business, own a location, you’ve got an interesting shot at reaching your customer.”

Lesson: We all want what we want when we want it. Embrace the iPhone and other smart phones to help add customization and personalization to your campus visit experiences.
They are a great way to stage a robust self-guided tour or to enhance your main visit experience with elements of customization. After your information session and main tour, have computers where prospectives can download self-guided tours of things they are interested in; academics and extracurricular.  Start with simple Mp3 or iTunes downloads from computers in your admissions office and then expand to more robust AR using data, images, video and more.

1. Your campus visit should be an engaging experience.

2. You can enhance that experience with location based tools and AR.

3. But remember, no technology can replace honest human interaction and dialogue. It only enhances it. So that’s why your tour guides/ambassadors should be free to be themselves and free to be conversationalists not scripted tourbots.

It’s all about the experience!

A recent story in Time (September 21, 2009) shares ways colleges are cutting costs. Unfortunately, many colleges suffering from dramatic endowment declines (on average 23%) have taken to across-the-board budget cuts to deal with the situation.  Others have taken a much more strategic approach (applause, applause). And some have gotten very creative.

• Bryn Mawr College saved $900 by holding a virtual swim meet and thus cutting travel costs
• Dickinson College dropped it’s free laundry service (really, are colleges in the business to do laundry?) saving $150,000
• Carleton College saved $3,800 by not serving shrimp and wine and their annual faculty parties (wonder how much of a stir that caused)
• Pitzer College saved $80,000 by power-washing the sidewalks only once each year (I’m lucky to do mine once a decade)

Other colleges are cutting academic programs that are not profitable (in the non-profit sense of that word).  A few are either eliminating or not updating their landline phone systems (which I had the nerve to do that at my house).

Colleges are dealing with a difficult economic situation, but have a great opportunity to get rid of the waste they have built up over decades when they had no incentive to do so.  For college admissions offices, now is an excellent time to review what you’re doing that is no longer effective and put those funds into pursuing newer methods of recruiting.  Or maybe you can use those funds to beef up the pay of the woefully underpaid counselors or send them to an effective sales training program.

Marketers get so excited by flashy website tools that they often forget about the fundamentals, says interactive expert Linda Eskin. And that can be disastrous since a good user experience on your website can be as important as good customer service.

Dramatic changes may be fun, but it’s more critical that you step back now and then to look at the little things that make such a big difference for visitors to your site, says the user experience analyst for Red Door Interactive. Here are six guidelines for uncovering potential problems:

- Understand your audience. “One simple-yet-effective way to discover issues with your site is to occasionally take a fresh look at it from the point of view of your target audience. To do this, you need to consider who they are and what they need.”

- Listen to your audience. “Your prospects are probably already telling you where the problems on your site reside. So listen up. A caller might ask, ‘What’s your address? I’ve looked all over and there’s no map.’ Never mind if there actually is a map; the point is that your customers aren’t finding it.”

- Get the whole team involved. “Everyone on your team can and should contribute to making improvements. Let them know you value their contribution and give them an avenue by which they can share with you any issues they discover.”

- Review the content. “It is the easiest, fastest, cheapest element to fix, yet content is often taken for granted and overlooked. Get actual members of your target audience to use your site, while you watch. This is always fascinating, and often disheartening, as they ignore what you thought was such a clever feature.”

- Address credibility issues. “Be sure everything on your site reflects your stated commitments to quality, integrity and attention to detail. Assure your visitors that their personal information is secure and will be kept private. Include photos of your staff to help visitors make a connection. Typos, broken links and poor-quality images reveal carelessness and introduce doubts.”

- Test everything, often. “The simplest way to find problems is to go out and hunt them down. Pick a page, go over it in detail. Is it clear where the links go? Click them. Do they work? Does everything on the page load quickly? Can you get to the contact information? Some of the worst problems are easy to find, but many companies never go looking for them.”

Continually improving your site does not have to be an overwhelming all-or-nothing project, says Eskin. “Every small problem you fix is one less problem your customers will encounter. Don’t wait for the perfect time to get started. Begin now, even if it’s only a few small steps.”

To read the full article, visit:
www.imediaconnection.com/content/24797.asp