Kevin Lavelle
Coordinator of Web Services, Xavier University
Maggie Ridder
Director of e-Marketing, Xavier University
October 5
Project “Road to Xavier” is a recruitment campaign.
Cost, time, fixed content were the constraints.
Decided to move away from big budget because it wouldn’t have the best impact – timing and audience wasn’t ready.
Their real plan:
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3 print pieces
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landing pages
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events
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addition elements
Division of labor:
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Admissions
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Marketing
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Web services – tracking data fed back to Admissions
They had 8 key target programs and after brainstorming they came up with “I Am…” (role, service, )
Print pieces told a story. And they told what is the input component and what is the result.
Landing pages complemented the print page brand/content and were listed on the print pieces. This enabled easy stats of hits and emails.
Follow up emails of print.
Phoning: faculty calling students, student calling students
alums calling students
they each had guides
website with contact reports
weekly email bulletin
The result was 70% of students that attended an event enrolled. That was 20% of admitted enrolled at Xavier. Goal was 940 they got 1174.
Lessons:
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focus on growth potential and capacity
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collaboration and working together
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clear responsibilities, communication and regular meetings
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involving faculty and alumni
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keep the team small, working with limited dollar resources
Now what:
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strategic review of programs to highlight
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reuse existing profiles and media
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strong, focused events
The success of last year lead to more input from their team.
Road to Xavier is a portal like howdy.tamu.edu
They do a lot of their business there: housing, accounts, profile/directory information.