The Power of Choice: Revolutionizing Alumni Engagement Strategies

Engaging alumni, particularly those from the last decade, is a unique challenge for many institutions in the 21st century. This is a critical segment to develop affinity with, as they are the future supporters of your university. The sooner you can convert them into annual donors, the better! Branded merch stores and alumni engagement

We’ve seen traditional outreach methods falling short, but personalized approaches that offer meaningful interactions are consistently yielding better results.

Enter our innovative solution: branded merchandise choice stores.

Imagine adding merch choice to your next fundraising campaign. After making a donation on giving day, your donor is directed to an online store to select a thank-you item that resonates with them. Or, an alum visits the store to choose a welcome gift after joining your giving society. These merch items foster the excitement associated with college pride and bring your brand to a wider audience. 

Beyond the One-Size-Fits-All Approach

Traditional alumni appreciation often relies on standardized gifts that may miss the mark in creating genuine connection. Choice stores transform this experience by empowering alumni to select items that speak to their personal preferences. Whether it’s a quality water bottle, cozy blanket, or stylish beanie, giving a choice creates a deeper level of engagement for your next campaign. 

Consider how choice stores might enhance your existing alumni initiatives:

  • Offer merch selection to show appreciation for completing alumni surveys
  • Use choice stores to incentivize participation in mentorship programs
  • Create affinity-specific merch options that connect to an alumni’s undergraduate experience
  • Incorporate choice opportunities into your giving days as a donor appreciation strategy


Alumni are more likely to use and value items that they’ve selected themselves, keeping your institution top of mind. You can even track selection patterns to better understand alumni preferences, enabling more targeted outreach and smarter resource allocation.

 

Branded merch stores and alumni engagement

 

Proven Success in Higher Education

We’ve already seen positive results with Choice Stores when used in context to admissions. At Missouri S&T, implementing a choice store led to tangible ROI data that supported additional follow up touch points, a better understanding of a student’s affinity, and created an impactful touchpoint in the student journey. The stores we’ve implemented have demonstrated how the simple act of choice will create a powerful influence on your target market. Seeing the success within admissions, it was a no brainer that this concept will translate exceptionally well to our alumni and advancement partners!

Personalized interactions increase excitement and build stronger affinities. By incorporating choice stores into your engagement strategy, you’re not just distributing branded merchandise, you’re creating meaningful touchpoints that strengthen alumni bonds and drive participation. Branded merch stores and alumni engagement

How might your institution incorporate choice stores into your current alumni engagement and fundraising efforts? 

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

  • CRID (customer registration ID)
  • Non-Profit Authorization Number (with USPS, not their nonprofit number for the university)
  • Non-profit indicia
  • Return address that is on file with USPS for the non-profit authorization number
  • Permit number

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list:
  • Send your data in a spreadsheet, saving it in the comma-separated values (CSV) format
  • International addresses must be separated from domestic addresses
  • Domestic addresses should at least contain data fields for “first name”, “last name”, “address 1”, “address 2”, “city”, “state” and “ZIP code”