Enrollment – Full-Funnel Strategies

Differentiating college tours with branded merch A few years ago, my son and I went on a college tour during his freshman year. With my branded merch antenna up, I noticed that some attendees were getting a branded merch gift bag and others did not (we did not). This made me curious. When the tour started, the leader asked for all of the admitted students in the room to stand up to be recognized. All of the standing students had the gift bag. I had my answer and it was

Recently, the Magellan team hosted a roundtable webinar featuring professionals from three colleges: Catie Taylor from the University of Evansville, Carlos Cano from Stevens Institute of Technology (formerly from Georgian Court University), and Cory Gannon from the University of Pikeville, where we discussed branded merch enrollment strategies. Each shared how they’ve effectively integrated branded merch into their overall enrollment marketing plans. From the conversation, I had six key takeaways that I wanted to share.  Survey Your Constituencies – One of the points that was shared consistently was the importance of

Targeted Merch using CRM Data I was recently talking with a Director of Admissions about their mailed admit packs. The college gets wonderful feedback on what they send and know it is an important part of their recruitment campaign (they just enrolled their second largest class). Their admit pack makes an immediate impression and creates a memorable and fun way to let the student celebrate their acceptance. However, from the college’s data, their team knows the pack is sent to a percentage of students that they feel are very unlikely

The goal of collegiate recruitment marketing is to build affinity and share important information with the goal of the student committing to the college. There are numerous strategies used during this process to achieve this desired outcome. One of the most powerful ways to have impactful engagements is to create experiences that make students laugh, get excited and pull at their emotions. And unexpected experiences that do this are gold. Pets in Recruitment Marketing Through this lens, I strongly believe that integrating pets into recruitment marketing can be a powerful

For years, branded merch has been sidelined at NACAC sponsored college fairs as it was not allowed. One of the reasons I heard was that the organizers did not want attendees to be there to collect merch and not have as much interest in learning about colleges. So it was easier to just remove merch from the shows.  However, this year NACAC updated their exhibitor guidelines and now certain types of merch are approved. These items include pens, lanyards, keychains, small magnets, pennants and buttons. We are pleased that NACAC

As college admissions plan for the next class, it is a perfect time to step back and review marketing tactics. The goals of recruitment marketing include building affinity, creating emotional connections and influencing the decision. Physical interactions are a powerful way to accomplish this. Mailing in the Enrollment Cycle Trend: Branded Merch in the Physical Mailbox There has been a resurgence of marketing towards the physical mailbox as marketers are seeing higher ROI on direct mail than on digital and social. Consider that today’s consumer gets about two pieces of direct