Three Cues is a free electronic newsletter focusing on just three items each edition taken from GDA Integrated Services' College & University Environmental Scanning (CUES) and our GDAIS research. Unlike most higher education newsletters, Three CUES often looks beyond news about colleges and universities to review greater social and marketing trends. Produced several times during the academic year, Three CUES not only provides information, but also offers observations and recommendations concerning each topic. If you do not wish to receive subsequent issues of the Three CUES newsletter, please refer to the instructions at the bottom of this e-mail. Inside This Edition: Name Identification Increases Response to Admissions Materials What Bright Students Want To Hear The Medium and the Message A recent poll by GDA-Integrated Services of 400 college-bound students showed that three out of four were more likely to respond to unsolicited admissions materials from colleges or universities they "had heard of" than those whose names they did not recognize. How much more likely? Prior awareness of an institution made one in five "far more likely" and another 40% "more likely" to respond. Students who were more likely to respond if they'd heard of the college typically begin their searches in their junior years. They have received most of their information about colleges from materials mailed to their homes, as opposed to searching the internet or attending college fairs. When it comes to the format of information at the beginning of their searches, they say (55% vs. 34%) that paper is more useful than electronic (web, email). More than 7 out of 10 said that "known to have an excellent academic reputation" was extremely or very important in their decision to enroll. Observations and Recommendations Name identification is a cornerstone of effective marketing. It creates a predisposition for customers to be receptive to promotional messages. How, though, can a college or university ensure that its name is visible among the 1200 masters and baccalaureate institutions in the United States? Most colleges and universities recruit students in the same geographic areas where they have strong concentrations of alumni. Identifying and then targeting those cities as primary sources for new students is the most effective way of expanding enrollment. The easiest strategy is to use alumni zip codes to define geographic clusters and then to compare that data with the zip codes of known feeder schools. The areas of greatest overlap are prime markets. Areas where alumni concentrations exist, but feeder schools are few, suggest secondary markets. Concentrations of alumni provide institutions with a ready base for establishing the visibility needed to increase response rate to unsolicited student recruitment mailings. Alumni are eager to assist their alma maters. So too, but to a lesser degree, are parents of current students from those areas. Together they can provide a network that represents the institution at college nights, serves as a personal source of information for prospective parents, and opens doors to schools and news media that influence awareness and thus college selection. In generating visibility in targeted cities, alumni are a college's most important asset. Many colleges attempt to rely on advertising to generate visibility in targeted cities. Yet few institutions can sustain an advertising campaign over the months and months required to create and sustain broad awareness. Strategic communications are more effective and less expensive. Does your college send hometown news releases about student achievement (academic awards and honors, participation in campus organizations, the performing arts or college sports, etc.) to suburban community dailies and weeklies and to the parents and guidance offices of the high school from which the student graduated? If not, you should. Do your professors have expertise that sheds light on a major issue (education, economy, environment, or health) that affects the target city? If so, your PR office ought to make them available to dailies and other news media (television is limited by geography but radio -- particularly public radio -- is not) in your target cities. Are professors or is the president invited to speak at regional alumni gatherings? If so, interviews with media on key issues of importance to the area should be arranged. Note: It's nearly fatal to try to sell a reporter on meeting with a president for an "update" on a specific college or university. Stick with issues and trends. In the ensuing interview, the president will have a chance to talk about the school. Visibility is derived from clarity of message, consistency in presentation and perseverance. Too many institutions take a one-shot approach. Two to three years are required to build visibility in any given market, and once built, visibility must be sustained. Hence the rationale for identifying only three or four target cities and making a commitment to develop those markets over time. When it came to starting their college searches, prospective students with SATs above 600 are much more likely (44% vs. 15%) than those with SATs below 600 to initiate their searches themselves or to be motivated by their parents (31% vs. 0%). Further they were much more likely (36% vs. 25%) to say that their parents' advice was very useful in their decision to request information about a college or university. While most students initially select their list of potential colleges and universities because they offer a preferred major or academic program, bright students were less likely (36% vs 52%) than those with SATS below 600 to say that the fact that a college offered a major in which they were interested was an extremely important factor in their decision to respond to unsolicited recruiting mail. By similar margin (27% vs. 41%) they were less likely to consider "known to have an academic reputation" as an extremely important factor in motivating their response. What was important to them was knowing the criteria for admission and information about the kinds of students who graduated from the college. Bright students differ from others in a number of other ways: Print information is more useful than electronic (62% vs. 29%) in their searches Upon receipt of an unsolicited mailing, they are much more likely (56% vs. 27%) to complete and mail a reply card than go to a college's website for more information. Only one out of 10 said they'd request more information by e-mail. Six out of 10 had used an on-line selection program. Printed materials from a college were far more likely (42% vs. 7%) to increase interest. Observations and Recommendations Bright students are sophisticated consumers. Their parents were more likely to be college graduates and to have graduated from a private college or university. Because of their parents' educational experience, these students are less likely than those of lower SAT or GPA to select a college primarily on the basis of major -- because they know that their interest will probably change as they progress through their baccalaureate educations. It's important to present these students with information that shows how the curriculum is seamlessly integrated and how transitions from one major field of study to another can be smoothly made within the expected four-year undergraduate time-frame. With these students, parents play a more active role in choice of a college. We have found that they are eager for opportunities to talk with parents of current students about student life and the academic experience. Colleges that integrate parents into geographically- based alumni admissions programs will increase their yield. In similar fashion, colleges should consider developing strategies for communicating directly with parents. For instance, does your college send parents a letter outlining simply and clearly the best sources of information about financial aid, the enrollment cycle, and the quality of college -- and who to contact about each subject? If not, you should. Not only is information about admission criteria important to these students, but so too is data about graduates. They are not as concerned about who is admitted to a college as they are about who graduates. Outcomes information about alumni, not merely those marginally useful statistics reporting the fate of alumni one-year after graduation, but in depth data about educational and professional achievements three to seven years beyond graduation (high school students think 30 is old!), is extremely important in demonstrating that your college can make a desired difference in their lives. Today's college-bound students mark the first generation that's never known a world without computer technology. It would be reasonable, then, to suspect that they prefer electronic communication to other forms. Institutions that make this assumption do so at peril of jeopardizing applications and yield. By a significant margin (57% vs. 32%), prospective students report that printed materials, rather than electronic, are the most useful in their college search. However, prospective students are evenly divided as to which provides the greater source of in depth information. Yet they report that they tend to return to printed materials more frequently than electronic. Upon receipt of unsolicited materials from a college or university, students are most likely to complete and mail a return card, rather than respond electronically. The message is as important as the medium. Among the 400 students surveyed by GDA-IS, information about academic program and major was by far the most extremely important single factor in prompting a response. Following were: scholarships, academic reputation and a college in which there was already some interest. Observations and Recommendations BOver the past five years, information technologists have been strident in their assertions that web-based communications are the marketing tools of choice for reaching prospective students. Our survey shows that such is not the case. Prospective students rely on print and use the web as a secondary, albeit very important, source of information. Given the primacy of print in influencing college choice, graphic identities developed for print materials should drive web design, not vice versa. We are beginning to suspect that unsolicited e-mails will decline in effectiveness until ISPs and major networks like MSN, Yahoo and AOL develop much more sophisticated filters for spam and viruses. All the more reason that institutions should think carefully about their relative emphasis on e-based communications. All students are not alike. And different types of students appeal to different kinds of institutions. Savvy colleges and universities will survey prospective students on an annual basis to determine their preferences for media to which they are most receptive. The cost of such surveys is often less than one-year's revenue generated by a single full-time enrollment. Equally important with the medium is the message. In our benchmark survey for The Chronicle of Higher Education, we found that adults believe that the most important role for colleges and universities is preparing undergraduate students for careers. Colleges that develop quantifiable data linking academic major and professional achievement by alumni will be more successful in recruiting students than those who rely on the one-year-out surveys. Academic reputation and whether a college or university is already known to the prospective student is extremely important, as we have already discussed. Institutions should be more assertive in advancing to regional and national media stellar programs as examples of trends in higher education and faculty in lead academic offerings as sources on issues affecting the media coverage area. They should also make concerted efforts to synchronize public relations activities with enrollment and development. Visibility in one's market is the key to successful admissions and development. GDA Integrated Services is a market research, consulting and services firm that specializes in customized, integrated marketing solutions that help colleges and universities compete successfully for students, funding, and visibility in the twenty-first century.