Mar 17th 09 Posted by Bob Sevier in Featured Articles, Integrated Marketing

The Curious Case of Curious Math…

Or Why Campus Visits Matter More than Ever

Part I – Outlining Strategic Issues

They say the true test of genius is the ability to make sense of two irreconcilable facts. Let me give you an example. Colleges tell me, on average, that 50-60 percent of the students that visit their schools enroll. Students tell me, at the same time, that they visit five to seven different schools.

From a math perspective this makes no sense. From a recruiting perspective, however, the meaning is absolutely clear: The campus visit, always a critical step in the courting process, has become even more so. Countless discussions with senior recruiters and enrollment managers supports this conclusion. So does Stamats’ annual TeensTALK® study. Some 95 percent of the students who participated in our 2008 study said they will visit a school before deciding whether to attend.

I have long believed that it is the job of the recruiting office to get the student to visit, but it is the job of the entire campus community to provide an unparalleled visit experience. Hillary once reminded us that it takes a village to raise a child. To borrow her insight, it  certainly takes a school to provide a great visit experience.

In this post I want to present a baker’s dozen ideas for laying a foundation for a successful visit program. In a subsequent post I will outline another dozen or so ways to improve the visit.

1. Make sure you have the active, demonstrated support of the president and senior team.
2. Designate a powerful, seasoned campus visit coordinator and free that person from non-visit related activities.
3. Conduct research online, via lists serves, reading articles, and at conferences to obtain campus visit best campus.
4. Clearly and continually communicate the importance of the campus visit to the larger campus community. Use visit performance data to support your message.
5. Because your goal is to have the best visit experience of your top five or six competitors, make sure that you visit their schools at least every other year. Also, visit other schools that have a reputation for providing an outstanding visit.
6. Insist that your president and senior team go on at least one campus visit a year.
7. Break the larger campus visit experience into three sub-experiences: pre-visit, visit, and post-visit. Conceptualizing and managing these three smaller sub-experiences will offer tremendous insight. Assemble performance data for each of the three stages. Use Viso or some other graphic software to diagram your pre-visit, and post-visit experience.
8. Gather research on conversion rates from past visits. Sort this data by gender, ethnicity, academic ability, academic interest, and type of visit, tour guide, faculty with whom student/parents interacted, distance travelled, timing of visit, and other variables.
9. Hire students and parents to evaluate your current visit experience and the visit experience of your top five or six competitors. Ask them to keep a diary of their experiences and to capture digital video and stills. Debrief them carefully.
10. Conduct visit exit interviews or surveys of student and parent to pinpoint problems and opportunities.
11. Assess how well you hire, train, manage, and motivate your campus tour guides.
12. Assess how well you train, manage, and motivate the faculty and staff your prospects are most likely to encounter.
13. View anticipated changes to your visit through a lens that embraces the 4 Ts:

• Be willing to train constantly
• Target different segments
• Tailor experiences and messages for different segments
• Continually test, evaluate, and improve

Am I missing anything obvious? Please let me know and I will add it to the hopper.

If  you are not confident about your visit’s ability to meet the challenges ahead, please give me a call. We offer a range of visit assessments and visit enhancement strategies.

Photo by: akirsa