Report from the AMA: Why Traditional Communications Strategies No Longer Work With Boys

First of all, 80% of prospective students told the NRCCUA that they first learned about colleges through a “letter in the mail”; 60% through “other friends”; and just slightly more than 50% from teachers. Though it must be noted that NRCCUA did not ask whether a web search or other electronic communication (such as an email) alerted them to the existence of a college.

Their data clearly show that it’s easy for prospective students to ignore communications from colleges—Mary Napier from NRCCUA pointed out that prospective students have their own “privacy protection.” That is, they decide when, where, what, and how they want to interact with colleges. While many respond to search through email and 34% fill out a form on the web, 46% use search engines to find out more and 41% use the URL provided in a mailing but don’t leave information there.

When they do decide to contact a college in response to a search mailing or other contact, both boys and girls are likely to contact other offices on campus. They contact academic departments, athletics, the housing office. NRCCUA show that 38% of males contact other offices on campus other than admissions; 32% of women do. For colleges, this means that many other offices on campus need to be involved in determining the appropriate response to a first contact: intra-campus communication is really important to make sure that searchers get an accurate-and prompt-research.

George Mason University has adopted an interactive strategy, including a MySpace page. They used an integrated communications strategy, including mailing Sports Illustrated issue focusing on championship efforts. It’s been successful, according to Andrew Flagel, George Mason’s dean of admissions. Though he admits that national championships helped.

NOTE: I’m attending the AMA Symposium and will post entries about interesting sessions I attend here for next two days.