Admissions Marketing Insights

7th Annual AMM Admissions Marketing Roundtable a Huge Success

Tweet

 

Last week, we held our 7th Annual Admissions Roundtable at the Sheraton Conference Center, Framingham MA. We were extremely pleased with the turnout--40 Admissions professionals from 21 institutions!

We also had terrific presenters, all experts in their respective domains, and good interaction between attendees and speakers.  We were very pleased with the outcome, but realize there is always room for improvement.  So we are already thinking about how to make next year even better. One "must-do" is to provide more time for discussion of trends and issues and sharing of best practices, perhaps with a panel of Admissions professionals.

Photo: Our President, Lynn Edwards, chatting with attendees.

If you weren't able to attend, here are just a few highlights from our presenters

• The presentation by Jeff Kallay of TargetX about the Campus Visit Experience was a high point. He offered great insight into how to market and conduct a stellar campus visit experience.  He pointed out, "The best recruiters are your current students.  Happy students and parents spread the word and save us money. This helps define best fit students, who choose you as their first or second choice, love your school, graduate from it, and stay active as alumni." He recommends training and empowering your student tour guides to be master storytellers, and to make sure that you pay attention to aesthetics--how does the campus appear to parents and students?  Only once chance to make a good first impression!

• Joe Bellavance from the New England Regional Office of the College Board did a great job of explaining all of the data that is available for your student recruitment efforts and how best to use it to meet your enrollment goals. He also pointed out common mistakes that are made, that can unnecessarily limit the universe of potential students you are marketing to.

  

• Rit Fuller, Enrollment Consultant, offered ideas about how to monitor your competition and access interactive online data tools.  He also pointed out the importance of Admissions officers being able to concisely and fully answer parent questions aboout student debt loads, a big concern these days. Do you know the average debt load for your institution?

• Carl Bradshaw, LtCol(R), US Army, explained the Yellow Ribbon Program and shared detailed information about how best to approach veterans as potential students.

• Dennis Chyba and Brian Winters of Adceio presented great information about social media trends. Do you have a Facebook page yet for your institution? Chyba pointed out that if you don't create Facebook pages, others will create them for you. A good Facebook page can make critical information easier for prospective students to find.

• I wrapped up the day with a discussion of innovative recruiting strategies and techniques. Did you know that 39% of mobile phone users between the ages of 12-17 own a smartphone?  Are you leverating this technology to get the best student recruitment and student retention results? It's where they live!

We are happy to speak with you further about the topics covered during this educational session. Just drop us a note or give us a call. Or visit AMM EDU on Facebook!

bmootz@ammedu.com, 215-205-3769.

Be sure to subscribe to our blog as one more way to stay current with rapidly evolving trends!