The Larry Selland College at Boise State University was experiencing declining enrollment despite traditional marketing efforts. They hired a consultant who recommended a personalized direct mail campaign to follow up with prospects. The "Yes. You Can." campaign involved sending a series of 5 personalized mailings to prospects over time with empowering messages. The first mailing went out within 72 hours of an initial inquiry. The campaign was successful, increasing enrollment by 15% while costing less than $10 per student. It helped overcome barriers like fears of failure and misperceptions about the college's standards.

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2. Boise State University College Increases Enrollment with Personalized
2 Communications
Project: Boise State University College Increases Enrollment with
Personalized Communications
Vertical Market: Education
Business Application: Direct Marketing/Lead Generation
Faced with increasing competition, and a very limited marketing budget, the
Larry Selland College—a professional technical college on the campus of
Boise State University—was experiencing ongoing declines in enrollment.
After hiring an enrollment consultant to evaluate the situation, the college
decided to invest the time and money required to follow up with each
person who inquired about a program at the college. The personalized
program—titled “Yes. You Can.” —is a multiple-piece mailing that is timed
and sequenced with various messages designed to convince prospective
students that they can get into college, succeed, and get a job.
Program Objectives
• Reverse the trend of declining enrollment in college
• Increase enrollments
• Respond in a timely manner to requests for information and build a
relationship with multiple hits
• Target prospective students with a strong, empowering, and cohesive
message
• Accomplish all of this within a very limited budget
Significant Results Reported by User
• Increased enrollment by almost 15%
• The first of five promotional pieces mailed within 72 hours of an inquiry
or customer contact, with other materials mailed to prospective students
every 10 days until all five pieces have been sent
• Cost for the entire series of communication pieces is less than $10
• Marketing budget has been increased because of proven success
Description
As a small, two-year college within Boise State University, the Larry Selland
College was facing ongoing declines in its enrollment rate despite the use of
traditional radio, television, and newspaper advertising. As with most
colleges, it faced growing competition, a narrowing field of prospective
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students, and a limited budget with which to solve the problems. It also had
some unique challenges to deal with.
Idaho is still in many ways a rural state where traditional trades, such as
agriculture and logging, are a major part of the economy. Many residents in
the rural communities still hold the belief that a high school education is all
that is needed to get a job, and hard work is more important than knowledge
when it comes to promotions and salary increases in the future. In fact, most
students who attend the College are the first in their families to go to college.
Overcoming the belief barrier of adults was a challenge. In addition, the
College was struggling to get students because unemployment was the
lowest in the nation. Desperate to find employees, local companies began
offering free training in many of the areas that in the past had only been
offered at the College. The College faced prospective students asking, “Why
pay for a college education when I can get hired and learn while I earn a
paycheck?”
Since no one wanted to enroll in the programs offered at the College, it
seemed as if the next step would be to create new programs that could
generate interest. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. The state requires all
professional or technical colleges to offer certain programs. Changing class
schedules to accommodate those who wanted to learn at night was also an
idea that surfaced, as a way to generate new enrollments. Unfortunately, that
wasn’t an option, either, because the College lacked funding to hire teachers
for evening and weekend courses. The only choice for classes was to attend
full-time during the day.
In addition, the most difficult challenge faced by the College was internal
competition from the University. Boise State had launched its own
campaign with messages on television, on radio, and in print that showcased
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4. Boise State University College Increases Enrollment with Personalized
4 Communications
the University’s desire to recruit the brightest and the best—a metropolitan
university of distinction. The showcase of research and graduate degrees in
various media pieces completely discounted the role of Selland College.
Selland College, like other professional technical colleges in the state, serves
the role and function of a community college and offers programs that
include basic reading, writing, and math; GED preparation; and other
programs to help students get ready for college.
Many who enroll in the College’s professional technical education programs
are those who have struggled with education in the past, who need a second
chance, or who may have dropped out of high school or had financial
hardships. These prospective students were extremely nervous about
coming to a college to learn about programs. Overcoming the barrier of fear
of failing that these students faced was difficult, especially when the
University marquee stated, “Boise State has the highest admission standards
in the state.”
The “high standards” message was great for the University in terms of
finding donors and raising funds, but those interested in Selland College felt
there was no place for them at Boise State. The University’s message was
turning away the students that Selland College was trying to attract.
Ted Bailey, Director of Boise State’s Printing and Graphic Services
Department, sized up the situation. The College had already tried
everything—except direct mail. It had always considered direct mail to be too
expensive and the results risky. But Ted knew that other educational institu-
tions had been having great success with personalized 1-to-1 marketing. “We
used PODi case studies to help prove it could work for us,” he says. “If other
colleges were having success with it, we knew we could too.”
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Armed with documented success
stories from other schools, a solid
concept designed in cooperation with
enrollment management consultants,
and a desire by the Dean to do
whatever it took to try to increase
enrollments, the College and the print
shop embarked on a plan to design
and test a new communication
followup program.
The most time-consuming part of the
process was creating personalized
designs that met the needs of the
College. Presenting the case for
funding was also time-consuming in
the beginning.
The goals of the program were as follows:
1. Build a relationship with each student
2. Convince them that they can succeed in college at Selland
3. Motivate them to talk to Selland enrollment specialists
before enrolling elsewhere
4. Show why paying for college is a better choice than getting free, on-
the job training
5. Inspire prospective students to make significant life changes that
allow them to attend full-time programs during the day
Because of the long review process for the five-piece brochure campaign, the
College started with a personalized series of three postcards. This allowed
the College to begin working with its new theme (“Yes. You Can.”) and
communicate short messages about quality, success, and financial aid,
starting right away.
The Campaign
To build a relationship with each prospect, the College needed to contact
each one quickly—after the first inquiry and multiple times after that—with a
strong, flexible, universal message that addressed all goals.
The “Yes. You Can.” theme was a strong, positive answer to any fears or
concerns prospective students might have about their abilities. That theme
works with multiple messages, including, but not limited to, these:
• Yes, you can succeed here
• Yes, you can get financial aid
• Yes, you can make a difference
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6. Boise State University College Increases Enrollment with Personalized
6 Communications
• Yes, you can get a degree no matter
what your previous educational
experience has been
• Yes, you can enroll here even if you
did not graduate from high school
• Yes, you can get a great paying job
at graduation
• Yes, you can find caring teachers
and small classes
• Yes, you can do something you love
• Yes, you can take free basic skills
classes and earn your GED
• Yes, you can get an Associates
degree and apply credits earned
toward a Bachelor’s degree in the
future
• Yes, you can be a role model for your family
• Yes, you can stop the cycle of poverty in your family
The planning team decided on five consecutive mailings, spaced at 10-day
intervals. The mailing begins within two to four days of a student’s first
inquiry. All mailings are delivered in a bold, personalized, digitally printed,
9×12-inch catalogue envelope. Each envelope lists the information that is
enclosed.
1. Initial mailing
a. A personalized, eight-page, full-color brochure: easy steps to
follow, urging students to push for their dreams and call to find
out how the College can help them get there
b. A personalized letter from the Dean (all letters are printed in
black-and-white on preprinted shells)
c. Up to three full-color flyers on specific requested programs (out
of a possible 28; digitally printed, but static)
d. An application form (static)
2. A view book
a. A personalized, eight-page, full-color brochure featuring photos
of students and stories (why students love the College)
b. A personalized letter from an enrollment specialist inviting them
to come to campus
3. Financial aid information
a. A personalized, four-page, full-color brochure: Don’t let anything
stand in your way—how to apply for financial aid
b. A personalized letter from the financial aid director
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4. Graduate success
a. A personalized, four-page, full-color brochure: Real success
stories from graduates
b. A personalized letter from a local employer endorsing the college
and encouraging the prospect to enroll. (This letter is on
employer letterhead shell.)
5. Quality you can trust
a. A personalized, four-page, full-color brochure featuring stories
about Selland College instructors
b. A personalized letter and testimonial from a community leader
All mailings are sent to every prospective student, unless they respond or
request they be stopped.
Excel lists for mailing are generated from:
• Incoming calls
• A Web-site information request form (www.selland.boisestate.edu)
• Events, high school visits: The College’s enrollment team sets up
booths at almost every community event, from fairs and disco nights
to rodeos and race tracks. They hand out information and a simple,
easy-to-fill-out card—asking only for name, address, and phone
number. (The college has discovered that most people will not take
the time to fill out more than just basic information at a booth.
People say they will mail it back later, but rarely do.)
The lists (usually 15-250 names at a shot) are downloaded twice a week by
PGS, cleansed, barcoded, and standardized. They are imported into XMPie
uProduce, a database that outputs PDFs for all pieces, which are queued for
the EFI Fiery-driven Xerox iGen3 digital production press. (Envelopes are
digitally printed with matching codes and then converted.) The pieces are
finished, fulfilled, and mailed within 72 hours of being downloaded. The first
mailing is sent via first-class mail to help weed out any bad addresses before
the process continues.
The Results
After the College had collected six months of data, it was able to see some
real results: Enrollments increased by an impressive 14.7%. This is huge,
especially considering that enrollment had been steadily decreasing for five
years in a row, but also compared to the enrollment rate for Boise State
University, which only increased by 3.2% over the same period. This is also
significant because direct mail was the only change that was made. All other
marketing efforts were the same as prior to the direct mail campaign. A
sampling survey of recipients showed that people love the publications.
© 2008 PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative www.podi.org Best Practices in Digital Print Case Study

8. Boise State University College Increases Enrollment with Personalized
8 Communications
Budget
To cover the cost of this campaign, the College supplemented its initial
marketing budget of $50,000 with an additional $35,000 to create and launch
the campaign. In spite of some trepidation, the Dean of the College, the
Associate Dean of Enrollment Management, and the Marketing Director
believed in what the Director of the Printing and Graphic Services
Department had showed them—that 1-to-1 marketing would pay off, and it
did. After the launch, the continuing in-house cost of printing all pieces in
the multi-touch campaign is now less than $10 per recipient.
The program has been going for about 18 months, and it has proved to be a
tremendous success. With the great results the College has been getting, it’s
much easier to receive continued funding.
Final Thoughts
The quality of the printing, graphic design, and copywriting is key to the
success of the campaign. The collaboration between the variable-print team
and the creative team—designing the program to optimize it for digital
technology, creating safe areas, building in layers, and writing to fit spaces—
made this project stand out.
Although there are further opportunities to customize the pieces even more
for each recipient (switching images and content and featuring success
stories or instructors specific to a requested field of study), the focus here
was to get the campaign created and test its effectiveness. “Creating a library
of variable images and content would have required even more approvals
and reviews. Hopefully, we’ll be able to continue to improve the relevance of
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our communications as we continue,” according to Ted Bailey, Director of
Boise State’s Printing and Graphic Services Department.
The College is already expanding its use of personalized communications in
other areas, thanks to this first success. It now uses personalized postcards
to invite new students to an orientation registration session. In the past it
simply sent out letters from the admissions director. It was rare to have more
than 10 individuals actually attend, although the College was sending out
more than 500 letters each semester.
Now 75% of those who receive a card attend their listed sessions, and of
them, 70% actually RSVP to secure their seats!
© 2008 PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative www.podi.org Best Practices in Digital Print Case Study

10. Boise State University College Increases Enrollment with Personalized
10 Communications
Client The Larry Selland College of Applied Technology at Boise State University
www.selland.boisestate.edu
The Larry Selland College (CoAT) is a two-year community college on the
campus of Boise State University. It offers 28 full-time career training programs
in areas including welding, culinary arts, surgical technology, and automotive
technology. The College specializes in education for employment.
Print Provider & Boise State University Printing and Graphic Services Department
Agency www.boisestate.edu
Printing and Graphic Services (PGS) provides Boise State University and Idaho
state agencies with cost-effective graphic communication products and services.
Its purpose is to be a major contributor in the dissemination of information—
faster and at lower cost. PGS is a full-service solution provider offering relevant
marketing expertise utilizing digital, offset, copying, and wide-format printing
capabilities.
Other services are provided by Julie Rybarczyk Concepts, which offers design,
copywriting, and related services.
Hardware EFI Fiery-driven Xerox iGen3 digital production press
Software Originally produced with XMPie uDirect. Now using XMPie uProduce.
EFI Print MIS solutions, PrintSmith, PrintSmith Site, and EFI prepress workflow
Target Audience Undergraduate students
Distribution 15–250 twice weekly. Cycle runs every 10 days over a three-month period.
Date Launched in June 2006; on-going
Best Practices in Digital Print Case Study www.podi.org © 2008 PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative