Creating a Dynamic Reactive Communication Model from Scratch Presented by Paul Allen Hobsons University 2015

1. Creating a Dynamic Reactive
Communication Model from Scratch
By Paul Allen

2. About Me
Assistant Director of Recruiting
• Professional MBA
• Strategic Recruiting
• Communication Modeling
• Email Development

3. Have you ever….
Bought a house?
Been married?
Shopped on Amazon?

4. I. Professional MBA Case Study
II. Process of Building a Model
a) Evaluation
b) Planning/Design
c) Development
d) Implementation
III. Advice
Agenda

5. • Over 5,000
undergraduate students
• 1,000+ graduate students
• PhD programs
• 4 Masters programs
• 3 unique MBA programs
Darla Moore School of Business

6. DMSB & Hobsons
Specs:
• Products
• ApplyYourself
• Connect
• Joint Client
• Over 168,000 Records
• Around 300 Filters
• 475 Different Email Templates

7. Case Study
University of South Carolina
Darla Moore School of Business
Professional MBA Program

8. Where Did We Start?
• Limited Staff
• Underutilized CRM
• 0 automated emails going out
• 1 email sent manually from Outlook once per week

9. Where Are We Now?
Success:
• Fully automated, fully reactive, multi-staged communication model
• All 4,000 prospects receive a personalized communication plan
• 50% average open rate
• 75% or higher open rate on key communication nodes
• Some are at 85% or higher
• 20-30% average interact rate across the entire plan
• Enrollment is up 8%
• Conversion rate from started application to admitted is up 17%
• Yield (admit to enroll) is strong (85-92%)

10. Where Are We Now?
Metrics:
• 7 active plans
• Average of 6-8 touches per plan
• Over 45 live unique communications

11. Process
How do you go about creating a communication model?

12. Evaluation
Planning/Design
Development
Implementation

13. Evaluation
Planning/Design
Development
Implementation

14. Evaluation
• What do you have now? Is it working?
• Is the current model meeting the needs of
students?
• What is your competition doing?

15. Evaluation
Development
Implementation
Planning/Design

16. Planning/Design
List Your Goals:
-Automated
-Reactive
-Comprehensive

17. Planning/Design

18. Design Your Model
Funnel Approach:
• What is the desired outcome
of each part of the funnel?
• Define the key behavior that
helps a student reach the goal
• Create communications that
encourage those actions
• Communications become
more/less aggressive based
on the number of behaviors a
student exhibits

19. Communication Plans
• Each plan is geared towards a desired
outcome/behavior
• As behaviors or desired outcomes change so does
the plan

20. Evaluation
Planning/Design
Development
Implementation

21. Naming Convention
CP 12.1a
Automated
message, not a
one time
Stage in the
funnel
Specific plan
in a group of
plans
Email or
communication
in that plan
Variation of
that email if it
exists

22. Development
Email Creation WorkflowIdea
Copy Edit Code Filter
Implement
Test

23. Evaluation
Planning/Design
Development
Implementation

24. Implementation
• Write down processes
• Communicate
processes
• Create reports
• Measure success over
time
• Keep lots of notes

25. Key Metrics
• Open Rates
• Interact/click Rates
• Opt-out Rates
• Progression through
the funnel
• Trends over time

26. Bit of Advice
Pro Tips:
• Know your student
• Know what communication they need, not what you want
to give them
• Plan and plan some more
• Be organized
• Be flexible

27. Paul Allen
Assistant Director of Recruiting
paul.allen@moore.sc.edu
@ptallen63
Questions?