Using Office Equipment Technology To Market Your School
By: David Murphy
Everyone wants a return on investment (ROI), whether investing in a mutual fund, real estate, or any other asset. To communicate your message, your school makes investments in computers, software, printers, and paper.
For every thousand dollars invested in these communications, what is your school's return? It's certainly okay if you don't know the answer because most organizations don't. It is difficult to correlate the number of new students directly to your school's communication expenses.
With today's economy, schools are understandably reducing expenses across all departments. There is a tendency to want to cut back on advertising, unnecessary printing, and other communications projects. But, while reducing communications can help cut costs, it also means fewer people will receive your message – and that can aggravate the school's financial condition.
The alternative is to spend in ways that will reduce your operating costs and increase the response rate on your communications.
A February 2009 survey by Jupiter Research showed that "achieving a measurable ROI on marketing efforts" was the top priority for marketers this year. It may be for school leaders, as well.
Achieving a measurable ROI for your communications means reducing costs while also increasing the effectiveness. Reducing costs means finding more efficient ways of communicating, and increasing effectiveness means getting more people to read and respond.
Let's work on a new way of communicating your message, a way that involves using use multiple media channels, including personalized e-mail, personalized Web landing pages, and colorful printed materials.
1. Select the target audience for your campaign.
This first step involves knowing who are talking to so you can tell them something that might be of interest to them. Knowing who you are talking to means you need to build or acquire a database.
As you gather and assemble these databases over time, try to record as much information as possible and practical about each individual. You can use Microsoft Excel to build tables or you might consider a contact management software program. Gathering information will help you craft appropriate communications that may be of special interest to each recipient.
2. Design and print a colorful direct mail piece with a message specifically targeted to a particular segment of your audience.
There are software programs that allow you to create mailers and other promotional documents with customized photos or graphic images along with variable text for each recipient or group.
To further increase the readability and response rates of these communications, you can also create customized fonts in the shapes of graphic images like clouds, balloons, starfish, or any custom image you like. Imagine if you received a card in the mail that had your name spelled out in sky writing or on the front of a racecar. It would almost certainly catch your attention and you might be more inclined to read the mailer a little more closely.
As for the printing of these direct mail pieces, you might consider some of the newly introduced high-speed low-cost inkjet printers on the market. These devices typically print at twice the speed and half the cost of conventional color printers that use lasers and toner. Some of these printers can print colorful graphic images and customized messages directly on your envelopes. Inkjet technology has come a long way, and it is faster, more reliable, and more environmentally friendly than other toner-based MFPs.
3. Send an e-mail to the recipient a few days after you have sent the direct mail piece.
This e-mail should have a similar look and feel of the mailer. Marketers typically aim for a one or two percent response rate when they launch direct mail or e-mail campaigns. Yet, a 2008 InfoTrends study revealed that when e-mails are combined with printed materials (like direct mail), the average response rate jumps to 8.8 percent. Wouldn't it be great to reach out to 1,000 strangers and make 88 friends from the effort?
Assembling all these separate steps into one integrated cross-media campaign is easier than you might think, and it becomes even easier when you get guidance from a vendor who has implemented hundreds of these campaigns before. The reality is that the minimal financial investment you make into setting up cross-media campaigns is returned to with much higher response rates.
Studies show that the average consumer receives between 250 and 3,000 messages each day. We are all bombarded with promotional offers everywhere we go. It's no wonder that it is difficult for us to remember or respond to messages that are actually of interest to us.
Plus, when was the last time you looked in the phonebook for anything? Is this an investment that will actually generate a positive return for your school? These factors combine to create a compelling inspiration for you to integrate your communications into a cross-media strategy. Maybe it's time for your school to start sending messages that more people will actually read. Wouldn't that be great?
David Murphy is vice president of marketing for RISO, www.us.riso.com.
