For the last few years, colleges and universities have focused mobile websites on the current campus community – rather than prospective students. This has created a large set of unmet needs and poor experiences with prospective students.
This paper reveals leading strategies and techniques for mobile communications resulting in effective recruitment results.
Authors: Bob Johnson, PHD, Dave Marshall
Champlain College's very own Nicole Lentine on Admissions Live speaking to the benifits of offering students the ability to receive text updates from search to enroll.
Nicole explains how and when Champlain uses texting to provide superior customer service to prospective students and parents.
Mobile users have rapidly growing expectations for what they hope to accomplish on their mobile device. Jacob Neilson explains why it is best to have a separate mobile optimized site to increase usability.
Some tips from Jacob:
Read the full story.
A mobile redirect automatically directs a user with a mobile device to the m.school.edu site. The issue is that many different audiences are being redirected. While, this might be good for prospective students, it can be quite annoying to the existing campus community... or vice versa depending on the content that is on the mobile site. Our clients have been pleased with what we call a "mobile banner". It ONLY appears to users with a mobile device and gives a certain audience the ability to jump to a mobile site build specifically for them. Please see the screen shot below for an example:
To try this for yourself, use your mobile phone and visit: http://www.champlain.edu
Yesterday, St. Mary's University sent out a text campaign inviting students to Sleeping Bag Weekend (a key recruiting event). Many students responded 'thank you' or asked simple questions. The student below engaged in a conversation about the admissions process, transcripts, application and transportation to sleeping bag weekend. After all his questions were answered, he replied "..all of this texting helps a lot..".
So nice to hear positive student reactions!
I've included a screen shot (with personal information hidden) of a section of the conversation.
The College Web Editor's top story covers one of our newer clients - Nazareth College.
Nazareth launched a mobile Web site on October 1. The mobile site is specifically targeted at prospective students.
Since launch:
The site makes it easy for prospective students to:
These tasks would be extremely laborious using a mobile phone with our desktop site.
Special thanks to Liz Zapata and the entire Nazareth team!
Read the full story at the College Web Editor.
On your smart phone visit: http://m.naz.edu
Congrats, Naz!
More and more highly interested prospective students are asking for text updates from their institution of choice. Texting allows institutions instant access to this highly elusive audience. Yesterday, The Chronicle highlighted one of our clients and their innovative use of texting in the admission process.
Read the full article on Chronicle.com:
Champlain College's mobile site is a finalist for 'Best Mobile Site' ranked by EDUStyle. Our client is up against Harvard and USC. The winners will be announced at EDUWeb (which starts today) in San Antonio, TX.
For a quick view of Champlain's mobile site:
To experience the site on your personal smartphone, go to: m.champlain.edu.
Lab 42 polled 500 social-networking Americans aged 13 - 21 regarding their use of texting. Among the fidnings: 71% of the respondents preferred texting to calling
For the full story: http://mashable.com/2011/07/02/texting-teens-infographic/
