Waikato Uni Wise Up Promotion

Background

Waikato University had built a database of prospects that had enquired about studying at the University during the 2004 school year. Waikato University wanted to increase the number of prospects who converted to students in the enrollment period after Xmas.

The Wise Up above the line campaign along with a guerrilla marketing street campaign had been in the market since mid September 2003 with the goal of changing perceptions of the university and Hamilton City.

Touchpoint worked with Waikato University and their agency Publicis Dialog to help to extend the Wise Up campaign over the Xmas period through direct mail, email and SMS to help convert the considerers into attendees

Target Audience

School leavers and mature students looking to study at university.

Channels

Touchpoint implemented the following components of the campaign:

• Email
• SMS
• Web

Other Components:

• Direct Mail

Approach

Here was Publicis Dialog's approach:

Direct Mail
A Direct Mail invitation piece was sent out pre-xmas which showcased the great lifestyle at Waikato University, introduced some 'Wise Up' messages and invited the database to register via mobile for the SMS competition over summer.

Email
For those prospects with email addresses, a follow up reminder email was sent after the direct mail piece, reinforcing the campaign message and encouraging prospects to register for the SMS competition.

Web
A micro site promoting the Waikato Wise Up Campaign was developed, providing supporting information.

SMS
A quiz competition was implemented that provided a medium to educate prospects to 'Wise Up' to Waikato University over the summer period.

For the five weeks over the summer period, prospects that had signed up for the competition were sent a weekly SMS message with a Wise Up multi-choice quiz question.

Participants responded through a reply txt message, and received an instant confirmation as to whether they had won a prize or not.

The first twenty people to correctly answer won instant prizes. Weekly prizes were tickets to events and concerts in the Waikato region, CD vouchers, Discmans and phones. Everyone who entered went in the draw for the grand prize.

SMS was the perfect medium for communicating with the Waikato University prospects over summer. The youths were more likely to be away from home (and possibly computers/email), but always had their mobile with them. Using SMS as a communication channel also helped to reduce costs and make campaign management easier.

How Touchpoint Technology Helped

• Managed reminder email to prospect database
• Managed competition registration via SMS
• Managed database of competition entrants and triggered communications via email and SMS
• Managed prize allocation based on first 20 correct entries, awarded prizes and provided mobile numbers to Waikato University for fulfilment
• Kept count and reported total number of valid entries and chances for each customer for the grand prize
• Enabled real time, web-based tracking of entries and allocation of prizes

Results

• Over 80% of the prospects that registered for the competition; participated over the summer period.
• In most weeks the first 20 prizes were won within the first 30-60 seconds after messages were sent out
• Waikato University received strong feedback from participating students