Touchpoint’s
“Get Ready Go” Helps Convert Students
28 April 2003
When prospective students call a tertiary institute to get information,
standard procedure is to send an information pack in the post and
hope that enrolment follows – “hands off” marketing.
That wasn’t enough for Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT).
“One of our key objectives was to increase the consideration
they gave to MIT and increase the acceptability of Manukau as ‘a
place for me,’ says Vicki Johnson, Marketing Manager for MIT.
“To do that we needed to engage with them in a way that was
positive, friendly, immediate, direct, and of demonstrable value.
It needed to be synergistic with our existing communications and
we recognised that a hard sell was not the way to go.”
To differentiate itself from the very first contact, MIT asked
creative agency Nebula, supported by their multichannel marketing
technology partner Touchpoint, to help emphasise the friendly welcoming
atmosphere and provide extra value to anyone considering MIT.
“To attract students to our rapidly growing range of courses
we need to reach them on their turf and on their terms,” says
Vicki.
Tertiary students are, by definition, smart, switched on and savvy,
and competition for the tertiary dollar is intense. Taken together
this means that old methods of attracting students won’t wash.
Operating in one of the most competitive tertiary education markets
in New Zealand and without the accumulated advantages of older institutions,
MIT takes pride in providing students with a friendly and supportive
living and learning environment.
“Our outbound marketing was very successful in generating
inquiries, but we needed to maximise our ability to convert these
into student enrolments,” says Vicki. “We wanted to
open a dialogue with prospective students.”
The solution was a low cost, friendly, but highly effective email
campaign: “Get Ready Go”. When prospective students
called the MIT call centre or made an online query, as well as the
pack in the mail and a follow-up phone call, they received up to
four friendly emails. These offered further information, encouragement
and advice, including links to sites covering study grants and employment,
and a campus guide. And, naturally, there were teasers about campus
entertainment – specifically the line up of top Kiwi bands,
many of them from Manukau, which would be playing during Orientation
Week. Following the hip and friendly theme, the entire enrolment
campaign was topped off by a Big Day Out competition.
“Touchpoint responded quickly and offered us a proven efficient
system and high quality reporting,” says Vicki. “Nebula,
for their part, is a skilled electronic marketer, with lightning
fast reactions. For us they were an ideal team to enable us to communicate
through this new channel.”
Touchpoint and Nebula were briefed in early December and had the
campaign up and running by December 20th – which shows just
how fast multichannel media can deliver. The campaign concluded
in early February and is now part of MIT’s ongoing marketing
strategy.
The campaign was part of a broader initiative to introduce Customer
Relationship Management into MIT’s marketing. MIT wanted to
have the ability to send relevant, timely targeted and friendly
communications to all enquirers. The emails would include a welcome
to MIT, and provide links for things like Campus Week, location
maps, and study grant information. Another link connected to a microsite
offering a chance to win tickets to the Big Day Out event, where
MIT had an exhibit stand.
As a result, MIT was able to add this easy two-way communication
with prospective students into the communications mix. MIT could
more effectively collect quality information, and now has a template
for all e-communications which they can roll out over other marketing
programmes. Further, MIT could see and track how prospective students
behaved with the emails: were the emails received, opened and clicked
through?
“Anyone doubting how quickly a campaign can be designed and
executed should be heartened by the MIT campaign,” says Nebula
Managing Director Andy McDowell. “Once we had the brief, Nebula
and Touchpoint were able to pull a professional, effective campaign
together in a matter of days.”
While MIT does not as yet have systems in place to measure the
inquiry-into-enrolment conversion rate, it nonetheless regards the
initial campaign as a success. “The test was to see how well
we could embrace the channel, to execute well and learn from the
experience. Now that we understand it, we can integrate it fully
and link it back to our enrolment systems. For example we learned
that our telemarketing team needs to be especially careful with
spellings of email addresses.”
Touchpoint’s technology is now an established part of future
plans. MIT knows where its growth is coming from: exports, or international
students, and short courses. Following on from this, MIT wants to
get smarter about the way it engages with its prospective students,
including how it follows up contacts.
“The people MIT wants to attract are a fragmented group.
They can’t be relied on to watch certain TV programmes or
tune in regularly to certain radio spots,” says Steve Shearman,
Director of Touchpoint. “As with any group of young people,
new marketing channels have to be considered if you want to reach
them.”
This was the first multichannel campaign for MIT. But it won’t
be the last. “We found that by balancing multiple channels
in a well managed campaign we not only reached more people more
effectively, but were able to do a far better job of communicating
how well MIT fits students’ needs, expectations and culture,”
says Vicki. “I don’t think we would have achieved the
same result using traditional channels.”
The programme was so successful that MIT is considering integrating
Touchpoint with its JADE Enterprise Resource Planning system.
About Touchpoint
Touchpoint is the leading edge New Zealand provider of multi-channel
marketing systems used by marketers and professional direct marketing
agencies. The Touchpoint software suite helps businesses build closer,
more profitable customer relationships by taking advantage of traditional
and emerging digital channels, including email, direct mail, telemarketing,
SMS text-messaging, fax, and the web. Touchpoint solutions provide
direct access for marketers, agencies, and customer service staff
to setup, manage and track integrated marketing programmes and campaigns
across multiple channels in real-time.
About Nebula
Established in 1992 Nebula is a full-service advertising agency
with a heritage rich in ‘direct’ and results-oriented
solutions. Nebula’s sole focus is on providing clients with
powerful connections to their customers. Creativity combined with
business thinking enables this goal to be consistently delivered.
Clients include First Health, Provenco Payments, TMP and Vector.
About Manukau Institute of Technology
Established in 1970, Manukau Institute of Technology is one of New
Zealand’s premier education and training institutions, a degree-granting
institute of technology with an extensive portfolio in business,
human science, arts and technology.
Manukau Institute of Technology is strongly committed to helping
students succeed in their tertiary training and ensuring they are
well qualified to gain permanent employment. To meet this commitment
the institute provides a friendly and supportive living and learning
environment including a learning centre, a modern library complex
and a language support centre.
For more information please contact:
Sally Raudon
Botica Butler Raudon Partners
09 303 3862,
021 402 502,
sallyr@botica.co.nz
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