Alumni Engagement: Gettting Them to Comeback

Getting Them to Come Back

Getting Them to Come Back

Sara BeckProduct Support Specialist

Agilon, LLC

Getting Them to Come Back

Overview

• Build relationships between students & alumni• Scholarships• Matching Gifts/online giving• Online Alumni Magazine• Events• Email• Facebook Connect FAQ page

Getting Them to Come Back

Overview

• Photo Gallery• Business Partners & Advertising• Future Alumni and Parents • Free products & Fun Things

Getting Them to Come Back

Who Are You Marketing Your Site to?

Alumni – Yes that’s a given. But what about these groups?• Students• Parents of Alumni• Parents of Students• Future Students• Companies

Getting Them to Come Back

Understanding “Student” Dynamics

Traditional students- high school graduate who attends immediately and graduates in 4 years

But now we seeing more… Nontraditional – those who return to college

after being in the workforce a number of years Others students who are working to obtain

their degree while being employed full-time

Getting Them to Come Back

List how Alumni can:

• Volunteer • Share experiences

with students• Lead a local chapter

or club• Make a gift

How Can You Engage Alumni Online?

Getting Them to Come Back

• Create a Nutritionist column on eating healthy on your custom pages.

• Host a movie night at the student center.

• Highlight one fraternity/sorority each month and let them write an article about their organization. Send an email message to all past members to drive them to your site.

Engaging Traditional Students?

Getting Them to Come Back

• Babysitting service for single parents. Facilitate with students looking for part-time employment. List this on one of your custom pages.

• Offer events to keep them coming back to campus: Basketball night, Homecoming social, family night with Events module.

• Essay contest: Most challenging thing about being a Nontraditional student. Use our Stories Page to facilitate this.

Engaging Nontraditional Students?

Getting Them to Come Back

• Welcome new freshman by email & introduce your office.

• Set up alerts for mid-terms/finals weeks. Your office can sponsor study breaks.

• Offer Seniors free webinars on how to create resumes and how to prepare for interviews.

Engaging All Students

Getting Them to Come Back

This is a great example of using email and online events. A webinar on “Interviewing to get the job” sent to seniors.

Getting Them to Come Back

St. Edward’s University has a very good example of how to get Alumni involved.

Volunteering.

Sharing experiences with students.

Leading alumni chapter.

Making a gift.

Getting Them to Come Back

Give them extra information…• Tips on how to apply for scholarships

and other financial aide advice.

• List scholarships and awards, especially those sponsored by alumni groups.

• Profile who received the award, including a picture and a paragraph about them.

Scholarships? But The Registrar Already Lists Them

Getting Them to Come Back

East Carolina has a very good example of a Scholarship Recipient.

Who received the award? Just another example of making them want to come back.

Getting Them to Come Back

Let’s Generate Revenue With Matching Gifts

• Hep Services provides an online resource dedicated to tracking matching gifts.

• Several clients have the online directory link.

If you aren’t utilizing this service, let’s talk.

Getting Them to Come Back

Montana State University does a great job of driving people to the Hep site, with a link.

Found on the Gift Information page, it can be listed directly under the matching employer section.

Getting Them to Come Back

Hep customizes your page to look seamless with your site.

The searchable field allows you to look up employer information to see if the company has a match gift program.

Getting Them to Come Back

Can you tell me where on this page to search for your matching employer?

Getting Them to Come Back

How about now? Make it visible! A nice big button does the trick!

Getting Them to Come Back

Matching Gifts

A donor might not know if their employer is matching gift company…

Using HEP…

they will.

Getting Them to Come Back

Online Magazines

Getting Them to Come Back

• Just because you don’t have a published magazine, doesn’t mean you can’t make one.

• It doesn’t require anything except a .pdf document.

Let’s Add Online Magazines!

Getting Them to Come Back

Let’s Add Online Magazines! • Just because you don’t have a published magazine,

doesn’t mean you can’t make one. Any .pdf document can be a magazine.

• Publish demographic changes from marital status, deaths and recently moved by running

a query out of Selection Wizard.

• Create news articles from the Stories module in CCON.

Getting Them to Come Back

Let’s Add Online Magazines!

• Alert students/alumni of latest publication through Rel@y, especially if they are featured in the magazine that month.

• Save on expense of printing hard copy.

• Alumni are going to want to come and see their name in print. Everyone loves that!

Getting Them to Come Back

KSU has a great online magazine.

Let’s see how this is done.

Getting Them to Come Back

Go to Issuu.com

Upload a PDF document.

Getting Them to Come Back

Browse to get your .pdf file.

Fill in the title and description of your magazine.

Getting Them to Come Back

Step 1: Issuu.comUpload a PDF document.

Select the new PDF and press Embed.

Getting Them to Come Back

Highlight the Embed code

and copy the text.

Getting Them to Come Back

Step 1: Issuu.comUpload a PDF document.

Log in as an Admin into CCON & press the editor on a custom page.

Getting Them to Come Back

Press the Html button.

Getting Them to Come Back

LoInsert the code that you copied and press Update.

Don’t be scared. It is really simple. If I can do this (Sara), you can too!

Getting Them to Come Back

LoRemember to press the save button.

Your screen will look like this when you return after pressing update.

Getting Them to Come BackNow, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

This page actually looks like an online magazine when you click on it.

Getting Them to Come Back

Add Events To Social Media

Tell your friends about events that can now be shared on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace through Wibiya and AddThis.

Getting Them to Come Back

This is an example of a site that links into Wibya and Addthis.

When the click on the picture, it brings up the next screen.

Getting Them to Come BackThese two products allow you to add your pictures and events to these social medias.

Getting Them to Come Back

Highlight Events After They Happen

• Have Alumni volunteer to take pictures at certain events. Post events and invite Alumni to update our Stories section.

• Notify Alumni that attended the event, via Rel@y, that you have posted post-event pictures. Come take a look!

• More traffic to the site and next year’s event

Getting Them to Come BackHere is an example of a school that posts pictures after the events. I like this idea!

Getting Them to Come Back

Checking EmailFrom Your Online Community?

Getting Them to Come Back

Oklahoma Baptist has a link on their ccon site to connect to their email account.

Good example of allowing people to check email while visiting ccon. Great idea!

Getting Them to Come Back

Do You Email Forward?

• Do you offer an email Forwarding service? Why not feature this in CCON.

• No matter where you move, your friends will be able to get in touch with you using the same address ([email protected]), through a forwarding email service.

Getting Them to Come Back

Ryerson University does this. They have updated a custom content page to explain how it works. Nice job!

Getting Them to Come Back

Email Opt-Ins

Getting Them to Come Back

Linking To Facebook…Love It!

• Connect to Facebook and Ccon at the same time, by using your Facebook account.

• Make sure to include a Facebook FAQ page.

Getting Them to Come Back

Ryerson University does this as well.

Getting Them to Come Back

An FAQ page is important to let donors know how this works.

Getting Them to Come Back

News Feed Story Page

Lo

Postings are made by the Page

Administrator and may include:

-Title - Summary Description

- Thumbnail Image

- Link to a Web Page

- Posted By and Date

Getting Them to Come Back

Events Story Page

LoStory Description

provides information and

links for the event

Lo

Postings are made by the

Event Administrator for updates on event

activities, agendas, last

minute details, etc.

Getting Them to Come Back

Sharing Memories Story Page

Lo

Lo

Lo

Story Pages may include a search

of postings

Enable User Postings to

facilitate sharing

Enable User Comments on postings to facilitate

discussions

Getting Them to Come Back

Photo Gallery…Pictures Are Fun!Flickr with cooliris

• Upload Events, Reunions, Watch parties.

• Have Alumni take your mascot on trips and feature a “Where’s __________” section.

Getting Them to Come Back

Let’s Generate Revenue With Business Partners & Advertising

Create an Annual business membership in as a way to connect businesses with alumni across the country. I was able to create this membership with corporations.

• Membership 100% tax deductible• Subscription to your magazine• List company name, contact, logo and link• Promote this network to all of your alumni

Getting Them to Come Back

Business Partners & Advertising

• Display the Network on your site and invite other businesses to join.

• Business partners can purchase advertising right on the alumni site.

• Bringing businesses to the site, making them want to come back.

Getting Them to Come Back

Ryerson University also has discount programs with vendors. Here is an example of one of those.

Getting Them to Come Back

Future Alumni and ParentsFuture Alumni page:• Include High School visit dates• Scholarships for incoming freshman• Preparing for dorm life: what to bring

Parents page:• Financial aide websites• Parents Association• Parents Weekend Events

Getting Them to Come Back

Free products and Fun Things

• View popular pages and who’s online live, by http://whos.amung.us/

• Get stat of popular pages, where they are from and at what times.

Getting Them to Come Back

Getting Them to Come Back

Free products and Fun things

• http://www.wibiya.com/• http://www.cooliris.com/(The sites we talked about on prior slides.)

• Fun thing for people to view will make them stay on our site, making them want to come back.

Getting Them to Come Back

Questions?

Thank you for being here!