Sam Bethel
Previous Campus and Partner Relations Coordinator, Office of International Affairs, University of Oregon (Sam is no longer an employee at U of O).
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Sam shares a little about his background and his insights on CRM implementation and management:
What's your background in IE? My passion for IE began when I studied abroad in Cologne, Germany as an undergrad. This was my first ever experience traveling outside of the US and I was hooked immediately. After graduation I was determined to go abroad again, and for longer, so I ended up accepting a one-year teaching position at a private school in South Korea. I worked at the University of Oregon’s study abroad office for just under five years, where I oversaw the office’s digital communication and outreach in the Northwest region. |
What unique ways do you use marketing & communication to get your population engaged?
One of our advisors notified us that UO's lead mascot was planning to study abroad in London over the summer. Knowing what an amazing opportunity it would be to have the Duck in London, we wrote the student and asked if we could film him for a few days as the Duck. He agreed and we got the Athletics Department to sign off on the idea. We sent a videographer from our marketing team to shoot and edit the video while we created a social media campaign to promote it. When the video launched in early fall 2015, it quickly reached an audience of nearly 50,000. By far the most engagement/largest reach we’ve ever had for a single social media post. Check it out below!
One of our advisors notified us that UO's lead mascot was planning to study abroad in London over the summer. Knowing what an amazing opportunity it would be to have the Duck in London, we wrote the student and asked if we could film him for a few days as the Duck. He agreed and we got the Athletics Department to sign off on the idea. We sent a videographer from our marketing team to shoot and edit the video while we created a social media campaign to promote it. When the video launched in early fall 2015, it quickly reached an audience of nearly 50,000. By far the most engagement/largest reach we’ve ever had for a single social media post. Check it out below!
You helped implement a new CRM for the University of Oregon. Tell us about your process - beginning to end if you can!
The process really began once we identified a need. Our office had no tool for tracking and monitoring student interest in study abroad (outside of our application system), and our email marketing platform was not robust enough. Once we realized this, the value proposition for implementing a department-wide CRM was clear. I wrote and submitted a proposal to our executive director and we began discussing budgets. I researched several different CRM platforms, creating a spreadsheet with the services they provided and associated costs. We learned very quickly that CRM subscriptions are not cheap. (Be wary, some CRM’s even charge for every message sent!) Ultimately, we ended up not being able to go with our first choice (Salesforce Marketing Cloud) due to cost, but ended up finding a comparable CRM (Agile CRM) within our budget.
From there I began working with Enrollment Management and Data Warehouse to upload student directory contact information to the system (name, email, and major). We did the same for university staff and faculty. Having all university contacts entered in the system allowed our staff to share access to information on key stakeholders in a collaborative way (e.g. Advising notes on prospective students, faculty interested in developing programs, info on departmental advisors, etc.).
We also collaborated with our office’s design team to create tailored email campaigns targeting the university's nine colleges and schools. These emails showcased discipline specific programs, relevant info sessions, and promoted our study abroad fair. We also created separate messages to highlight our social media platforms and scholarship opportunities.
The result: In fall 2015 alone, we saw a 97% increase in applications initiated. We were also able to single out students who were interested in study abroad (though hadn’t yet started an application) and have our peer assistants individually follow up. This yielded an additional 157 applications initiated, and ultimately, 71 study abroad participants — and these were students who would have likely not enrolled in a program if it wasn't for our follow up in the CRM.
What marketing & communications tactics have you tried that haven't worked? What were the differences between ones that haven't worked and ones that have?
When we first launched our CRM email campaigns, our goal was to contact students at least once every nine days. After looking through our open and click through rates over fall term, though, it was pretty evident that students were getting tired of our messages. The more emails we sent, the lower our engagement became. We needed a more disciplined and strategic approach to email promotion. We decided to condense relevant content into fewer messages with more direct links to our site. We learned stand alone social media and scholarship messages weren’t necessary — instead, they should be components of every message sent!
The campaigns that ended up being the most successful were ones that 1) had a clear call to action, 2) multiple clickable links and images, and 3) were concise.
The process really began once we identified a need. Our office had no tool for tracking and monitoring student interest in study abroad (outside of our application system), and our email marketing platform was not robust enough. Once we realized this, the value proposition for implementing a department-wide CRM was clear. I wrote and submitted a proposal to our executive director and we began discussing budgets. I researched several different CRM platforms, creating a spreadsheet with the services they provided and associated costs. We learned very quickly that CRM subscriptions are not cheap. (Be wary, some CRM’s even charge for every message sent!) Ultimately, we ended up not being able to go with our first choice (Salesforce Marketing Cloud) due to cost, but ended up finding a comparable CRM (Agile CRM) within our budget.
From there I began working with Enrollment Management and Data Warehouse to upload student directory contact information to the system (name, email, and major). We did the same for university staff and faculty. Having all university contacts entered in the system allowed our staff to share access to information on key stakeholders in a collaborative way (e.g. Advising notes on prospective students, faculty interested in developing programs, info on departmental advisors, etc.).
We also collaborated with our office’s design team to create tailored email campaigns targeting the university's nine colleges and schools. These emails showcased discipline specific programs, relevant info sessions, and promoted our study abroad fair. We also created separate messages to highlight our social media platforms and scholarship opportunities.
The result: In fall 2015 alone, we saw a 97% increase in applications initiated. We were also able to single out students who were interested in study abroad (though hadn’t yet started an application) and have our peer assistants individually follow up. This yielded an additional 157 applications initiated, and ultimately, 71 study abroad participants — and these were students who would have likely not enrolled in a program if it wasn't for our follow up in the CRM.
What marketing & communications tactics have you tried that haven't worked? What were the differences between ones that haven't worked and ones that have?
When we first launched our CRM email campaigns, our goal was to contact students at least once every nine days. After looking through our open and click through rates over fall term, though, it was pretty evident that students were getting tired of our messages. The more emails we sent, the lower our engagement became. We needed a more disciplined and strategic approach to email promotion. We decided to condense relevant content into fewer messages with more direct links to our site. We learned stand alone social media and scholarship messages weren’t necessary — instead, they should be components of every message sent!
The campaigns that ended up being the most successful were ones that 1) had a clear call to action, 2) multiple clickable links and images, and 3) were concise.
