CustomViewbook Client Results and Feedback

Inspiration From Across The Globe. The Alice Smith School’s CustomViewbook Wins a Brilliance Award.

Mar 02, 2021

We were thrilled when our clients at the Alice Smith School, an international private school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, told us that they had submitted their CustomViewbook to the 2020 InspirED School Marketers’ Annual Brilliance Awards, sponsored by miXed digital EDU.
(Brilliant ideas and brain food for private school marketing worldwide).

Alice Smith’s captivating CustomViewbook earned a Bronze Award in the category ‘Out of the Box’, with some wonderful comments from judges, and from our esteemed client.

“In a year in which many schools were closed, this feels like a personalized visit . . .”

” . . . it resonates with the next generation of prospective families. Where this approach shines is in the displaying of what the viewer wants to know about the school, not what the school wants the viewer to know. Really smart.”

The team at The Alice Smith School utilizes vibrant images and clear messaging – the perfect recipe for an effective, award-winning and captivating CustomViewbook.

“When the pandemic hit and we could no longer provide in person events and tours the CustomViewbook became a significant feature in our enrollment campaigns being used both in outbound advertising and lead nurturing but also by our Admissions team who provide bespoke viewbook links to families based on the information they have shared with us. The system is easy to use and update and the time invested in providing the depth of information for each family’s individual needs has been incredibly worthwhile.” – Andrea Grassby, Director of Marketing and Admissions

Bravo to Andrea, Karen and the Alice Smith team!

You can check out their CustomViewbook and more about the awards here.

Client Spotlight: Newman University

Dec 30, 2020

In Challenging Times, Creativity Wins Out.

All years must come to an end – to ring in something new and better. Good-bye 2020. Hello New Beginnings in 2021!

Before we part for the Holidays, we want to express our gratitude to our amazing Clients, and our admiration to the Admissions, Enrollment Management, Marketing and Digital Communications professionals we’ve met throughout the year. Despite the extraordinary challenges of COVID-19, the grit and determination of these Higher Education pros shines through!

Here is a fine example…

CLIENT SPOTLIGHT

Geoff Louvar
NEWMAN UNIVERSITY

Geoff Louvar, Admissions Digital Marketing Manager at Newman University, shared how he and the team are keeping it real and student-focused, while pivoting to virtual recruiting events and online sessions.

“As an Admissions team we are very fortunate to have CustomViewbook in our toolbox to recruit students during the COVID19 Pandemic. With students unable or willing to visit campus in-person, we have moved our recruiting events and visits online in a virtual format. The CustomViewbook allows students to receive and create their own personalized view book in a medium they use the most often – their phones. CustomViewbook has provided us with a “cool” factor advantage versus our competition that are relying on printed view books alone.”

Geoff generously shared some of the photos created for upcoming social media and print campaigns – cool, casual and sure to engage eyeballs and capture fresh new student inquiries.

Onward — to meet the challenges of 2021 with online and digital tools that meaningfully personalize the college search experience for prospective students, enhance virtual and in-person connections, and empower students and recruiters.

Colorado State University and CustomViewbook: When Client Insight Meets Student Needs, An Engagement Innovation is Born!

Feb 07, 2020

CRM YouBlast: The Power of Personalized CustomViewbooks, Automated From Your CRM

Noting that prospective first year students often indicate a diverse set of academic and student life interests, our Colorado State University client asked us: Is there a way to provide students individualized, tailor-made content, straight from their Slate CRM?

Great question!

The CustomViewbook team dove right in to plan and develop an innovative solution that allows Slate’s CRM (and all popular CRMs) to share data with our secure server. The result, our new CRM YouBlast tool, gives Colorado State the power to automate creation of personalized CustomViewbooks from within Slate. With the click of a few buttons, they are now able to create personalized CustomViewbooks that match any combination of the diverse Academic and Student Life interests their prospects have.

Prairie Smallwood, Content Marketing Specialist at Colorado State, gives the new tool high marks. “CRM YouBlast has allowed Colorado State University to introduce an instant, personalized experience for our prospective students who may have previously interacted with us. Sending a student an email with their personalized link to their very own CustomViewbook means they can get to the information they want to see – and only the information they want to see – without having to wade through pages and pages of academic, housing, and extracurricular information they aren’t looking for. Everything they’ve previously shown interest in will already be selected in their CVB, along with the option to easily edit as they narrow their search and hone their interest areas at Colorado State University. Right now, we are using CRM YouBlast early in the recruitment funnel, and are really pleased with the engagement rates we are seeing, with unique open rates at 39.6% and unique click rates at 9.2%.”

Go Prairie and Team CO State!

More good news? Colorado State has no hesitation about sharing this breakthrough – the CRM YouBlast feature has been added to our suite of tools and is available to all clients. And yes, it works with all leading CRMs.

For more information on how CustomViewbook digital viewbook platform can help you capture high value leads, and boost student engagement throughout the recruitment funnel, please contact Mary.Pannullo@customviewbook.com

At UIC The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Creativity Drives Student Engagement

Jan 27, 2020

When Jannie Kirby accepted her post as Director of Communications and Marketing at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC LAS), she set out to support the recruitment team by adding a digital experience that prospective students could not refuse!

Jannie worked with her Student Affairs group and CustomViewbook to tackle one of the main challenges that many Liberal Arts schools have – capturing the attention of Gen Z prospective students who have interest in the liberal arts, but may be concerned about career preparedness and a viable post-college path. Together, Jannie, with input from LAS’s Career Development folks, created a Viewbook experience that brings alive the spirit and depth of their diverse programs and vibrant campus life, while providing academic content that underscores the ‘real-world’ value of a liberal arts and sciences education. This content includes inspiring student testimonials, faculty videos, alumni career profiles, experiential learning and internship highlights, and information about minors that can offer a pragmatic complement to a liberal arts’ major.

So far, LAS’s CustomViewbook has proven to be a big hit with prospective students and the recruitment team alike! Jannie noted, “We had a fall Open House and were really pleased with the student enthusiasm for CustomViewbook. The recruitment team really made it a fun event with large banners and signage with QR codes, snippets of student testimonials to encourage prospective students to explore our majors, and chances to win prizes with a ‘Wheel of Fortune’-styled giveaway for those who created their own Viewbook. We captured over 426 new leads through face to face interactions, alone.

“We are really happy with the level of enthusiasm we’ve seen to date. We are not merely pushing info. Students are telling us what interests them the most, which is a great setup for more meaningful dialogue with advisors. We were surprised by some of the most popular areas of interest under ‘Campus Life’, which in turn has informed our web content and communications efforts. We’re incorporating the ViewBook into our social media outreach as well.  It’s exciting to see the number of repeat visitors grow and gain new insights about student preferences. For us, CustomViewbook has been a great addition to our lead nurturing and yield efforts, and we are excited to be leveraging digital technology, creative storytelling, and a tailored student experience to reach Gen Z. They’ve pretty much grown up with digital.  We want to connect with them using a customized approach that they understand and can fully appreciate.”

To learn more about how CustomViewbook can help you capture high value leads and drive lead nurturing and yield efforts, contact Mary.Pannullo@customviewbook.com

Reduce Print Costs: Striking the Balance Between Print and Digital in Higher Ed Admissions’ Marketing

Jan 13, 2020

The trends vary. While every institution has their own take on the strategic use of print pieces for prospective students, each grapple with the same considerations. What is the right balance between print and digital? Where in the recruitment cycle? What kind of pieces? Does Generation Z even look at print? Is it really just for parents?

In our Gen Z Labs user testing sessions, the students are pretty adamant. They only prefer print pieces:

  • if they asked for it
  • if the information is specifically relevant to their interests
  • if it’s brief, factual – not too ‘salesy’
    *Oh, and they like stickers, too.

Our CVB Clients tell us that print is here to stay, though how they use it is evolving. Many are shifting away from expensive, one-size-fits-all print viewbooks. Instead, they start the recruitment cycle with inexpensive print pieces (postcards, tri-fold brochures) inviting prospective students to create their own CustomViewbooks. Once more qualifying information about the prospective student is captured, a targeted print piece is sent, with content relevant to the prospect’s interest. For many of our clients, this streamlined approach has resulted in reduced print production costs.

“CustomViewbook has played a significant role in reducing our print costs. We don’t use very much print anymore, and are making our main piece even smaller. Our bigger main piece is for out-of-state. Our smaller bread-and-butter pieces are driving students to create their own CustomViewbook. When we have VIP visitors to campus, we print out the Viewbook itself.”

“Print is here to stay but its purpose is changing. Because there is a big shift to digital, we use print pieces as something special and extra-personal to get. We use them less often.”

“There are shifts happening but not as quickly as you’d might expect. People are still using quite a bit of print, maybe shorter pieces and not as frequently.”

We get it – print and digital communications should work hand-in-hand!  CustomViewbook has two customizable print designs available for our clients, (a hand-out piece and a self-mailer), each working to build awareness and drive prospects to create their own CVB.  And, we can help clients track the effectiveness of these print campaigns with specific source URLs.

Want to learn more about how CustomViewbook can help make your print strategy more effective? Contact Mary Pannullo (mary.pannullo@customviewbook.com) and schedule a demo, now.

 

“A Statistically Significant Positive Enrollment Indicator”

Oct 21, 2019

When it comes to statistics, our client at SUNY Buffalo State College does not mess around.

Dave Loreto, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, has presented nationally on CRM technology, predictive analytics and international student recruitment. He has also coauthored a research publication in Strategic Enrollment Management Quarterly on the use of predictive modeling and CRM technology in admissions recruitment planning. So, when we hear some really cool results from Dave – we are elated!

“We have used our CustomViewbook in ViewbookBlast campaigns to accepted students; in calls-to-action on our website; and in lead nurturing email campaigns. Each type of campaign has contributed positively to yield, with those students who found CustomViewbook organically indicating the greatest interest and engagement. Regardless of the source, we see any interaction with the CustomViewbook as a statistically significant positive enrollment indicator.”

Total Yield for Fall and Spring (18/19):

  • Unique CVB users | ViewbookBlast: 82% Increase in Deposit Rate
  • Unique CVB Users | Website: 102% Increase in Deposit Rate
  • Unique CVB Users | Lead Nurturing Campaigns: 123% Increase in Deposit Rate

 Thank you for sharing some great news, Dave!

Want to know more about how  we can help you capture, engage and convert prospective students?
Contact Mary Pannullo for an informative and fun demo and learn how the CustomViewbook platform including the Recruiter App™ for iPad, ViewbookBlast™ and CRM YouBlast™ tools can help you meet your recruitment goals!

 

 

 

Prospective Student Engagement Is Energized and Riding High at USC Dornsife

Mar 22, 2019

There is nothing that pleases us more than hearing great, positive feedback from our wonderful Clients. We were really excited to hear from Mark Kveton, Assistant Director of Admissions at USC Dornsife, whose team has been getting some powerful results with their CustomViewbook.

“Custom Viewbook has created a new dynamic in how we connect with our prospective students. We’ve seen value in using it in all aspects of the admissions cycle, and we continue to think of new ways to get the word out about this resource. It has created a “buzz” during on and off campus presentations. The curiosity it sparks with students, parents, and even counselors enhances our ability to provide personal engagement with our educational community.”

“We are doing some ViewbookBlasts email campaigns this month and are really pleased with these targeted campaigns. Our recent campaign to admitted students resulted in almost instantaneous engagement. 100 out of 400 students opened and clicked thru within the first 2 hours; 200 students within 24 hours!”

ViewbookBlasts Email Campaign:

  • Over 400 Admitted potential First Year / Merit Scholarship Candidates
  • Broken out over 8 categories based on Academic areas & majors
  • Within 2 hours of sending out, we have seen over 100 Click thru’s (25%)
  • 200 within 24 hours! (50% Click thru rate in 24 hours)

Mark was willing to share a bit of how they have been able to achieve that kind of engagement, “We get students excited about CustomViewbook during our presentations and in conversations with students. They’re really interested in this resource and are looking forward to making their own by the time they get the email from us – even before they go to our website.”

Mark and his team are full steam ahead, using insights from their dashboard when presenting Academic and Campus/Student Life topics of interest to students; using the Multi-Source URL links to track specific campaigns; and directing students to edit their CustomViewbook as many times as they like.

Fun Fact: “We had one student return to their CustomViewbook 26 times. We’ll see if he becomes enrolled!”

We would love to show you how the CustomViewbook online experience, ViewbookBlasts, the Recruiter App for iPad adds up to high impact student engagement – and outstanding results for our Admissions and Recruitment clients.  Contact Mary.Pannullo@CustomViewbook.com to schedule an informative demo!