Campus Visits that Increase Enrollment – Part Two – Unexpected Advantages

Part One of this series discussed research that demonstrates that when prospective students put forth effort (by visiting campus in this case), most will justify that effort with increased appreciation for what they see.  If their campus tour is presented by a qualified tour guide who tailors the tour to their interests, their appreciation will further increase. As Will Smith might have put it in Hitch, once that process has begun, the admissions office’s job is “not to blow it.”

What can admissions officers do to avoid squandering this beneficial effect?  What does scientific research show can increase prospective students’ liking for what they see?  How can you improve your institution’s chances of enrolling qualified students who visit campus?

 How “not to blow it”

A substantial body of research has proved the truth of the saying, ‘You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.’ Because of a phenomenon called Confirmation Bias, once a prospect or his/her parents get an impression of your institution, it’s very hard to change it.  As social psychologist and textbook author David Myers, PhD put it, “We are eager to verify our beliefs but less inclined to seek information that might disprove them.”  Therefore, making a good first impression is essential.  How can you do it? 

 Effective marketers use research to anticipate their prospects’ feelings and foresee their needs.  That shouldn’t be difficult to do.  Just think back to the last time you drove a long distance.  What would have made your arrival more pleasant?  Most likely, a warm welcome and a clean, attractive bathroom.  Be sure to provide both for your guests and you will start them off on the right foot.

Feeding your prospective students’ interest

 Do you provide students and parents with a snack?  Research shows this can be a very good idea.  In Influence – Science and Practice, persuasion expert Robert Cialdini, PhD describes Dr. Gregory Razran’s experiments on the power of food to change attitudes.  According to Influence, Dr. Razran found that his subjects became “fonder of the people and things they experienced while they were eating.”  Research reported on by The Providence Journal showed why this might be.  People were given a brain scan while eating their favorite food.  Their brains’ pleasure centers lit up like New York harbor on the 4^th of July. 

 The pleasure produced by good food can make your providing it a pleasure.  Research shows that the human brain is very good at recognizing how it feels.  It is not nearly as adept, however, at focusing on the source of the good feelings. Good feelings generated by tasty food can rub off on everything else a person experiences at the time. This is Classical Conditioning. We see this constantly in “feel good” commercials, where advertisers stir up warm feelings with puppies and cute kids while showing their product. As eminent social psychologist Dr. Elliot Aronson put it, “by associating positive emotions with a product, an advertiser can turn a bland product into one that evokes feelings of nostalgia, love, warmth and general goodwill.”

 Creating good feelings about your institution

 PET scan studies have shown that genuine, friendly smiles can also stimulate the brain’s pleasure center.  Effective tours will have plenty of these in supply as well. And while institutions want students to choose them for well-thought-out reasons, the good feelings generated by a warm welcome and a fudge brownie could help a student choose Dartmouth over Brown, Brandeis over Williams, Quinnipiac over Providence and so on.     

It’s for this very reason that colleges would do well, when resources and schedules will permit, to accommodate younger students who want to visit campus.  Their having an enjoyable, stimulating visit can help them develop positive attitudes about college in general and your institution in particular.  These good feelings can give your institution an edge when those students start thinking seriously about choosing what they will do after high school.  Besides, these tours are often requested by local schools. Local students can enroll without taxing dormitory resources.  Admissions departments find there are years when a high commuter population can be a real asset.  

 Campus tours, if handled effectively, can provide institutions with pools of students who are predisposed to enroll.  The key, then, is to find good ways to encourage more students to visit.  Research has found a number of tools that can increase students’ interest in visiting. To discuss this further, please email me at lrondeau@thealliedgrp.com.

Campus Visits that Increase Enrollment

1. Why are campus visits so important to conversion and yield?
2. What can make a tour guide outstanding?
3. What are some keys to successful campus visits?
4. Should you invite elementary and middle schools that want to visit?
5. How can you encourage more students to visit campus?

Campus visits are a key to a successful admissions program.  Conversion and enrollment rates at many institutions soar for prospective students who visit campus.  In addition, students who visit campus before enrolling face fewer surprises once they begin their freshman year.  Decreasing the number of surprises should increase the rate of student retention.

An important truth underlies successful visits

An uncommon insight on successful campus tours was found in the movie Hitch.  In the film, Will Smith plays Hitch, the love doctor who teaches clients how to capture hearts.  An early scene finds Hitch riding in a taxicab with an exuberant client.  The man proclaims, “I did exactly what you told me to do and it worked!  She’s going out to dinner with me tonight.  What should I do?”  The “love doctor” instructs his client, “OK now, she’s made a commitment to you by agreeing to go out with you.  So tonight, your job is not to blow it.” 

Prospective students who travel considerable distances to visit your campus have likewise made a commitment of interest in your institution.  When they arrive, the admissions office’s most important job is “not to blow it.”  Many research studies have found that when most people expend considerable effort toward a goal, they will often justify that effort by feeling much more positively about what they’ve done.  That positive feeling can result in applications and enrollment for students who visit your campus.

A classic experiment proves the point

In a classic study, renowned social psychologist Elliot Aronson, PhD and co-researcher Judson Mills, PhD offered students at a women’s college the opportunity to take part in a sex discussion group.  Some of the students were able to join the group merely by signing up.  Others were forced to endure an embarrassing initiation procedure in order to join.  The discussion group was held, but it turned out to be far from the scintillating presentation students had anticipated.  The group leader and several key members had been instructed by Aronson and Mills to purposely make the conversation as boring as possible.  It centered on the mating habits of invertebrates and other animals rather than humans. 

Persuasion expert, Dr. Robert Cialdini wrote about the results: “They found that college women who had to endure a severely embarrassing initiation ceremony in order to gain access … convinced themselves that their new group and its discussions were extremely valuable…Different coeds who went through a much milder initiation ceremony or went through no initiation at all, were decidedly less positive about the “worthless” new group they had joined.”  Clearly, if putting forth much effort can make a boring discussion group seem extremely valuable to students, a good tour should help students who put forth the effort to travel to campus recognize your institution’s value.  What are some key factors that can help make campus visits truly successful?

Tour guides that shine

A roundtable held at the 2010 NEACAC Annual Meeting revealed important things tour guides can do to assure that students and parents enjoy their visit.  That list included:

• Dressing and acting professionally
• Assigning a tour guide that can speak to the interests of those in the group
• Asking about the specific interests of families included in their tour group and basing the tour on those interests
• Having an “expert” available at every stop to provide insight on that aspect of the tour
• Relating personal stories of successful interaction with the faculty
• Avoiding bragging and any other social faux pas
• Saving something to show on subsequent visits

Outstanding tour guides can be vital for successful tours.  But both research and experience show that there are other important keys to campus visits that get results.  What are they?  Please feel free to provide your comments as to critical factors in campus visits.  The author had additional valuable points to share.  Stay tuned.

Defeating “Digs” and Unfounded Criticism

It can occur in at any place – at work, in the field with prospective students and parents, even at home. It can happen when you’re one-on-one or in a group.  It can be as small as a subtle “dig” or as blatant as an outright assault on your capabilities or character.  It is a personal attack. But no matter when it happens, it can bring consequences.  Personal attacks can make you feel badly – or make you look bad in front of your prospects, your colleagues, your friends or even your boss. 

But just as there are effective techniques to neutralize a physical assault, there is a way to successfully neutralize a verbal attack that can leave you looking and feeling good.  It can dissuade your opponent from doing it again – and help you gain respect.  How can you do it?

A little psychology can go a long way

When under attack, our natural response is to retaliate or retreat.  Neither will get us the result we want.  Instead, understanding and applying some sound psychology can dramatically improve the situation.

Eminent social psychologist Elliot Aronson, PhD and his coauthors’ stated, “During the past half-century social psychologists have discovered that one of the most powerful determinants of human behavior stems from our need to preserve a stable, positive self-image.”  This demonstrates why we personally must avoid embarrassing others – they need to view themselves as good, intelligent, rational people.  Retaliation only brings further attacks, since one must defend his or her self-image.  But running away from a bully is not a good idea either.  It marks us as an easy target for future aggression.  Bullies want to make themselves look and feel better by making us look and feel worse.

How to stop a harsh critic in his tracks

The key, then, to defeating this behavior is to use your detractor’s need for a positive self-image to make him stop his verbal aggression.  According to Dr. Aronson and coauthor Carol Tavris, PhD in Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), “When you do anything that harms someone else – get them in trouble, verbally abuse them or punch them out – a powerful new factor comes into play:  the need to justify what you did.”

So, the one making an oral onslaught (however small or large) has to justify it in order to continue to feel good about himself. If he* cannot justify his behavior, he may experience significant cognitive dissonance (mental discomfort).   And according to Dr. Aronson and his coauthors, “Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish; people don’t rest easy until they find a way to reduce it.” 

That’s another reason why retaliating doesn’t work. If you respond with a cutting remark or point out his flaws, your adversary will ignore his own unkind words and focus completely on what you said.  Your reply will give him the justification he seeks.  You will have let him off the emotional hook. He may, in fact, come to feel that you deserved his attack and will be more inclined towards another verbal assault in the future.

You can avoid all this by making it difficult or impossible for your opponent to justify what he did.  How can you prevent a critic from justifying his negative words?  A great way to do that was revealed by wise King Solomon, who wrote:

If the one hating you is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.  For coals are what you are raking together upon his head…

Solomon here refers to early smelting techniques.  Ancient metal workers would build a fire and then put iron ore on the hot coals, hoping to melt down the metal within.  That procedure often worked.  But if the iron was deep within the ore, more would be required.  They would rake hot coals on top of the ore.  The tremendous heat from above and below would usually melt the stubborn metal.

In the same way, if you respond to cutting remarks with kindness, you make it very hard for your adversary to justify his unkind words.  He may feel significant dissonance or mental discomfort.  His conscience may begin to bother him.  His only way to get relief is to stop attacking you, soften his stance, or even apologize.  Like an ancient metalworker, you will melt down his opposition.  In addition, you will display great emotional strength.  Bosses, coworkers, prospects, parents, friends and bullies alike have to admire strength.

Changing a critic into a supporter

In fact, psychologists have found that people feel a strong need to repay the kindness shown them with thoughtfulness of their own. We learn from youth that favors must be appropriately reimbursed.  When someone goes out of their way to do or say something nice, we often find ourselves compelled to do the same to them.  Kind words and deeds beget more kind words and deeds. 

This is where the human tendency to justify behavior can work in our favor.  Researchers have often found that people validate their benevolent acts by increasing their liking for the recipient of their kindness.  “After all, if an intelligent person like me did something nice for Jim, he must be a pretty good guy.” So, when our prospect, parent or colleague appropriately repays our kindness, he will often come to like us more.  Our humane words and actions can create what Drs. Aronson and Tavris call a “cycle of benevolence” that fosters good will and camaraderie with our peers and partners. If we consistently speak graciously with others, regardless of how they speak to us, we will often ultimately receive respect and kindness.  Our work teams can become more enjoyable and productive, which will lead to greater rewards for all.

* While we speak of verbal aggressors as “he,” the principles here work well for anyone with a working conscience, male or female.

Working Effectively with Challenging Colleagues – Part One

1. What often causes friction between talented colleagues?
2. Recognizing what need can lay the groundwork for harmonious cooperation?
3. How can you prevent friction before it starts?
4. What’s the best way to blunt a personal attack?
5. What can foster continuing good will within a group?

Admissions officers and institutional marketers face plenty of challenges.  Working with their talented colleagues shouldn’t be one of them.  Enrollment managers, college marketing officers, student affairs professionals, faculty and senior administration are all working together to benefit students and their institution. Laudable common goals often unite people.  But according to Creighton University scholars Anne York, Kim McCarthy and Todd Darnold, “General management research …finds that managing diverse work groups is one of the most difficult challenges in today’s organizations and that it is not going smoothly.”

Part of the problem may be that each of these areas is important to achieving the institution’s goal of providing students with a high-quality education.  But research finds that, due to the built-in biases humans use to protect their self-esteem, each tends to feel that his/her area is the most important and that its turf must be defended.

This can cause contention and rivalry to develop when teamwork and camaraderie should be the order of the day.  That may not happen often at your institution, but one fact is inescapable:  The intelligence and expertise that helps people excel as individuals can produce friction when they interact.  What can help to lessen or eliminate friction and assist these partners in education in accomplishing their goals?

Recognize your need

A good starting point is this fundamental truth: Even the most brilliant educator, marketer or enrollment manager needs the good work and input of their colleagues. Bestselling author Dr. Robert Cialdini and coauthors related in Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive that DNA pioneer Dr. James Watson was asked to list the major factors that helped Dr. Francis Crick and him win the race to discover the structure of DNA. One surprising factor he listed was that he and Dr. Crick were not the most intelligent scientists working in this field (no one who read some of Dr. Watson’s more recent controversial comments will debate him on that point!).  Watson related that the most intelligent researcher in the race to discover the double helix had been British scientist Dr. Rosalind Franklin. He went on to say:

Rosalind was so intelligent that she rarely sought advice.  And if you’re the brightest person in the room then you’re in trouble.

Yes! further states that “Behavioral scientist Patrick Laughlin and his colleagues have shown that the approaches and outcomes of groups who cooperate in seeking a solution are not just better than the average member working alone, but are even better than the group’s best problem solver working alone.”

So the first step in working together in a team is to realize that the team needs each one of its members if it is going to reach its goals. If enrollment managers and admissions officers don’t bring in the freshman class, many jobs and the institution itself may be in danger.  If institutional marketers have not positioned the college well, it will be considerably harder to recruit freshmen and transfers.  Without the work of high quality faculty and student affairs professionals it may become difficult to retain students to graduation. And without skilled institutional leadership, the college or university may never reach its goals.  Like the human body, an institution needs the work of all its members to thrive.

The interdependence of administration, faculty and key staff is hardly a new concept.  But despite the clear need to work together, problems sometimes arise.  Hard feelings that originate when sparks fly in a meeting can ignite a smoldering fire that adds contention and stress to an already challenging job.

Research has uncovered effective ways to eliminate friction before it begins. Experts have found ways to neutralize annoying personal comments or even outright verbal attacks.  Educators can take steps to foster universal good will within their ranks. How can you accomplish this?  Stay tuned.

The Psychology of Yield – Part Two

Well, here we are coming down the home stretch.  May 1^st will arrive this week.  This is undoubtedly a time of tense anticipation at many colleges, with the economy still in slow recovery mode.  It may also be a time of intense negotiation, as financially strapped parents try to find every last financial aid dollar available. 

Requests for additional financial aid

Despite our being in the “eleventh hour,” a couple of points may still be worth noting about yield.  One has to do with financial aid negotiations by parents.  A 30-year sales career taught me a few things about price negotiations.  The first is that not all requests by buyers (in this case, parents) are the same.   In many cases, students may truly want to attend your institution, and parents may be at the end of their financial rope trying to make it happen.  In those cases, finding some extra financial aid or a way to help them avoid anticipated costs could make all the difference.

Honest request or questionable negotiation tactics?

The vast majority of parents are honorable people. And while nearly all may give the impression that they are the financially-strapped parents of a student who truly wants to enroll at your institution, that may not always reflect reality.  In a 2004 presentation entitled, “Practical Negotiation Skills” given to an organization of business executives, a purchasing negotiation expert’s handout recommended tactics like:

•  Deliberate deception/phony facts
• Nibbling (asking for a little more, and when you get it, still more)
• Add-ons (which he calls the Columbo Technique –“Oh, just one more thing…”)
• Escalating demands
• Threats
• Take-it-or-leave-it

Parents who employ some or all of these negotiation tactics can make life very difficult for admissions officials who are honestly trying to enroll students in programs that can truly benefit their lives.  In some cases, parents may request that your institution match another college’s financial aid award because their child truly wants to be on your campus and they’re trying to find a way to make that happen.  In other cases, parents may want you to give a larger award so that they’ll have a bargaining chip to use with the institution that’s the real first choice.

 When I was in sales, the purchasing agent for a manufacturer who was a regular client invited me into their purchasing office.  Posted there was a memo I wasn’t supposed to see.  It read: 

    Purchasing Procedure

1. Get three quotes for all major projects. 
2. After receiving pricing, approach the company with the highest price and tell them that you’ve been offered a price that’s 15% lower than your lowest price. Tell them that you really want to do business with them, as long as they can match that price. 
3. If they match it, give them the order.  If they can’t, give the order to the company that gave you the lowest price.

One would like to think that such duplicity would not find its way into the field of education, but it may be reflected in the requests of a few parents.  Naturally, you’ll give all parents the benefit of the doubt, since the vast majority is honorable. But how can you tell the parents who are sincerely negotiating on behalf of a student who wants to attend from those who are just looking for a bargaining chip to use on a competing institution?

Knowledge is power.

One thing that could help in determining which students merit extra help and attention would be having a way to know which students are more likely to enroll at your institution.  As enrollment managers undoubtedly know, students who participate are more likely to enroll.  Yield websites have been designed to fully engage accepted students.  These can be effective, but expensive.    

 In contrast, a simple, inexpensive website provided one university a way to both learn which students were more likely to attend and to increase the odds that they’d enroll.  In a recent marketing test, this university set up a contest to drive accepted students to that website.  There they were asked merely to verify or update their contact information and answer a simple question.  This sounds quite pedestrian, but the question was one that research by social psychologists had shown to have considerable motivating power.

Increasing knowledge, participation and yield

The results were quite interesting.  While this private university as a whole suffered through a yield rate below 16% during the height of the recession, the approximately 500 students who visited the website yielded at 44.75%.  Records showed that a significantly higher percentage of these students had attended Accepted Student Day programs. That’s the kind of result social psychology research would have predicted. 

Now, the contest was not as well publicized as enrollment managers had planned, so it’s possible that only those students already committed to enrolling visited the site.  But hundreds of scientific studies have demonstrated that securing commitments as this website did increases prospects’ feeling of commitment.  In fact, a few years before Proctor & Gamble used the same tactic to achieve their most successful product launch in company history. 

In either event, the fact is that visiting the website and answering the question provided in itself an effective way to predict with about 50% certainty which students would attend Accepted Student Day programs and which students would actually send in deposits.  Armed with the knowledge of whether or not a certain student was in the group more likely to enroll, an admissions official could address parents’ requests from a position of strength. This could make help make springtime the enjoyable season it was meant to be!

To learn more about commitment-securing yield websites, please email me at lrondeau@thealliedgrp.com.

The Psychology of Yield – Part One

1. How can you help accepted students make a positive and lasting decision?

2. What can help accepted students feel like enrolling at your institution?

3. Is there a way to make their vision of the future match your vision?

4. What specific approach can tip the balances in your favor?

5. What yield strategy is sure to be justified by its results?

The first of May is fast approaching. Deposits are due, and colleges and universities will have a reasonably clear picture of their incoming freshman class. This is a time of hard work and anxiety at many institutions. But some universities have found ways to ease the pressure and increase the odds that they’ll be smiling on May first. Knowingly or unknowingly they’ve made good use of some important psychological principles that add to their success. What are some of these?

First the Thought….

Many institutions do an excellent job of giving prospective freshmen the information they need to make good decisions. Their marketing people effectively package that information in well designed publications. This is important – decisions that are based on facts have proven time and again to have the greatest, longest-lasting impact. According to eminent social psychologist Dr. Elliot Aronson and his coauthors, research shows that “people who base their attitudes on a careful analysis of the arguments are more likely to maintain this attitude over time, more likely to behave consistently with this attitude and more resistant to counterpersuasion than people who base their attitudes on peripheral cues.”

Students who carefully examine their college options are more likely to enroll and persist than students who decide on a school for emotional reasons (like the fact that their friends will attend). Getting prospects to carefully consider what your institution has to offer is a good first step towards getting a class that will enroll and stay enrolled.

Then the Feeling

By the time prospects have applied, they certainly ought to know the basic facts about the colleges receiving their applications. One institution, though, will gain the inside track. What often makes the difference here is feeling. That feeling can be a sense of belonging. It can be a sense that, “this could be for me.” Consumer behavior expert Ray Wright states, “Research seems to show that feeling plays as much as 75% in the purchasing of consumer products…So, according to this theory on consumer involvement, consumers become interested in brands because they make them feel happy, ..or important, or part of a group…or proud and so on.”

For years, wise enrollment managers have recognized the importance of helping their accepted students feel like part of a group. Websites and Facebook pages for accepted students work toward this goal. But since virtually every institution is already doing that, are there other feelings that colleges can stir up that will help students want to enroll?

Seeing Themselves in the Picture

Author Alvin Burns writes in The Journal of Advertising, “Several consumer researchers have shown that imagery-eliciting strategies can significantly affect attitudes…That is, imagery-eliciting stimuli resulted in more positive attitudes than stimuli not attempting to elicit imagery.” In one such study in the early days of cable television, persuasion expert Robert Cialdini and his colleagues found that homeowners who were asked to envision themselves enjoying the benefits of cable TV were more than twice as likely to subscribe as those who were just told about those benefits.

This strategy works for colleges as well. To help accepted students see themselves enjoying the benefits of enrolling at their institutions, a number of colleges and universities have started using customized yield publications. If these publications are designed effectively they can have a very positive impact on yield rates. A few years ago, the University of Hartford began sending customized yield books out to each accepted student as a major part of their yield program. These books helped prospects see themselves pursuing their goals at the university. Deposit rates increased by 14% to a record level. Southern New Hampshire University saw similar results with a scaled-down version that helped increase deposits by 11%.

But stimulating visualization was not the only benefit of these publications. They can also show students and parents that the institution highly values them. They can make students feel important. One Dean of Admissions wrote about his customized yield book,

So many of the PARENTS loved seeing this in the mail. I had parents coming up to me at the Accepted Student Days saying how much they loved seeing that book come in the mail. The general sense from parents was that we really care about their kids.

Clearly, customized yield publications can have a positive impact on both students and parents. If you would like to see an example in the case study, When Yield is a Problem, it’s Time to Get Personal, please email me at lrondeau@thealliedgrp.com and I’ll forward it along. There are additional strategies that can increase yield as well. What are they? Stay tuned.

Can You Increase Open House Attendance with Consistency?

In “Thought is the Child of Action” we considered how social psychologists were able to get an astounding 76% of California homeowners to agree to post large, ugly DRIVE CAREFULLY signs on their front lawns – just because they had previously agreed to display tiny driver safety signs in their windows.  That’s good to know if you’re a public safety advocate.  But how can this knowledge benefit higher education programs for nontraditional students?

 How the Consistency Principle Can Help Educators and Recruiters

Clearly, educators are hoping to encourage students to help themselves by furthering their education, not induce them to agree to outlandish requests.  But despite the importance of education, prospective students continue to put off taking steps that will clearly help their job prospects in a recovering economy.  Is it because they lack knowledge of the benefits of a degree?  Yes, in a few cases.  But often it’s because they just don’t have enough motivation to clear the hurdle of going back to college as working adults.  This is where employing the Consistency Principle can help.

 Graduate and Continuing Education programs recruit many students from among those who attend their Open House events.  Can the Consistency Principle – confirmed by over 1,000 studies – help increase attendance?  It can.

 Consistency’s Power to Move People to Take the Next Step

In Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, persuasion expert Dr. Robert Cialdini and his coauthors relate another Freedman and Fraser experiment that shows how Consistency can move individuals to take further steps.  An assistant called homeowners, asking them to participate in a consumer survey.  Note what he told them:

This survey will involve five or six men from our staff coming into your home some morning for about 2 hours to enumerate and classify all the household products that you have.  They will have to have full freedom in your house to go through the cupboards and storage places.  Then all this information will be used in the writing of the reports for our public service publication – “The Guide.”

 It’s remarkable that anyone consented to this equivalent of executing a search warrant.  But 22% of those asked agreed.  A second group of homeowners were called beforehand and asked a number of questions on the household products they preferred.  Their answers would be published in “The Guide.”  Most cooperated and answered the questions.  When they were called three days later and asked to consent to the “marketing search warrant,” an amazing 53% agreed!

 Moving More Prospects to Attend your Open House

Prospective adult learners who inquire about your programs have already taken the first step.  They are equivalent to the homeowners in Freedman and Fraser’s studies who agreed to display a tiny sign or answer a few questions.  Follow up their inquiry within two weeks and ask them to take a further step.  If an Open House is scheduled, attending it is a natural next step.  If not, would an in-person or phone interview make sense?  If college resources would allow, could you schedule a discussion with a qualified education counselor?  Each stride your prospects take makes the majority feel a greater interest in furthering their education.  It moves them closer to enrolling in your program.  That is, perhaps why colleges enroll so many adults who attend Open Houses – they’ve already taken a significant step by coming.

 Increasing Inquiries with Consistency

As mentioned in “Thought is the Child of Action,” many institutions knowingly or unknowingly employ the Consistency Principle to increase qualified inquiries for traditional undergraduate programs.  It works – but only when applied with knowledge and skill.  Clearly the research shows that the Consistency Principle moves adults to action. Can it be used to increase inquiries from adult learners at your institution? 

If you’re a Dean, Director or college marketing officer who would like to learn more, feel free to email me at lrondeau@thealliedgrp.com. 

 

“Thought is the Child of Action”

This quote from British statesman Benjamin Disraeli describes a principle that could help graduate, continuing education and professional development programs increase inquiries and applications in a difficult economy.  Programs designed for adult learners often do a great job of educating prospects about the features and benefits of their programs.  Educators, of course, believe in education.  Many feel that by disseminating the right information to students they can persuade them to inquire, apply and ultimately enroll.  And for students who already have decided to further their education, that thinking is correct – the right information can help them make a decision.  But what about students who have not yet fully decided to return to college?  Or those whose educational investigation is still in progress?  What can educators do to encourage them to formally inquire and move closer toward the goal of furthering their education?

 The Psychology behind Effective Lead Generation

 In our last post we discussed a phenomenon that had been proven by more than 1,000 scientific studies:  the fact that the human need to maintain a positive self-image can affect both attitudes and actions.  Psychologists call it the Consistency Principle.  Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence-Science and Practice was rated by one business publication as the “Top Marketing and Sales Book of All Time.” In it he describes the conclusion of those 1,000 studies, “Once we make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressure to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.  We simply convince ourselves that we have made the right choice and, no doubt, feel better about our decision (Fazio, Bascovich, & Driscoll, 1992).”  Or, as wise King Solomon put it, “every way of a man is right in his own eyes.” We often automatically believe that anything we’ve done must be a good idea.

 The Power to Change Attitudes and Actions

A classic study outlined in Influence shows the Consistency Principle’s power.  In 1966, social psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser conducted an experiment in which a “volunteer” canvassed a California neighborhood making a preposterous request of homeowners. He asked them to give permission for a large sign to be placed on their front lawn.  It read, “DRIVE CAREFULLY.” As part of his presentation, he showed homeowners a photo of the poorly lettered sign.  It appeared to almost fully cover the front of the house on whose lawn it was placed.  No one was surprised by the fact that 83% said “No” to this request.

 But in one area, the results were amazingly different.  In that area, a full 76% of homeowners agreed to display the sign. What made the difference?  Two weeks before another “volunteer” went house to house in that neighborhood asking homeowners to display a small three-inch square sign in their front windows or storm doors.  It read, “BE A SAFE DRIVER.”  It was such a tiny request that nearly everyone complied.  But of those who did, more than three out of four later agreed to put up the big ugly sign.  They had apparently justified their earlier small commitment to driver safety by becoming, in their own minds, public safety advocates.  With that new attitude in place, they willingly agreed to a further request, however outlandish, in line with their feelings.

 Hundreds of Colleges Use this Strategy Right Now

The Consistency Principle, that people tend to change their attitudes to make them consistent with their previous actions, is used by undergraduate admissions departments across the United States and Canada.  It is the driving force behind successful Student Search programs.  Institutions that use it well often get high response rates from their Search campaigns.

But since adult learners are different from 18-year-old prospective students, some may feel that any strategy that works with traditional undergraduates will never work with nontraditional prospects.  But please note that like most of the subjects of the 1,000 research studies that demonstrated the Consistency Principle, the California homeowners who agreed to put up the DRIVE CAREFULLY sign were not 18-year-olds – they were adults.

Donation drives based on the Consistency Principle have been used by some of the largest charities in America.  These, too, are targeted to adults. This psychological principle can also be used ethically to increase inquiries and applications for Graduate, Continuing Education and Professional Development programs.  Attracting larger numbers of prospective students and ratcheting up their interest with this method does not happen automatically. It takes expertise and careful planning to get the desired effect.  But nontraditional programs with talented and enlightened marketing partners can get real results using this technique.

 Would you like to learn more about how this principle can be successfully applied to adult program admissions?  Just email me at lrondeau@thealliedgrp.com and let me know when you’d be available to speak by phone.

Should Your Communication with Adult Prospects Be a One-Way Street?

Could changing the way colleges communicate with adult prospects increase enrollment? 

Advertising and marketing by graduate and continuing education programs typically follows a pattern.  Colleges produce radio, television and print ads, which then run in the local media.  The call to action usually requires a substantial commitment:  prospects will need to call the college, or attend an open house.  Sometimes these ads work and many respond.  But often the results are disappointing.  Inquiries may be few.  Deans, Directors and assistants then need to hustle to make their class.  In this economy, those who don’t may have real reason to worry about keeping their jobs.

Is there a better way? 

Fortunately, there is.  Colleges can set up programs that encourage prospects to interact with them in ways that are easy for them.  But those easy responses can lead students to formally inquire, attend open houses, apply and enroll.  It all has to do with a phenomenon social psychologists have uncovered after years of carefully controlled research.  This phenomenon can increase enrollment in two ways.  We’ll discuss the first way here, and the second in our next post.

The Psychology Behind Lead Generation 

Dr. Elliot Aronson is one of America’s most respected psychologists. He is the only man in history to win each of the American Psychological Association’s top prizes for theory, teaching and writing.  This is considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize.  In the widely used textbook, Social Psychology (2007), Dr. Aronson and his coauthors point out,

“During the past half-century, social psychologists have discovered that one of the most powerful determinants of human behavior stems from our need to preserve a stable, positive self-image.  In other words, we humans strive to maintain a relatively favorable view of ourselves, particularly when we encounter evidence that contradicts our typically rosy self-image.” 

Our desire to maintain that rosy self-image means that we feel strongly that what we’ve done and what we believe is right.  “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,” wrote wise King Solomon.  That is particularly true of people after they leave the impressionable years of youth.  “The teens and early twenties are important formative years (Krosinick & Alwin, 1989),” wrote renowned psychologist and researcher David Meyers; “Attitudes are changeable during that time and the attitudes formed then tend to stabilize through middle adulthood.”

Find Out Which Way the Horse is Going

Attitudes and beliefs developed in early adulthood stabilize and become firmly set throughout middle age.  Since everyone believes that his or her beliefs are correct, those attitudes are what your prospects will use to determine whether or not to enroll in your program.  To maximize your chances of enrolling a prospective adult student, it’s crucial to find out what his or her beliefs and priorities are.  Otherwise, your marketing efforts could be wasted on them. As Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Chip Heath and coauthor Dan Health point out in their bestseller, Made to Stick, “If we’re trying to persuade a skeptical audience to believe a new message, the reality is that we’re fighting an uphill battle.”  As the old saying goes, “If you want to ride a horse, it’s best to get on in the direction the horse is already going.”  That’s the first reason that the most effective marketing programs are interactive.  They allow you to find out which way ‘the horse is already going.’

Traditional advertising, whether in print or on the air, pushes information out at prospects, hoping that the majority of them will find the message relevant and attractive.  Interactive marketing encourages prospects to respond, to tell you about their motives, priorities and key questions.  A graduate or continuing education student may be concerned about sharpening his or her job skills in order to strengthen a hold on their present job or advance in the same career path.  Telling them how great your program is for career changers will do little to motivate them.  But showing them how your program has helped others advance in their careers may well resonate. 

Age Makes a Difference, even with Adults

In addition, since beliefs are set in the late teens and early twenties, each of us tends to adopt the values and beliefs of our own generation.  Trying to motivate a Millennial prospect in their mid-twenties with a message designed for Gen-Xers in their late thirties will likely go nowhere.  The converse is true as well. But marketing to adult learners using the values of their generation will increase your chances of reaching them.  For example, according to generation researcher and well-known author Neil Howe, emphasizing graduate school internship programs can resonate with Millennial students.  ‘Millennials want to have the opportunity to demonstrate achievement and a seamless transition into a job at a brand-name company,’ Howe said in a personal interview. “They’re more risk-averse than other generations.”

Conclusion

 Marketing programs that encourage prospective students to interact with the college can help you gain the distinct advantage of learning what motivates each prospect.  Deans and Directors can target further marketing efforts so they they’ll be most relevant to each student.  But before those marketing efforts can move prospective students to apply and enroll, they must first be motivated to inquire and continue in the process.

That brings us to the second way that people’s drive to maintain a positive self-image can help adult education professionals.  This psychological drive’s ability to change attitudes and behavior has been proven in over 1,000 studies.  Hundreds of traditional undergraduate programs use it to increase inquiries. What is this phenomenon, and how can adult education professionals use it to improve inquiry, application and enrollment rates?  Stay tuned.

Does Your Marketing Effectively Engage Adult Learners?

Blog Series Overview

• Marketing and advertising can be expensive.  Adult programs, with limited budgets, must maximize their results. 
•  Most advertising and marketing initiatives go all one way – out to adult prospects.  We will discuss how well established psychological research demonstrates why the most effective programs will be interactive, encouraging an easy response.
•  Research show that attitudes and beliefs are well set by adulthood.  Colleges must learn about and adjust their presentation to those attitudes in order to maximize their chances to enroll these students. 
• We will discuss research that shows how and why most adult learners who respond will feel more interest because of their response. 
• Many adults respond with “stealth investigations.”  Institutions that have effective ways of engaging website visitors will have an edge.

 Part One

The Great Recession has put many graduate and continuing education programs on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, money is tight and many have had to cut back their marketing and advertising budgets.  On the other hand, additional tuition dollars can provide needed relief for strained institutional budgets.  Decreased revenue cries out for increased enrollment. 

But while marketing budgets have been shrinking, many Deans and Directors have found that advertising costs are heading in the opposite direction.  The need to market effectively has increased while the means to do it have often decreased.  What’s an adult education professional to do?

Clearly, the answer is to market in a way that will get the best results and to put everything else aside.  That may not mean doing more of what’s been done in the past and forgetting about anything new.  That’s certainly the most comfortable thing to do. It’s also comfortable to close your eyes and take a nap in a nicely cushioned chair.  But if that chair is the driver’s seat of an automobile hurtling down the highway, concentrating on comfort in that circumstance can be detrimental to one’s health.

It’s obvious that comfort should not be the deciding factor that determines how to best market educational programs with limited budgets. What should that key factor be?  Research.  Well known researchers have studied adult consumers for many years.  Much of that research has been locked up in academic journals and Madison Avenue advertising agencies.  It has been the basis of some of the most successful advertising campaigns in history.  Highly respected social psychologists like Dr. Elliot Aronson and Dr. Robert Cialdini have made much of this research available to both college students and the general public.  Educators can make wise use of it to increase both traditional and nontraditional student enrollment.  The combination of psychology, technology and high quality web and print design can be a potent force in admissions.

What parts of that research can be effectively used to increase adult admissions?  Stay tuned.