The University of Manchester saw the power of individualized video in action as part of their commencement ceremony. Manchester’s StageClip program produced 11,255 personalized clips that garnered 947,072 views in 149 countries and 2,274 cities.
Manchester witnessed even more impressive social media statistics:
- 45,661 unique users
- 135,571 web page views
- 7,399 direct shares
- 53,471 Instagram views
StageClip is seeing similar results with other educational institutions in multiple countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Why? The “me-now” generation is playing an active role in spreading brand awareness for universities and colleges.
Behind this success is the emotional connection the StageClip program cultivates between graduates and their university or college. Termed emotional marketing, this connection creates meaningful relationships that result in brand fans. The resulting waterfall effect and the positive light the program shines on your institution are priceless.
Manchester chose the StageClip program because of its ease of implementation.
- StageClip works with the videographer hired by the university to obtain the recording or gain live access.
- The event organizer provides the list of graduates and their degrees to be matched with their video clip.
- Manchester’s marketing team provided promotional video they created for other purposes, to be used before and after the clip.
- StageClip produced the professional, individualized clips, so graduates could be notified that their clips were ready to be shared on their social networks.
StageClips benefit universities in several ways. The return on investment outperforms advertising on social networks. Compared with social media share platforms StageClip is 48 times less expensive.
The emotional marketing component inspires prospective students to consider attending your university. In addition, universities have the option to add a survey to the program, allowing them to launch their alumni relations efforts. It’s truly a win-win across the board.
“The clips look great — the perfect first interaction that we should be having with our new alumni and they love it!” –Katie Leatherbarrow, Development and Alumni Relations
Johns Hopkins Medical School Sees Record Alumni Survey Response
Johns Hopkins University, known as America’s first research university, has always included surveys in its alumni relations efforts. After all, research is part of its DNA.
In previous years, the strategy was to implement multiple campaigns around the time of commencement to capture valuable contact information. Most importantly, the university’s goal was simple but important – collect primary email addresses that alumni would be using after graduation (college “.edu” email addresses are often abandoned post-graduation).
Johns Hopkins’ Alumni Relations office decided to give the StageClip optional survey a try.
The best previous response rate they could achieve was 15%. They were willing to offer a $25 Amazon gift card to incentivize alumni to provide information. That’s a high acquisition cost for an email address.
- The strategy – provide access to the individualized StageClip only after a short survey is completed.
- The result – Johns Hopkins achieved a 73% full completion rate. They gathered data faster and launched their alumni relations efforts earlier than ever, and at a fraction of the cost.
These completion rates are not an anomaly. On average, universities experience a 33% rate on their graduate surveys, whereas StageClip has proven results of up to 93% completion rates.
The importance of updating alumni contact information can’t be stressed enough. More importantly, launching your alumni relations efforts, during, or shortly after, commencement is the ideal time to engage them and ask for the information. They are excited, proud and want to share their big moment via their social media networks.
Continuing dialogue with your alumni allows you to maintain a relationship with them because they are a critical part of your future.
“The survey stats are great! This was a fantastically successful project and we’re delighted.”
“Huge relevant engagement. And all for the price of a coffee!”
Mansoor Ali, Sr. Associate Director, Alumni Relations