Personalization is the next tactic in your marketing toolkit, giving you the keys to make one-to-one marketing a reality for higher education. Many marketers are intrigued by the possibility of personalization, but wary of the content demands. But, marketers shouldn't be intimidated. If organizations have a good content strategy with solid content assets, personalization is all about leveraging and reusing these assets. Your higher ed website CAN apply techniques deemed successful by e-commerce and retail websites to engage prospects and alumni. Personalization can help by delivering relevant content and calls-to-action to your visitors based on their personal consumer journeys - even before they have identified who they are. And, personalization provides opportunity to enhance your user data, giving you more insight into their intent, behaviors, and motivations. From stealth inquiries to accepted applicants, learn strategies to develop effective, sustainable, and unobtrusive digital personalization experiences that provide relevance for your constituents and ROI for you. This presentation was original compiled by Jason Smith, managing director and founder of OHO Interactive, and Vanessa Theoharis, director of digital marketer at OHO Interactive.

1. PERSONALIZATION
CREATING A PERSONALIZED WEB EXPERIENCE TO
DRIVE ENROLLMENT AND GIVING

2. Good News…

3. In 2015, mega-gifts
exceeding $10 million
topped $6 billion in total
for the first time.
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/4/10/mega-gifts-universities-fundraising

5. Bad News…

6. “While charitable giving to
colleges and universities set a
record in 2015, the
percentage of alumni who
give is at historic lows.”
https://www.ruffalonl.com/about-ruffalo-noel-levitz/press-releases/new-report-reviews-emerging-trends-in-higher-education-fundraisi
and-strategies-to-increase-donor-engagement

7. In fact, only 197 people
gave those $10 million
mega-gifts. At all
schools, combined.
https://www.ruffalonl.com/about-ruffalo-noel-levitz/press-releases/new-report-reviews-emerging-trends-in-higher-education-fundraisi
and-strategies-to-increase-donor-engagement

8. Alumni giving is down
18.7% in the past 2
years.
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/4/10/mega-gifts-universities-fundraising

9. “giving at the middle of
the gift pyramid has
dropped off”
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/4/10/mega-gifts-universities-fundraising

10. “Fundraisers are having a
difficult time engaging
younger alumni and
growing the donor base.”
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/4/10/mega-gifts-universities-fundraising

11. Plus, we got email issues …
▸Ignoring
▸Complaining
▸Unsubscribing
▸Deleting

12. What Can You Do?

13. WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Alumni and Advancement might be…
▸ Increasing young alumni and reunion events and programming.
▸ Sending an email to alumni for any annual fund program.
▸ Increasing staffing in phonathon.
▸ Adding a donation option to all event registrations.
▸ Creating social media accounts and only tweeting about giving opportunities.
▸ Mass emailing all alumni every day for one week until end of year and end of
fiscal year. Even those who already made a gift.

14. Two More Tools
360 Data Tracking
Personalization

15. Personalization
is all around.

16. PERSONALIZATION
A DEFINITION
▸ “An experience that
uses customer data and
understanding to frame,
guide, extend, and enhance
interactions based on that
person’s history, preferences,
context, and intent.”
(Forrester Research)
https://buy.shareacoke.com/personalized-bottle-six-pack

21. "35% OF AMAZON’S REVENUE IS
GENERATED BY ITS RECOMMENDATION
ENGINE.”
Venture Beat
IMPACT OF PERSONALIZATION
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-retailers-can-keep-up-with-consumers

22. "75% OF USERS SELECT MOVIES BASED
ON NETFLIX’S RECOMMENDATIONS."
Gigaom
IMPACT OF PERSONALIZATION
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-retailers-can-keep-up-with-consumers

23. “WE DON’T HAVE ONE PRODUCT BUT OVER A 100
MILLION DIFFERENT PRODUCTS WITH ONE FOR EACH
OF OUR MEMBERS WITH PERSONALIZED
RECOMMENDATIONS AND PERSONALIZED VISUALS.”
IMPACT OF PERSONALIZATION
https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/artwork-personalization-c589f074ad76
The Netflix Technology Blog

24. “52% OF CONSUMERS WILL SWITCH
BRANDS IF THEIR COMMUNICATIONS
ARE NOT PERSONALIZED.”
Salesforce 2017 State of Marketing
IMPACT OF PERSONALIZATION
https://www.salesforce.com/form/pdf/2017-state-of-marketing.jsp

25. 86% OF SURVEYED CONSUMERS SAID THEY WERE
CONCERNED THAT THEIR DATA WAS BEING TRACKED.
85% REALIZE DATA TRACKING MAKES IT POSSIBLE
FOR RETAILERS TO PRESENT THEM WITH RELEVANT
AND TARGETED CONTENT.
http://www.slideshare.net/fred.zimny/accenture-interactivesurveyresults-accenture-interactive-survey-shoppers-prefer-
personalization-over-privacy

26. Why website
personalization?

27. Website personalization is
the natural extension of
what you are already doing.

28. STRATEGY
WHAT WE ALREADY PERSONALIZE?
▸ Phone Calls
▸ 1-on-1 Meetings
▸ Email Communications (invitations, personal outreach)
OPPORTUNITY FOR PERSONALIZATION?
▸ Email Communications (invitations, giving opportunities, newsletters)
▸ Content Platforms (alumni magazine, blogs)
▸ The Website

29. STRATEGY
WEB PERSONALIZATION IS MORE ACCESSIBLE THAN EVER
▸ Implementation costs have decreased
▸ Software-as-as-Service (SaaS) solutions
▸ More options available
▸ Tool consolidation possible

30. Alumni re-engage at
inflection points in
their lives.

31. Alumni re-engage at inflection and
transition points
RESEARCH Alumni Research
New City
or Home
Relationship
Change
Job or Career
Change
Kids Applying
to College
In other words, they have a felt need
that inspires them to reconnect with familiar.

32. ALUMNI RESEARCH
How do alumni connect?
74% USE THE WEBSITE

33. ALUMNI RESEARCH
87% of alumni visit the website to stay connected

34. ALUMNI RESEARCH
66% of Alumni visit the website 1-3 times per year

35. Foot prints
ALUMNI LEAVE
DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS EVERYWHERE.

36. ALUMNI RESEARCH
66% of Alumni visit the website 1-3 times per year
CALL THEM NOW.

37. Window

38. Strategy

39. Identify a mound of digital content.
Promote the content to your alumni.
Understand preferences and intent.
Use this data to engage where they
want to be engaged (the website) and
bolster your alumni database.

40. What do alumni
want from schools?

41. ALUMNI RESEARCH
What content are alumni looking for?
63% NEWS & EVENTS

42. ALUMNI RESEARCH
What content are alumni looking for?
67% NEWS & EVENTS

43. Children
Sociology
Sociology
Middle East Politics

44. Build Your
Donor Database
“Named User”
Build Out Interest
Profiles
Real-Time
Personalization
Anonymous User
Customize the
Content to Increase
Engagement
▸ Custom News
▸ Faculty Profiles
▸ Local Events
▸ Improve email
▸ In-person meeting

46. News
Events
Athletics

56. Getting It Done:
Implementing Personalization

57. Place tracking on your websites.
Generate crazy amounts of data.
Leverage the data online and
offline.

58. DATA
CONTENT CHANNELS
Personalization

59. CREATING SEGMENTS
INDIVIDUAL
ATTRIBUTES
EXPRESSED
INTENT
STAGE OF
JOURNEY+ +
What data do we have
available?
How are they
interacting with
channels?
Where are they in the
engagement journey?
BEHAVIORS & MOTIVATIONS
Demographics, psychographics, firmographics, behaviors

60. CREATING SEGMENTS
User profile data that can be valuable for creating a personalized
web experience include:

63. GETTING IT DONE
What Tools Can You Use?
▸ Evergage
▸ Acquia Lift
▸ Salesforce Marketing Cloud
▸ WordPress or Drupal Plug-ins
▸ Components of personalization can be delivered with some marketing
automation tools: Hubspot, Marketo, SharpSpring

64. The Result?

65. PERSONALIZATION
The Result
▸ Gain visibility into interest, intent, and engagement – especially
to find new prospects.
▸ Know who to approach for leadership and volunteer roles.
▸ Increase donations with customized solicitations.
▸ Deeply personalize the call.

66. PERSONALIZATION
The Result
▸Prove to alumni that you care about
them … thus building trust and
increasing loyalty with your
institution.

67. THANK YOU!oho.com
vanessa@oho.com