How One College is Pivoting Their Recruitment Strategy in the Face of COVID-19
Josh Jensen, Vice President for Enrollment and Communications, Whitman College
Whitman College is nestled in the charming-but-hard-to-get-to Pacific Northwest town of Walla Walla, yet it recruits students nationally and internationally, which can make for a lengthy trip for students wanting to visit campus.
That’s why their annual Admitted Students Week in March is so important. Students and their families are invited to visit the campus and experience its distinctive flavor—a very personal, community-oriented campus surrounded by the Northwest’s stunning beauty.
“Many times, students will wait until they are admitted to visit the campus during our annual Admitted Students Week in March,” says Josh Jensen, Vice President for Enrollment and Communications at Whitman College. For many, the visit is the final determinant in choosing Whitman.
But as COVID-19 realities unfolded this year, it became clear that the on-campus experience that was so important to students simply would not be happening.
“Our challenge was how to show the magic of Whitman without having them on campus,” says Jensen, who cites their location and strong sense of community as important assets. “Unlike schools in major metropolitan areas, it isn’t possible for many students to just check out the campus when they have some time. Students and their families have to make plans and commit to an investment in time to make the visit.”
As COVID-19 restrictions tightened up, Jensen’s team first laid plans to conduct the event both on-campus and virtually.
Soon, however, it became clear that the entire event would need to be virtual. Resisting the option to delay the event because of its importance in the decision-making process, Jensen galvanized his team and immediately created an RFP to identify partners to help create video content and to provide a versatile platform for delivering an entirely new kind of week-long experience.
Within four weeks, they produced 11 videos, hosted four live video chats, and organized more than 30 text-based chats, creating a virtual experience that allowed for students, staff, and faculty to engage with prospective students online and get a taste of Whitman’s distinctive culture.
“During our traditional visits, families get an up-close, inside view of campus life. We are all about community, the location, and relationships. Our students and their families tell us that we provide a different kind of experience than others do,” says Jensen. “And we wanted the virtual experience to reflect that.”
Overall, Whitman was less concerned about showing buildings and more concerned about showing the personality of the people on their campus, says Jensen. His goal was simple. “I hope every admitted student will feel like they want to take a class from that professor or make friends with one of the participating students.”
THE RIGHT TEAM
Since Jensen was busy with other COVID-19 planning and communication, he relied on a multi-departmental team to bring the vision to life, and at every step, was delighted with how the vision had been interpreted.
“One of the real wins for me was for how well our internal and external team really partnered together,” he says. “We are always looking for someone who isn’t going to take a literal RFP and execute, but to bring their expertise and improve upon what we could do internally. And that’s what we did. We got the best of the internal team and a lot of new and interesting ideas from CMBell during the video production stage.”
FINDING THE RIGHT DELIVERY PLATFORM
Initially envisioned as a Zoom-like experience, Jensen worried that since high school students were already taking classes via Zoom, the experience would not feel novel. “We wanted to capture a better sense of the campus’s personality and having something that was more produced helped us accomplish that,” he adds.
Their delivery partner, PlatformQ, provided a platform for the prerecorded videos, allowing them to pair the videos with text-based live chats. While the videos showing sample lectures were shown, for example, faculty were on a live text chatting with students and answering their questions—bringing that vital interactive, personal element to the experience.
The choice to produce videos in advance allowed for more interesting productions and made it possible for us to polish the faculty presentations since video is a less familiar format for them.
“It gave us a better quality product,” says Jensen.
RESULTS AND AH-HA MOMENTS
“During the actual event, we had more traffic to that video content than we have ever had in person during our traditional Admitted Students Week,” says Jensen. “But it isn’t just about traffic—the engagement we got on the live chats was far and away better than any in-person event we had held.”
Jensen believes that the text-based interactive format turned out to be less intimidating for students than asking questions in front of a live audience.
They also learned how to extend the value of the content they’d created. Because the week was so successful and the videos spurred so many interactive conversations, they decided to add more ways for prospective students to connect to people on campus. Every department was invited to host an online chat over a period of several weeks following the live events, which gave students even more opportunities to connect.
NEXT STEPS
Jensen says that the success of this initiative may well result in having online experiences be part of future on-campus recruiting events—pandemic notwithstanding.
“Our strength is in-person learning in a small, personalized setting. So online education won’t replace that. But there are tools we can use there to augment that experience. We aren’t looking to replace the in-person, but if we can use some of these tools and techniques to bring people in, and if some students can’t make it back to the classroom, we may look at hybrid methods to bridge that gap,” says Jensen.
ADVICE TO COMPANIES STRUGGLING TO CONNECT WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS
Most organizations are struggling to find ways to retain personal connection points with their customers. But until the COVID-19 situation is resolved, many will have to pivot and find new ways to do that.
Jensen says these three things are critical for companies who find themselves in that situation:
Know who you are and what your value proposition is. If you have that in mind and you make the pivot you need to make, you’ll be well-grounded. For Whitman, it meant translating their sense of community to people who couldn’t visit, which guided all the creative decisions.
Have a unified team in place. Not only is skillset important, but it is crucial that the team operates well together. Whitman relied on people in multiple departments to make this happen in the face of tight deadlines, and because their internal structure was not siloed, they were able to work efficiently and effectively together.
Stay open to new ideas. Look at every new idea and ask: Will this advance our customer’s understanding of who we are in a way that is beneficial?
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