Building More “Flirt Power” Into Your CRM

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Jamie: You're not talking about what they're asking. Right. What the hell are you talking for? It's not what you're talking about then. What are you talking for? What's the purpose?[00:00:15] 

[00:00:20] Mickey: isn't it funny that we kind of work in marketing and that's the way. Yes. 

[00:00:25] Jamie: And I think part of it is seeing what we have to do in marketing to engage. And I don't want people doing that to [00:00:30] me. And I struggled with that. I do struggle with that. 

[00:00:33] Mickey: Let's riff on this a little bit, because I was thinking about this in light of what Eric talked about.

[00:00:37] Mickey: Like he talked about these, you know, the series of little wows, the little things that are different, and maybe this is what got me kind of spinning [00:00:45] on like, you know, different CRMs and the different, you know, the little wows that each of them may be had that, you know, were attractive at one point. But. 

[00:00:54] Jamie: Um, well, I would take a spin on what you just said.

[00:00:56] Jamie: Yeah. I like the little whiles. Yeah, [00:01:00] but it's not the little Wells that a CRM offers. It's the little whiles of experience you can create your prospects that the CRM enables enables. Yeah. That's not always a function or feature that they're doing. It's because you can build a process or an automation or [00:01:15] something in the background.

[00:01:16] Jamie: That's because you can build the automation in a certain way. It connects with the. Yeah, factor that you're trying to do. So it's not. So I don't know that a lot of the wow moments are necessarily intentional that you can create an automated message or [00:01:30] you can create an automated message based on whether or not, you know, that someone clicked in a text and not every tool allow you to track clicks and a text.

[00:01:40] Jamie: Right. And like, for example, slate. Yeah, you don't, you, [00:01:45] you can track whether or not they received the, the text, but not when they clicked in it. Other tools might live, allow you to get that of this as they clicked in a text. And when that occurs, you know, the extra, that's just an extra little. Wow. Because then I can offer you a more specific type of content.

[00:01:59] Jamie: [00:02:00] Yeah. Those are the, that's the fine tune stuff. Thought about it. And it's self pitch. They don't want to ask those types of questions, but inevitably, as you grow, you want to be able to do those things. Right. Um, so you [00:02:15] know, those, those are a little while, so I'm trying to think back. Cause we just went, we had a long weekend away in Florida.

[00:02:21] Jamie: We went to universal for a weekend and I'm trying to remember what the little whiles were there. There were there, there was. Little [00:02:30] misses that didn't impact our little small misses that you know, that, that you can see are consequences of systems. Um, so like we, we stayed on property. So therefore you get to go in an hour before the [00:02:45] park opens to the public and there's a card they generate for you.

[00:02:49] Jamie: That is your room key. You can charge any food beverage, any type of thing you pay for at any of the parks or the whole. Yeah, but it's not your admission to the park [00:03:00] itself. Ah, you have to get a different ticket. That's weird. Why? And then, and then you've got a different pick ticket for each day. Cause you got a three-day thing, but if it's a three-day pass, what can the ticket alone?

[00:03:11] Jamie: If it can't be the same as your room card, why can't that just be a single [00:03:15] ticket? Don't know why can't the hotel? Give you one, but I'll give you the ticket to the other. You have to go to will-call to get that like. Just small things. Yeah. 

[00:03:25] Mickey: Oh yeah. Little bits of time. I mean, you're there and you've got, uh, you know, amount [00:03:30] of 

[00:03:30] Jamie: and connection to let you buy anything at any of the properties, but not admission.

[00:03:36] Jamie: You think that's intentional? I don't think so. I think it's two different systems that don't talk to one another. Yeah. And that would be a massive deal to try to make them talk to one another. Right. [00:03:45] So I get, if that is the case, then I absolutely understand why.

[00:03:51] Jamie: And maybe it's just not, you know, that's not a big enough, it's not a big enough pain point. Yeah. But you know, if you want the wow. If you really want to. Wow. [00:04:00] Yeah. Then you don't worry about the customer's pain point. You were about to customer's wow. Point, right? 

[00:04:06] Mickey: Yeah. I totally agree with that. I think, you know, like one of the interesting things that Eric said in his episode that like, I, I thought about, you know, Israel, I used to.[00:04:15] 

[00:04:16] Mickey: I think when I was in, you know, doing webinars with capture, I used to talk about flirting. Right. Higher. Ed's really bad at flirting. We're really bad at like 

[00:04:24] Jamie: flirting with our and sales is flirting. I use the relationship and now, yeah. [00:04:30] 

[00:04:30] Mickey: Yeah. And I think that, like, I think, um, and maybe this is a question for you.

[00:04:34] Mickey: It's like, how do higher, how do institutions like assess. Like where the misses are in their flirting process. Like, how do you, how do you [00:04:45] realistically assess that? Like how, like, is there a, is there a, um, a metric that you can look at as like, you know, in terms of web drop-off, in terms of like non engagement into emails, like, is there one, like one thing or is it, does it, I'm sure [00:05:00] it varies on the level of sophistication of your CRM and how that is developed.

[00:05:04] Mickey: But I think that. You know, th that's, uh, I think maybe the bigger part for a lot of institutions is helping is figuring out how do we identify this, like [00:05:15] these gaps. 

[00:05:17] Jamie: So I think we have to start at layers and I, you know, I don't like to use the funnel anymore, but let's just start layers with thinking of funnels.

[00:05:23] Jamie: So top, and I don't mean funnel in terms of inquiries, applicants, let's start with. Yeah, big parts. And then we get to [00:05:30] the fine detail, the NIC parts. What are your biggest conversion points? If we're talking traditional missions, the campus visits one of them. Yeah. Right. Totally. And so where, where do you fall off now?

[00:05:39] Jamie: Do you have the. You've got your baseline, but that's just showing you how you've always been performing. [00:05:45] Right. You don't know if that's the right drop-off or not, right? Yeah. Um, does Nat gag or somebody else track something like that? So schools can submit, Hey, how many people attended a campus tour on campus at some point, and then actually enrolled what's that cutoff because campus tours [00:06:00] is one of those.

[00:06:00] Jamie: Oh yeah, totally. That's where you can miss the other, you know, what else, where else can you miss campus too? Or maybe your, your, your scholarship offer. Admission offer. Yeah. So 

[00:06:12] Mickey: let's, let's take one of these apart though. So like [00:06:15] where is that like, like when it comes to campus tour, is that something like, there.

[00:06:23] Mickey: Receiving the invitation they're there, they're registering for the event, but they're not showing they're receiving the invitation and they're not [00:06:30] responding to it. And like, basically institutions need to take that whole, that whole process apart. Right. They need to 

[00:06:36] Jamie: there's that. And I would start, I would, I would, I would reverse engineer at first.

[00:06:40] Jamie: Yeah. How, what is it that you, you want and [00:06:45] expect someone to do when they've completed the tool and that day on campus assess look like? Yes, I would look at how many of them applied. Yeah, the application is open. So how many people, um, and if not, you [00:07:00] know, I would look at last several years and so maybe they're taking the tour their junior year, so they're not applying yet.

[00:07:05] Jamie: But how many of those people apply or how, what do I do with them after they've attended the event to get them to apply? I would look at that part of it first. [00:07:15] Look at the numbers and then figure out how do we engage them. So how do we engage a junior? That's taking it to work versus a senior that does a tour and fall of their senior year.

[00:07:24] Jamie: I would segment that cause that's going to be different minds, that experience a little bit, but the campus tour for a lot of [00:07:30] people is the first date. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you follow up with your potential partner after the first date? How do you want the. On your phone before you get home after the date?

[00:07:43] Jamie: Ooh, I don't know. [00:07:45] It's a little 

[00:07:45] Mickey: eager, 

[00:07:47] Jamie: I don't know, on a campus tour, if that's a good or bad thing, I generally on a first date. If you've got a message before you get home, now this is really more answering machine. So this is data, right. Had a message before you got home. [00:08:00] That's 

[00:08:00] Mickey: a little, that's a little, 

[00:08:03] Jamie: and if I really like you in the date, when I would have been.

[00:08:07] Mickey: It's been a while since Mickey or I were in the dating scene. So this might be, you know, we just referenced an answering [00:08:15] machine, which is less device 

[00:08:22] Jamie: that's way 

[00:08:23] Mickey: back. You're going on the way back machine. Yup. Yup. Yeah. Oh, that's that's yeah. [00:08:30] That's interesting to think about that whole timing experience.

[00:08:33] Mickey: You know, I think, I think honestly, schools could do, they could actually do. Themselves in some cases. And again, I always think a lot from the vantage point of a small private institution, just because I [00:08:45] feel like that's my, that's my, the ethos that I identify with, but I feel like that thinking through that whole process and putting it exactly alongside a dating relationship, like maybe a dating relationship, a historical [00:09:00] dating relationship, I think could be super helpful.

[00:09:03] Mickey: And so insightful, like, okay, how would I want to be treated right now? Like what would this, like, what would success look like right now? Like what, what, what am I, what am I looking to get out of this? And [00:09:15] what's the, what is the right next step? Uh, again, I just feel like too many times we've we default to the TAC, the transaction.

[00:09:24] Mickey: You know, learn more, take the next step, blah, blah, blah, like this. So, [00:09:30] so lame, so lame. 

[00:09:32] Jamie: And if, and if you did think of it and use the dating analogy, like how would you, how do you spark someone's interest in 

[00:09:41] Mickey: it? In an email, right? Yeah. [00:09:45] Um, is that a re that's a rhetorical question? I'm thinking, because it's going to vary by who they are.

[00:09:51] Mickey: It's going to vary by where they are in their high school process. Or maybe they're not in high school anymore at all. Maybe they're a, 

[00:09:58] Jamie: well, I think it goes to, [00:10:00] what do we say, obviously? What do we say when we reach out after they've been to canvas who's who's the person saying it or the people, because you might have multiple.

[00:10:09] Jamie: Yeah. What's the medium we use to say. I mean, [00:10:15] I assume a lot of schools are still doing this, but if I have a prospect, who's getting a campus tour and I have a student tour guide, then I want the tour guide to write a handwritten note to everybody on the tour that day. Yeah. So if I have you working at three hour shifts, you're giving a tour and [00:10:30] after you give them a free tour, you're writing hand written notes to every person who gave it to her too.

[00:10:33] Jamie: And that's going right on the nail that day. So that by the time they get home, if they're on a week long tour yeah. Right. Yep. Yeah. Right. So I've got that. [00:10:45] Um, it might follow up with, you might give someone a coupon to visit your campus store while you're there. Yeah. Follow up with, if they, you know, if that coupon, now this is really data.

[00:10:55] Jamie: Rich was a coupon user. Not if it [00:11:00] wasn't, that's an indicator. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to get any coupons, swagged, and there, if they're not like you they're buying something in the bookstore. Yep. So wouldn't it be cool if you could track in there, all the coupons that were used. [00:11:15] Yeah, right. Yeah. I've got to remember that 

[00:11:20] Mickey: at universally.

[00:11:21] Mickey: You probably could. That's why they gave you that card. They're tracking all those data points of where they could 

[00:11:25] Jamie: track those cards. I don't think people were tracking who you are. [00:11:30] They might be tracking for a financial budgetary purpose, how much? Because then admissions has to reimburse the bookstore for that discount potentially.

[00:11:38] Jamie: So then they might try. But how many are tracking in their CRM?

[00:11:44] Jamie: That [00:11:45] is an indicator of interest or maybe more of an indicator of a lack of interest? Not how interested they 

[00:11:50] are 

[00:11:51] Mickey: or aren't. Yeah. Yes, no. 

[00:11:53] Jamie: And maybe, maybe, maybe tells us that it's not indicator, but if someone really likes you to probably getting your swag [00:12:00] at the bookstore, if they're just taking a tour because their parents are making them.

[00:12:03] Jamie: Yeah. 

[00:12:05] Mickey: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:12:07] Jamie: Um, so, so that's, that's an indicator. Um, and then what if you. If they didn't use it with an online, [00:12:15] for a coupon to buy something online, you don't have to tell them, Hey, we saw you didn't use your coupon, but you can say we've got another coupon for you. Just didn't have enough swag at the bookstore.

[00:12:25] Jamie: Here's a coupon that you can use online. Yeah. Um, so you could do that. You could [00:12:30] do obviously a one-to-one real message or text, email, or mint or text, um, to, to the prospect. Um, the email could be from the director texts from the county. Yep. You know, how are we doing those, those followups? Um, [00:12:45] what if counselors offered, um, many.

[00:12:52] Jamie: Post-tour chats to everybody. They offered once every two weeks. Yeah. Hey, next Thursday. I'm off [00:13:00] I'm general. I was a couple other students were talking that they're looking at Austin and yeah, like in, so we just in, so if you want to join us, we're gonna, we're just gonna talk about, um, the scholarship.

[00:13:12] Jamie: We're going to talk about. Yeah, whatever else. [00:13:15] Um, yeah. So why don't you, if you, you know, would you like to join me? That can be a text conversation. Sure. And then if you tie it into your CRM, right. If they reply with yes or no, and you can capture that, that's another thing that, that you sometimes can, or [00:13:30] can't do.

[00:13:30] Jamie: We can see that someone replied in a text, but we can't get the content of that reply into the CRM. Like you, you want that you wanna be able to grab that information and have it in the CRM because a, you can then try and build all the cases off of it and you [00:13:45] can tie to other things, but imagine, be able to say yes or no.

[00:13:47] Jamie: And then that can also, because it says yes. Yeah, yeah. We can fire off another blow of campaign. Yeah. We're check a box and then that check writers on normal camping. Right. So, [00:14:00] um, but then, you know, you can do this, but I think that's, so I'll be looking at that ended up, you know, I want to get them to an application that I are not, what am I doing to get them there?

[00:14:08] Jamie: They showed up and then I might back up and say, okay, let's look to see how many people say they're coming, but then don't share. [00:14:15] I would think that's not a high number. If it is an issue for you, then that's a big to me. It is a big issue, but I don't know that that's, you know, most people are going to take the time to set up for a campus tour without the intent of actually going to a tour.

[00:14:26] Jamie: If it's online, that's one thing. Yeah, yeah, [00:14:30] yeah, totally. Maybe your local students might be less likely to show, sign up. Um, but if you're signing up to go to Boston from Philadelphia for a campus tour, you're probably already planning. You're going to be making. Hey, I know you're deeply [00:14:45] engaged with this conversation, but we're going to pause just for a moment for an important word from our sponsors.

[00:14:51] Jamie: This episode is brought to you by our friends at unibody. Unibody is a student engagement platform that helps higher education, recruitment, marketing, and admissions [00:15:00] professionals attract, engage and convert. Prospective students. Unibody helps students make one of the most important purchasing decisions of their entire life.

[00:15:09] Jamie: And that decision is where to go to. One of the ways they do this is by giving prospects. Real-time access to [00:15:15] real people at your university. Here's how it works. A prospective student named Sam stumbles upon your school's business major website page. And he starts reading about your program offering after a few seconds, a warm pop-up form, invite Sam to chat with student ambassador, Dan, [00:15:30] who you guessed it is currently studying business at your university.

[00:15:33] Jamie: After some quick niceties salmon Mitzi has been looking at your school for some time now, but has yet to submit a formal inquiry or start an applicant. He's been to a couple of our virtual recruitment events, but it's been [00:15:45] hard to get a real feel for what life as a student, especially during these times is actually like Dan talks about his love of the entrepreneurship course.

[00:15:52] Jamie: He's taking how challenging but rewarding accounting 1 0 1 is. And how impressed he's been with your school's response to the challenges that [00:16:00] COVID has thrown everyone's way. After 15 minutes of chatting with Dan Sam books, a chat with one of your admissions counselors for next week. And then he goes on to create an application account.

[00:16:10] Jamie: This experience is so much more powerful than a static chat window or a [00:16:15] scripted chat bot unibody empowers people to make better decisions through shared human experience. Oh, and by the way, this peer-to-peer engagement platform. It's just one of, you know, product offerings. Wait until you see their virtual events platform.

[00:16:29] Jamie: Totally [00:16:30] game-changing don't get stuck in a prospective students. College shopping cart. Make the experience of accessing personalized peer-to-peer feedback as frictionless as possible. To learn more about unibody and access, a plethora of free resources to help you [00:16:45] navigate student recruitment this year, head on over to enroll five.org forward slash unibody.

[00:16:50] Jamie: And we'll ping you directly to you. Nobody's learning. 

[00:16:54] Mickey: Very interesting. I feel like this could be, you know, th the thing that I often also come back [00:17:00] to is, you know, when you're talking about this, you know, and this comes back to the higher that the director of admissions in me, I'm constantly thinking about, okay, well, what's that conversation gonna look like?

[00:17:12] Mickey: With the counselor and the, and the, the [00:17:15] truth is like, we need to stop thinking that way. And it's really about the offer. Like, are they accepting the offer because the offer is what matters? You know what I mean? I've been, don't get me wrong. The content, you don't want to have a crappy conversation later on, [00:17:30] but what you really want to know is are they willing to click the schedule, a meeting with me kind of offer so that you understand where they're kind of where they're headed.

[00:17:40] Mickey: Like it's the whole offer concept. I think in higher ed is [00:17:45] somewhat, you know, we, we, we overthink it, you know, we overthink it, we think, oh, the, the recipe has to be perfect before we, you know, before we put the cake in the, in the window and the truth is. You put the cake in the window first to see if anyone's interested and then [00:18:00] perfect.

[00:18:00] Mickey: The recipe, minimum viable product, I think is the that's the acceptable phrasiology, but the truth. But in reality, though, what we're trying to do is create, and again, that goes to those little, wow. How do we, [00:18:15] how do we create a compilation of little wows that meets the needs of this particular person? So that they're feeling paid attention to they're feeling, you know, in some, you know, to use the dating phrase yet they're feeling loved and [00:18:30] wanted and they're moving forward.

[00:18:32] Mickey: Even if it's at a very slow pace, I feel like that's the point. Like we just have to, like, we have to stop overthinking it and we have to offer more. So that we can figure out like those, [00:18:45] those steps. And I feel like this is an evolution in my own thinking, right? Like as a former person behind the desk, you know, and you probably, you know, as, as an early adopter of HubSpot, you probably been in this head space for a long time, but it's like, you know, we [00:19:00] think of these big primary offers registered for the open house.

[00:19:05] Mickey: Complete the application. And in reality, it's like, let's make this like, you know, like hibachi style, little, tiny, little tiny offers that they can like [00:19:15] keep saying yes to, to keep like building that momentum toward the big yes. Of yes, I'm 

[00:19:20] Jamie: coming in the fall dating an algae site. So what I think can be a little while that the person that the recipient doesn't realize is a wow.

[00:19:29] Jamie: [00:19:30] If, you know, the, uh, and I, I, this is more of a, I talk about this more student service than I do prospective student, but it doesn't matter for prospective students. If you know the questions they're going to ask and, you know, approximately when they're going to ask it and you give them the answer before they ever knew they had the question.

[00:19:44] Jamie: Oh, [00:19:45] yeah. That feeling, oh, they must be reading my mind, not the spooky feeling. Oh, they're tracking everything I do. It's like, oh, oh yeah. I was just thinking about that. Like, yeah. Like, like if you can provide the answer before they have the question. Totally. But it is on their mind. Yeah. Especially before they [00:20:00] ask you the question.

[00:20:01] Jamie: Those are little whiles that they don't recognize as a wow. Yeah, no, they're just build for the floor. Right. And that. To the, the Marcus Sheridan concept of they ask you answer. Yup. Yeah. You put the information up [00:20:15] when you're building your site or you're building your campaign and you're thinking about your content.

[00:20:18] Jamie: What are they asking you? If you're not talking about what they're asking, right? What the hell are you talking about? It's not what you're talking about then what are you talking for? What's the purpose. If it's not about what they want to know and it's [00:20:30] because you want to force feed them something, you know what happens when you force me to baby?

[00:20:33] Jamie: They resist like crazy. I don't care if they take the food or not. They're going to spit it. They're going to throw it. They're going to cry. Yeah. It's force-feeding, you're not talking about what they want to know. Yeah. You're [00:20:45] wasting your time. That's. Until you fix that. There's nothing else you're going to do.

[00:20:48] Jamie: They're not going to come to a campus tour because you've already turned them off. Yep. Right. That's a lot about that offer at that point. So you've just had to be sure that what you're doing. And so in my mind, when we're talking campaigns with clients, what is it we're trying to [00:21:00] build to for the offer?

[00:21:01] Jamie: How do we plug in, in the midst of that? The other answers to the questions they've not asked. And it's a, it's a blend. It is, is a blend. And I don't know that I have a concrete answer to say, this is how you blend those three types of campaigns, but yeah. Um, [00:21:15] 

[00:21:15] Mickey: well I think it gets back to the fact that you really have to, you have to know yourself as an institution and you also have to know your audience.

[00:21:23] Mickey: You've got to 

[00:21:24] Jamie: understand and, and, and to be fair. No, one's posed that to the [00:21:30] admissions team in a way that where they, they have to rethink their positioning and the roles that they have on our team. Who's responsible for knowing, understanding, answering. And building out content from multiple mediums, multiple [00:21:45] media outlets.

[00:21:45] Jamie: How do we social or text or email phone? How do we get the information out across multiple channels to provide the answers to the questions that they are going to have, and then to think at the time that. Uh, marketer [00:22:00] from the marketing department. Isn't going to know it now, the only way the schools have, I think, begun addresses with enrollment, Mark Myers.

[00:22:06] Jamie: Um, but I don't know that they have the freedom to be strategists. They're more tacticians. And so you need someone with that knowledge to be the [00:22:15] strategist, to help build that out. Sure. Um, and even directors of enrollment marketing, who may have a team for larger institutions. A lot of times they're still focused, very tactically they're focused on project timelines.

[00:22:27] Jamie: Oh 

[00:22:28] Mickey: yeah. It needs to be like a work team, [00:22:30] like a cross cross team collaboration between like, in my mind, I think of a, you know, director of alumni with a faculty, with a faculty member, with someone from admissions, with someone from marketing and maybe someone from student life. So that. And maybe an [00:22:45] athletic representative, because they're really then rounding out, like who is our greater student body?

[00:22:50] Mickey: What is, you know, what are the conversations that are happening, programmatically? What are the big parts of us that people are super interested in or that, you know, even get raised eyebrows [00:23:00] when we're at the college fair or, uh, you know, like what's the, you know, most popular website and Google analytics or, you know, like all of these kind of like little, it's a, it's an amalgamation of all of those little pieces.

[00:23:12] Mickey: They come together to say, oh, this is our [00:23:15] student body. This is our unique selling proposition. This is who we are. It's not like, yeah. It's I agree. It doesn't lie in the hands of one person anymore. Like maybe. Yeah, because there's just too much data. There's too much data. And there's too many [00:23:30] different experiences that are very divergent.

[00:23:34] Jamie: So 

[00:23:35] Mickey: we look at us Mickey, like we come here just to like catch up and we ended up recording to Eric. 

[00:23:42] Jamie: This is perfect. [00:23:45] Good luck editing all this together. Uh, what we're going 

[00:23:48] Mickey: to do it. We're going to get that.

[00:23:53] Jamie: Well, uh, 

[00:23:55] Mickey: we've 

[00:23:55] Jamie: had a lot of tangents that we have to pull out of this. I know we do have that quality. [00:24:00] Well, Jamie, as always. Thank you. It's been an honor. This is, well, we find time to have fun together and true to the name of the podcast. Since CRM, prov, we, we pulled this one [00:24:15] and there's some great value.

[00:24:18] Jamie: Yeah, really? I mean, we're talking campus tours, we're talking data. We're talking wilds. We're talking dating there. You 

[00:24:24] Mickey: have it. Folks have a good afternoon. We'll talk to you next time at CRM prov. Thanks for [00:24:30] listening.[00:24:45] .