Data and Analytics

Want to Boost Alumni Engagement? Get Personal.

Want to Boost Alumni Engagement? Get Personal.

January 31, 2023 | Jason Berman

You should probably read this article鈥ut nothing in it pertains to you personally. It鈥檚 not relevant to your job or your life in general. Are you willing to keep reading? Probably not. 

That鈥檚 why alumni outreach often falls flat. 

Schools miss the mark when their outreach isn鈥檛 personalized. As a result, monthly newsletters get deleted or unsubscribed. Fundraising phone calls are ignored. Annual fund letters end up in the wastebasket. 

But there is a surefire way to grab the attention of your alumni, and keep it. Spoiler alert: it鈥檚 all about knowing them better. 

Alumni engagement is everything to schools.

Maybe it鈥檚 pandemic-induced apathy. Maybe it鈥檚 the ongoing economic uncertainty. Whatever the reason, alumni engagement remains volatile. Case in point. In a recent study, there鈥檚 been a in alumni who are requesting to be added to 鈥渄o-not-contact鈥 lists.

It鈥檚 difficult to overstate the importance of alumni engagement. Sure, fundraising is front and center. But it鈥檚 more than that. Alumni programming, reunions, networking events, and local chapter groups are also important mechanisms that can expand a school鈥檚 reach. Still other alumni opportunities spring from these initiatives. Things like mentoring and internships. 

It鈥檚 not one thing, it鈥檚 everything. Your alumni base is a gold mine of opportunities, resources, feedback, expertise, and funding that can enrich nearly all functional areas of your organization. Knowing this, your ability to engage them means everything to your school. 

Seize their attention by getting personal.  

Alumni may feel like 鈥渢hey should鈥 read your emails, letters and social media posts, but it doesn鈥檛 mean they will. They鈥檙e managing careers, families, finances and more. Reading and responding to your messages probably isn鈥檛 a priority.  

Now imagine grabbing their attention鈥攕eizing it!鈥攂y getting personal. In the business world, companies that excel at personalized marketing reap a startling than 鈥榓verage鈥 players, according to McKinsey. How does this translate to higher education? 

  • At the student level, who received personalized communications 鈥渟aid that those communications were an important factor in their enrollment decision.鈥 

  • At the graduate level, 鈥 of alumni agree they would donate more often if they knew their money was funding organizations or initiatives with which they had been involved as a student.鈥

Put simply, it pays to know your alumni. Where they are today, where they work, their income bracket, assets, and more. 

It鈥檚 not about more data, it鈥檚 about the 鈥渞ight鈥 data.

To get personal, you need salient insight into the current lives of graduates. This doesn鈥檛 mean you need more data. Instead, you need more of the 鈥渞ight鈥 data. Information about their career path and trajectory. Their professional and industry expertise. Their lifestyle. Their ability to donate.

Your existing graduate data is a great starting point. It likely contains basics like name, address, phone number, degree type, graduation year, prior donations and donation amount. You can then look for third-party data to augment it. 

For this, Graduate Outcomes data from 香港六合彩玄机 is a resource trusted by many colleges and universities. You get highly secure, cloud-based access to direct-measured alumni data. Knowing this, you can use it with confidence to build more precise, holistic views of your graduates based on right-now insights pertaining to: 

  • Current affluence, wealth and lifestyle 

  • Income, credit and employment 

  • Assets, debt, property 

  • Channel preferences, and more

With a deeper understanding of graduates, you can better model and segment alumni audiences based on a wider array of features, attributes, and indicators. You gain much-needed context for tailored strategies, targeted campaigns and personalized messaging that yields higher response rates and deeper, more enduring alumni engagement. 

The possibilities are limitless. 

The idea here is to build a data-driven resource of highly personalized alumni insights. One you can rely on for up-to-date views of former students. One you can experiment with to finetune your audiences and messaging. One you can use to better understand the real-time conditions affecting your alumni.  

Once this foundation is in place, you can mine it to support a range of alumni initiatives. Here are a few ideas. 

  • Fundraising campaigns. Most schools have regular donors who contribute the bulk of fundraising dollars, but try tapping into new donor pools by segmenting your alumni audiences based on their lifestyle and income. For example, a campaign aimed at younger alumni with lower incomes might feature targeted language that鈥檚 empathetic to budgets and financial restrictions. It might offer a $10 monthly bank draft versus a one-time $120 contribution. As the income levels increase for each audience segment, the language and gifting options shift to align with where they are in life. For instance, messaging to wealthier alumni might include an option to donate assets such as real estate (think: buildings and land). 

  • Organization membership. Alumni organizations mean something different to different audiences. Those who are fresh out of college or otherwise unemployed and looking for a job may value the networking and career development opportunities. Others may look forward to reunions. Consider modeling and segmenting your audiences based on supporting attributes like job status, income, etc. Start all communications with benefits and real-life opportunities pertaining to those groups to grab their attention and increase engagement. You can also re-engage lapsed members by using the data to better understand their circumstances so you can address common concerns and objections. For example, say an alum relocated to an area without a local alumni chapter. You might include a list of virtual alumni meetings. 

  • Marketing optimization. Alumni outreach involves a lot of marketing. Even if you identify and segment your alumni audiences and target them with highly personalized messaging, none of that matters if you fail to connect. That鈥檚 why understanding their channel preferences is critical to marketing optimization. Knowing this, try factoring in how your alumni prefer to engage with you and target them via a personalized mix of channels. For example, longtime alumni may prefer phone calls, direct mailers and letters. Younger alum might engage more often and consistently via text and mobile apps. Meet them where they are and you stand a better chance of improving engagement. 

Your alumni base is as unique and differentiated as it is priceless. The sooner your outreach programs are personalized to resonate with their preferences, the faster you鈥檒l increase engagement across all areas of your alumni programming. 

Get in touch today to learn the different delivery options. We can meet you where you are. For example, I can share ways to access Graduate Outcomes via the , or discuss other formats to connect to Graduate Outcomes data.

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Jason Berman

Jason Berman

Director of Higher Education

Jason Berman is the Director of Higher Education at 香港六合彩玄机. In this role he is responsible for expanding and growing Graduate Outcomes using powerful Data and Analytics tools and brings a strong passion for empowering colleges and universities to use "Data for Good" and influence student outcomes. Jason brings more th[...]