Semester at Sea
A Sea Change: Meeting Goals While Weathering Staff Transition
The Situation:
During a transition from a former location to their new partner school at the University of Virginia, the shipboard educational program Semester at Sea lost a significant number of their staff. At the same time, their goals for enrollment remained high.
The Communications Challenge:
Successful enrollment management is a personnel-intensive endeavor, requiring repeated, strategic contacts that build a relationship between the institution and prospective students. How does an educational institution continue to meet essential enrollment goals during a period of staff transition?
Strategy:
Semester at Sea called in Neuger Communications Group to assist them with a whole range of enrollment tactics, including inquiry scoring, development of a communications plan, development and application of a financial aid matrix, design and delivery of “yield” e-mails specifically tailored to increase enrollment, and ongoing e-mail development and delivery (“Open Ship” announcements; general inquiry responses).
To focus on just one of these efforts, Neuger Communications Group wrote, designed, edited, programmed and disseminated a series of six yield e-mails for the Summer 2007 voyage and an additional six yield e-mails for the Fall 2007 voyage. The e-mail campaign also provided data that suggested the various interest levels of the targeted audience.
We worked closely with the Semester at Sea admissions staff to ensure that our efforts were complementary with their ongoing work. While we delivered many specific components, from communications plans to e-mail deliveries, the real value of the Neuger Communications Group work was realized through its comprehensive nature: inquiry scoring led to more targeted messaging; and effective messaging set the stage for strategic deployment of financial resources.
Results:
During a time of dramatic transition, Semester at Sea was able to generate increased participation in its programs. The organization enjoyed increased yield rates for students of all backgrounds, but particularly for those students deemed most desirable. Fall 2007 enrollment saw an increase of 12.9% over the previous fall, and per-student revenue for the Fall 2007 voyage was at a record high.
