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Video Postcards for Higher Education Marketing and Communications



BC Law Open House

Davidson College

Suffolk University

Riverdale Country School

Northwestern University

Bethel College

Aquinas College

Colby College

Ivy Tech

Harvard Medical School

Holy Cross

Harvard HMS DCE

UNC

Empire State College

Education case studies

Flimp Case Study: Higher Education


Rich Media Communications Video Brochures for Higher Education

Client: Boston College Law School


About Boston College Law School

Established in 1929, Boston College Law School is located in Newton, Massachusetts and is among the nation's premier law schools, currently ranked 26th in the country by the annual US News & World Report's survey. The law school received over 7,100 applicants for 250 seats in the 2009 entering class. More than 11,000 BC Law alumni practice in all 50 states and in many foreign countries.

Marketing Objective

Until finding Flimp®, Boston College Law School had been looking for a way to deploy and manage online communications for some time. "Creating stand-alone Web sites for each of our communications initiatives was expensive and we didn't have the budget to do that. Since we have our own in-house technology and design resources, we knew we could use the FLIMP Platform to create microsites without getting mired in the granular of Flash-coding," said Nate Kenyon, Director of Marketing Communications for Boston College Law School.

"It was much more cost effective for us to have a Flimp account than to pay $5,000 to $8,000 for the development of each microsite," Kenyon said. "We also want to be on the cutting edge of communication - rich media is where the future is at."

The Law School uses Flimps in a number of different ways, from the admissions process to alumni development. "We feel that the FLIMP Platform helps us to come up with innovative concepts," Kenyon said. "The ability to create a more interactive message that is more multimedia-rich than a traditional email is a very appealing and it gives us the ability to engage an audience. The ease of use, both in creating flimps and distributing them, helps us come up with innovative concepts."

The Boston College Law School Flimp Campaigns

Transitioning from tried and true marketing tactics can be a difficult thing for communicators. Many marketers are reluctant to retire traditional print campaigns for fear of losing audience reach and engagement. Boston College Law School certainly had concerns prior to their first Flimp campaign, promoting an on-campus Open House for students admitted to the Class of 2012.

"While each of our Flimp campaigns has had different goals due to the fact we were communicating with different audiences, one overarching goal of our Flimps is to eliminate print communications and to try to use a branded video brochure as the sole attempt to generate results," Kenyon said. "We viewed the students admitted to the Law School as a perfect test audience and a good way to test the effectiveness of a Flimp."

Until 2009, Boston College Law School promoted their Open House for Admitted students with a mix of print and digital communications. Creating different types of collateral pieces for the same initiative is a drain on both budget and staffing resources and does not necessarily increase the audience's response rate.

Compared to other law schools, Boston College Law School is known to be an open and friendly place. From a content perspective, the Law School wanted to convey this to the admitted students. "By creating a video with our student body president, we were able to create a personal message and generate audience attention," Kenyon said. "We engaged them and were able to show them our community."

The Open House Flimp was a first for the Law School in many respects. Kenyon didn't just use video content; the entire experience was based on digital elements. Admitted students registered to attend this event through a registration system hosted by Harris Interactive.

Along with the Open House Flimp, Boston College Law School has created a number of Flimps to communicate with the alumni community. They are also planning on creating a Flimp promoting their 2009 class reunions, traditionally held during the fall semester. "We have been impressed by how easy it is to use the Flimp Platform," Kenyon said. "From creating Flimps to distributing emails via the integrated ESP, this is a very user friendly tool with a great UI. And the Flimp team is extremely responsive and attentive to our needs."

Boston College Law School's Results

The Flimp enabled the Law School to register the same number of people for the 2009 Open House that multiple communications tactics generated in previous years. Boston College Law School called this campaign a success because the marketing team did not need to create multiple communications elements. The Flimp's production process was much more streamlined compared to creating a print mailing that requires a much longer lead-time and costs more to produce and mail.

According to the data collected by Flimp's viewer analytics, the average viewer of the Open House Flimp remained engaged for more than 2 minutes. The video itself was only 98 seconds. Over 42 percent of the viewers watched the video to completion.

Apart from the visual elements, the analytical information provided by the Flimp platform separated BC Law's Flimp campaign from other marketing tactics. "We are careful in analyzing the data. Through closer analysis, we've been able dig deeper into a campaign and gain insight into some factors that we would not have known otherwise," Kenyon said.

"There is sometimes resistance to new tactics, but the results show that Flimps are working," Kenyon said. "Thus there has been greater internal adoption."

Boston College Law School Open House

Flimp Case Study: Higher Education


Video Email Brochures for Admissions Communications

Client: Davidson College


About Davidson College

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. In March 2008, Davidson became the focus of national attention when its men's basketball team reached the NCAA Tournament's "Sweet Sixteen" by beating heavily favored Georgetown University in the second round. At this same time, the Davidson College Admission Office was preparing to send out acceptance letters to more than 900 admitted students.

Marketing Objective

David Mabe, Assistant Dean of Admission at Davidson, recognized that the unexpected success of the men's basketball team provided a unique opportunity to generate enthusiasm among admitted students to increase admission yields. "We had a nationally recognized sports team and we wanted to share their success with our admitted students" said Mabe. The challenge was to come up with a way to quickly create, deliver and track an exciting web communications campaign that would connect admitted students with the energy and excitement surrounding the Wildcats NCAA Tournament run. The window of opportunity was small and Davidson did not have an agency or in-house marketing resource to execute a web campaign in such a short time frame.

The FLIMP Campaign

Davidson turned to FLIMP Media to create, deliver and track a rich video email campaign designed to build on the excitement of the Wildcats' Sweet Sixteen success. The campaign would feature a Davidson branded Sweet Sixteen video microsite with links to information about the college and a website built to welcome students to the Class of 2012. Admission acceptances were posted online at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on March 27th. By the next morning, nearly 400 students had accessed their acceptance letters. The Admission Office decided to target these students with the FLIMP video email campaign quickly, before the next tournament game. Using FLIMP and available graphics and video content, the video email campaign was created and delivered to target students on the afternoon of March 28th.

Campaign Results

"The timing of the video email campaign was impeccable. For these students, we were able to combine the enthusiasm of being accepted to Davidson with the energy and excitement surrounding the success of our basketball team" according Dave Mabe. "We never could have done something like this on such short notice without the FLIMP technology and FLIMP Media's supportive and responsive staff. The whole process was pretty amazing."

"In terms of our yield results, we expect to admit a certain number of students from our wait list every year. This year, however, our yield was so high that we didn't go to the wait list for additional students. I have been with Davidson's Admission Office for five years and this is the first time that's happened. We can't attribute it all to the FLIMP campaign, but it certainly helped. Most of the colleges and universities I know had to go to their wait lists this year and we didn't."

A total of 380 students received the Davidson FLIMP campaign by email and there were 400 videosite views representing a 106% engagement rate. Of those, 159 students or 40.8% of the target audience watched the 71 second video to completion. The campaign response rate was an astounding 64.55% as 251 student clicked response links. Of those, 212 went to the Davidson Class of 2012 website. According to Dave Mabe, more students went to that website from the FLIMP campaign than from the links on Davidson's own online acceptance letters. The total viewing time for the campaign was 7 hours 10 minutes and 48 seconds.

Davidson College Flimp Videosite Email Campaign. Viewer Engagement and Reponse Data.


Flimp Case Study: Higher Education


Video Email Brochures for Admissions Communications

Client: Suffolk University


About Suffolk University

Suffolk University, located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in more than 70 areas of study to over 9,000 full time and part time students. The University is comprised of three main schools - the College of Arts and Sciences, the Sawyer Business School, and Suffolk Law - and also supports the New England School of Art and Design. In addition to its main campus in Boston, Suffolk has two satellite campuses in Madrid, Spain, and Dakar, Senegal. Each of these schools and their respective administrative offices communicate to the public through a single communications department: the Suffolk University Communications Department and its staff of thirty employees who create and distribute most of the collateral and communications consumed by current and prospective students, their parents, and alumni.

Marketing Objective

The recent economic turmoil affected enrollment and graduation rates at schools across the country, and unfortunately Suffolk was no exception. "The number of students expected to graduate declined, and the economy collapsed," said George T. Comeau, Esq., Associate Communications Officer for the Suffolk University Media and Creative Groups. Comeau's Media Group serves administrators from a variety of University offices. "A client came to us and said, 'What do you have in your magic bag?'"

The answer came from Midge Wilcke, Chief Communications Officer for Suffolk. "We were looking for a way to reach people directly and in an engaging way", Wilcke says. "How can you really tell people something? So I said to George, 'What about that video email product?'"

Comeau, who had told Wilcke about Flimp Rich Media video brochures months prior, recalled the platform's capabilities. "You know," he said, "that could be a great application for this kind of communication." Comeau and Wilcke visited the Flimp website to learn more about the technology and see relevant examples. "I remember thinking, 'Great! Now how do we do it better?"' Comeau recalls.

The Suffolk Flimp Campaigns

Turning quality video content into custom branded video brochures with built-in viewer tracking and reporting using Flimp Rich Media has become an important component of Suffolk's overall communication strategy; for admissions, student and parent communications and alumni development. To date, Suffolk has created and distributed 33 Flimp campaigns, with six more in post-production. Each Flimp campaign is created to meet the marketing or communications needs of a particular client, and no video shot for a Flimp is ever used for any other purpose.

Suffolk's approach to creating video content for Flimp campaigns has always been rather straightforward, says Wilcke. "Video is about emotion and telling stories," she says. "The kinds of videos that we produce are about looking into a person's eyes and feeling something when you're done."

Wilcke also notes the practical side of using Flimp to distribute and track rich media content. "This is a very innovative product," she says. "This is a way for a video message to come directly from you. Once we've created the video, it goes out instantly. Then we have incredible statistics to tell us whether or not people have actually spent any time looking at it."

When Comeau decides to create a Flimp for a client, he is able to commit nearly every available resource to it. "About a dozen people touch a Flimp before it goes out," he says. "It's seamless to integrate. If you have a team of people that can dedicate themselves to it, all the tools are right there within the platform."

Suffolk's Results

"Flimp has changed the way we communicate," Comeau says. "In fact, we've started using Flimp as a verb. I'll FLIMP® Case Study: Higher Education Rich Media Communication Client: Suffolk University RICH MEDIA MARKE TING 2 © Copyright 2009 FLIMP Media Inc. All rights reserved. ® FLIMP is a registered trademark of Flimp Media Inc. leave messages on my computer that say things like, 'We're out Flimping today.'"

Suffolk has used Flimp so often that the process of creating a Flimp marketing campaign is almost second nature. "We can shoot up to six Flimp videos a day now," says Comeau, "and that includes up to three location changes, makeup, audio, video, and set design."

Wilcke has even starred in a Suffolk Flimp. "We sent out a Flimp on a Friday," she says. "On Monday I got a call that said someone was waiting for me in the lobby. I didn't have any appointments scheduled, so I was a little confused. In the lobby, I was greeted by a man from London. He told me he had received the Flimp, and had flown into Boston that morning to follow up. He told me he had come to see if the woman on the video actually worked at the school, and had decided that if I was real, that Suffolk was the right school for his son. The young man enrolled and started that September."

According to data collected by Flimp's viewer analytics, Suffolk's use of rich media collateral has been tremendously successful. One Flimp campaign, which featured a 43 second video, kept recipients engaged for an average of two minutes and 42 seconds. The total viewing time for this Flimp, which recorded 144 video starts, was 55 hours, 58 minutes and five seconds. That means that the average viewer spent enough time with the message to watch the video almost four times.

"Our clients know that people are receptive to their messages," Comeau says, "because Flimp's analytics tell us that. We routinely hear from parents who say things like, 'We brought the laptop into the kitchen, and we watched that video three times.'"

"This really worked," Comeau says. "We had to be able to manage the process and the technology. And this had to have a return on investment. This really started as an experiment. We experiment all the time, but Flimp had legs - this worked."

"We sent out a Flimp on a Friday, and on Monday I got a call that said someone was waiting for me in the lobby. I didn't have any appointments scheduled, so I was a little confused. In the lobby, I was greeted by a man from London. He told me he had received the Flimp, and had flown into Boston that morning to follow up. He told me he had come to see if the woman on the video actually worked at the school, and had decided that if I was real, that Suffolk was the right school for his son. The young man enrolled and started that September."



Midge Wilcke,
Chief Communications Officer
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Suffolk University Flimp Rich Media Marketing Video Brochure Campaign Results


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