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 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