Telemarketing
The school I work for uses a lot of telemarketing and cold calls. Although we reach a lot of students, do you think it is really beneficial?
I agree that many times potential students get overwhelmed by mutiple calls from multiple colleges or intitutions due to telemarketing. Especially when 3rd party maketing is used to get the information to contact the potential student and that information is sold to multiple schools. I guess in this case the best you can hope for is that you catch the potential student at the right time when they are open minded, not overwhelmed, and ready to consider educational options.
Telemarketing is essential, but needs to be used properly. I think it is important to realize this is just a warm "cold" call to get our foot in the door. Once we are live with the prospective student, it is important to follow their cues and guide them through the process rather than trying to get their responses to fit our agenda.
For students who are open to the idea of getting limited information over the phone and are open minded to coming into the campus, this works. Most students just want materials they can go over on their own time when they feel they want to look at the information, NOT when ever the telemarketer gets them on the phone.
If they are shopping for schools more than likely they want brochures from each school to compare and narrow down their search prior to going out to each campus.
We keep a data base of prospective students who have called with an interest in a certain program we offer. We then make follow up calls about a week later; but more importantly when we have that particular course coming up, we call and reach out to them to see if now is a good time for them to enroll. Some have to wait to adjust schedules and also their budget.
If you change even just one life then the benefit is there. You never know who you may have blessed just by your "cold call".
I agree that sometimes we can "over-call" but at the same time, if a student is not interested they can tell us. All they need to do is simply respond via email or call. After that we need to back off. I feel like in some cases the reasons they do not answer is due to fear or just a bad time to reach them. I know that the hours we have in Admissions can sometimes be a bad time for people to reach me, so you have to think that the students we often see have the same struggles ie ; car trouble, kids, 2 jobs.... and sometimes it is harder to get a hold of them. It's all about the mood you catch them in. i have called a lead for 3 months straight and when i finally got a hold of her she was excited, came in same-day and enrolled and is still here.
I would agree in that only those students who expressed interest should be called. In addition, once a student in the system, appropriate but not too much follow-up should be conducted to reach out. In the first few days maybe a call or two a day but in the next week to come, spacing calls becomes more realistic and less annoying to the student who may become turned off by too much contact.
I agree with your thinking that when contacted too much about the same thing can be a bit much. I feel that follwoing up via a call a day and or an email is sufficient to reach them.
I agree with what you guys are all saying. Our school reaches out to students as well via telephone, but we do not constantly contact them. We actually limit the amount of calls to one prospective student and give them time to think it over, then contact them again.
If you have leads where student is interested in school and determine that by talking to prospective student that students goals and program for that school fits students goals then telemarketing is benificial. It can also be a learning experience for the prospective student or a student who may not have considered going to school
I feel that a better way is needed, most of the time the student may want information on going to school, but not that interested in going at the time of contact and thus sets up a wall because they only want information. I feel we sometimes lose students that have been contacted multiable times and are mad and not willing to even talk with us because of the constant calling.
I think that we do so after, and only after, the person submits for more information either online or by calling an affiliated number. At times, I feel that these folks aren't necessarily looking for info about school but rather other things-like jobs or financial aid requirements. By contacting them and discussing school, are we still being compliant?
