The Ebbinghaus Curve

In this issue

• ON STRATEGY: THE EBBINGHAUS CURVE
• GRANT WRITING 101
• HAVE IT YOUR WAY (CUSTOMIZATION IS HERE TO STAY)
• BY THE NUMBERS: STUDYING ABROAD
• COLLEGES LAUNCH ANNUAL FUND APPEALS VIA E-MAIL
• TECHNOLOGY, TOURS, AND BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
• THE VALUE OF SCREEN NAMES
• FROM THE BOOKSHELF: BORN TO BUY

FINAL ISSUE OF 2004

Welcome the final issue of QuickTakes for 2004. During the holiday season I hope you have a chance to relax, reflect, and recharge. Talk to you in 2005. Bob

ON STRATEGY: EBBINGHAUS CURVE

Or why integrated marketing and communications is essential to success.

A colleague at Stamats, Dick Damrow, recently wrote a short document on something called The Ebbinghaus Curve. For those of us who are interested in developing integrated marketing strategies and messages that have impact, and last, an understanding of the curve is imperative.

Says Dick, the genesis of the concept is grounded in research originally published by Hermann Ebbinghaus, who at the age of 23 received his Doctor of Philosophy from the university at Bonn, Germany, in 1873.

While teaching at the University of Berlin, Ebbinghaus pioneered research with human memory using a devised set of stimuli which would be unfamiliar to his subjects. When asked to remember them, they would be forming completely new memories.

"Ebbinghaus' Curve of Forgetting," first published in 1885, illustrates that a given piece of learning gets forgotten by more than half its audience in one hour; retained audience is reduced to 33.7% after one day, to 27.8% after two days, and to 21.1% after 31 days.

While many will debate the actual percentages retained/forgotten over time, this fundamental research is the basis of two concepts still employed today to make marketing communications more focused, efficient, and effective:

1. The concept of reach and frequency: It takes a combination of reach (how many people who fit your target audience profile) and frequency (how often they are exposed to the same message) to build awareness of a brand promise. Sophisticated predictive software models help improve communications efficiency by calculating optimum reach and frequency within a given budget and period of time. (Research tells us, for example, that exposure to a message less than three times seldom results in enough retention to matter.) This concept is most often applied to traditional media like television, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. Rather than fatigue an audience with the exact same message (which so often causes a television audience to hit the mute button), a strategic mix of media with the same message delivered at the same time is most often recommended to overcome the Ebbinghaus Curve.

Ebbinghaus' Curve of Forgetting

1. The concept of integrated messaging: When a single primary medium (like publications) is used, it is important that all publications appear to come from the "same gene pool." If each publication has a different look and feel - an unfocused or different brand promise - you should assume you are starting from scratch in terms of memory with each publication. Each publication in a sequence should remind the recipient of a previous message (now forgotten) and both stimulate and build upon the retention of that message.

These concepts are based upon three cruel realities of marketing and communications:

1. If you don't reach enough people with your message with enough frequency, you will fail.
2. If you don't integrate the look, feel, and messaging of your communications, you will fail.
3. For these reasons, far more communicators fail than succeed.

The continuing fragmentation of media and the proliferation of competing messages make success more elusive than ever. It used to be that senders of messages only had to focus on receivers of their messages to build brand awareness and preference. Today, you have to focus on both receivers and seekers of information who are one click away from forming opinions and preferences. This makes integrated marketing and communications more important than ever - and a disintegrated communications model too expensive to consider.

GRANT WRITING 101

I was surprised, while perusing a copy of Fundraising Magazine, to see a reference to The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grant Writing. The book was written by Waddy Thompson, Director of External Affairs for the New York Foundation for the Arts, who raises some $5 million annually through grants.

Though the title might be off-putting to some, it is a surprisingly good read (yes, I admit, I bought it). It is best-suited for thegrant writing novice and provides a thorough overview of the typical grant writing process as well as general background on how grants are evaluated.

As advertised, the book contains a CD-ROM with sample applications and proposals. I would be wary of using these materials in any grants you might write. Rather, they are a good resource and give you a sense of where the threshold is. By the way, a competitor offers Grant Writing for Dummies. Both are available through Amazon.com.

HAVE IT YOUR WAY (CUSTOMIZATION IS HERE TO STAY)
Brian Scales, Senior Client Consultant

When was the last time you viewed personalized content on www.cnn.com or www.weather.com? Have you ever purchased something from a recommended list on Amazon.com? How many different customized cell phone rings do you hear in a week? Maybe you or a teenager you know has an IM buddy list. What about an IM user profile? Do you know that the most popular gaming (video) experiences incorporate customized characters and settings?

If you haven't noticed the latest custom shoe craze, check out www.nike.com/nikeid and see how to customize your next set of "kicks." Customized job searches on www.monster.com and Build Your Own BMW on www.bmwusa.com. And even I love my customized play lists from www.napster.com and www.itunes.com. Think of all the different ways all of us use and have come to expect customization.

But what does customization have to do with higher education marketing? Everything. Customization is about an experience. And in order for a constituent's experience to be positive, it must be relevant to his or her interests and needs. Now more than ever before, we have the technology that helps us provide customized and relevant experiences to our prospects, alumni, donors, faculty, staff, current students, and parents. How are you meeting their expectations?

Is that high school junior from Cleveland able to have a customized Web site experience that offers information that addresses his interests in lacrosse and political science? Is he able to read about other students from Ohio who are attending your school? What about the young woman from Orange County who wants to study engineering? How can you customize her recruitment experience (the correspondence and phone calls she receives from you, along with her campus visit experience) so she is confident she will fit in and succeed at your school?

What about your young alumni who need cultivating? What specific and customized information do they receive from you that helps sustain their important one-to-one relationship with your school that is necessary for generous and loyal alumni support? What about those alumni in their 30s and 40s who also expect customization? Older alumni?

At the end of the day, we all want a customized experience because we are all individuals with specific needs. A teenager I know recently commented on a poor campus visit saying, "I am interested in creative writing, but all they showed me was their high-tech multi-media lab. I didn't even get to see a dorm room." We all know how important the campus visit is as a yield tactic, and this college may be missing the boat. How could that institution have better served her?

I am not suggesting that institutions cater to a constituent's every whim, but why not do all you can to customize their experiences? How are you customizing your campus visit program and open houses? Have you implemented a prospective student personalization feature on your Web site? Are admitted students able to create an online community of future friends and classmates? Are your alumni getting the customized attention they deserve, whether it's an annual fund or capital campaign?

Customization is nothing new, but our expectations for it have mushroomed. And those expectations significantly influence whether we view an experience as positive or negative; therefore, we must do what we can to meet those expectations while being true to our institutions. Let me leave you with these final thoughts:

• Embrace technology, but use your imagination to take advantage of what technology allows
• Know your audience. If you are not meeting regularly with your students or surveying your alumni, you are likely out of touch
• Be truthful and relevant. The market is savvy and can spot a fake
• Customize the experience…and they will come (and give)

If you would like to discuss this article or have questions, you can contact Senior Client Consultant Brian Scales by sending e-mail to brian.scales@stamats.com or dialing (404) 897-3402.

BY THE NUMBERS: STUDYING ABROAD

Contrary to popular opinion, more, rather than fewer, U.S. students are studying abroad. And while the aggregate numbers are up, the length of the overseas stays are down.

In the 2002-03 school year, 174,629 students studied aboard—8.5 percent more than the previous year. However, more than 50 percent of these students are spending less time away from home with the majority going overseas for summer, January, or trips of eight weeks or less. Some 92 percent stayed less than one semester. And only seven percent spent an entire academic year abroad.

The UK is the top host country followed by Italy, Spain, and France.

A copy of the complete report is available from Institute of International Education (www.iie.org).

COLLEGES LAUNCH ANNUAL FUND APPEALS VIA E-MAIL

In a new survey conducted by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education of college and private-school fundraisers, about 510 respondents said their efforts included making annual fund appeals via e-mail. As reported in FundRaising Success Advisor, among the respondents who have started using e-mail solicitations, 111 said they send them to everyone for whom they have an e-mail address; 117 said they send them to alumni; 71 said they send them to donors who gave in the previous year but have yet to give in the current year; and 64 said they send them to donors who gave more than a year ago but have not given this year. For additional findings, visit www.case.org.

TECHNOLOGY, TOURS, AND BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

A round-up article in the August 5, 2004, issue of USA Today outlines some of the latest ways in which colleges and universities are using technology to help build relationships with prospect students:

• Arizona State University gives prospective students the options of using GPS-assisted tours to help them navigate ASU's 700 acre campus
• At Boston University, prospective communications students who use AOL Instant Messenger now can send an instant message to the Office of Student Services in addition to contacting the school by phone, letter, or e-mail
• The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia offers new students an online community, dubbed Pennster, where they can search other new students' user profiles, see who's in their dorm, and "meet" in online chat rooms
• The University of Dayton features "Wendy," a fictional student who stars in her own realty-based Web show about a new student's experiences, part of the University's virtual orientation program

Adding to the mix, Stamats' clients have been leaders in using technology to build connections with prospects:

• Franklin and Marshall has just launched a new virtual tour, featuring online tour guides
• Northern Michigan University's "Create Your Space" feature allows prospective students to design their own dorm rooms, even letting them mess up the bed or flush the toilet
• Furman University was the first school to offer online student journals (long before blogs became popular), which lets prospects read weekly stories from first-year students
• Saint Leo University dynamically customizes its Web site, targeting information based on a visitor's interest in any of 19 physical locations or online education and also based on the visitor's audience group

THE VALUE OF SCREEN NAMES

In Jo Sullivan's article, "Gather Ye Screen Names While Ye May" in the September/October issue of FundRaising Success Magazine, we run across an amazing quote:

Preliminary [lifetime value statistics] show us that donors with e-mail addresses give twice as much as those without during their time on file…. Any organization that is not already aggressively gathering e-mail addresses from donors will have a tough time catching up in the fundraising arena."

FROM THE BOOKSHELF: BORN TO BUY

Over the past several years, we have seen several books on marketing to teens and even children. Of late, however, we have seen a bit of a backlash. In the same vein as Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, we now have Juliet Schor's Born to Buy.

A bit alarmist (again, a nod to Packard), Schor, as noted in the review in USA Today, begins with two amazing statistics:

• By the age of 18 months, children have begun to recognize logos
• By three, children are actually showing brand preference

While the case studies and anecdotes contained in the book are largely non-educational, some examples of consumer brand-building, especially in middle and high school, are given. In particular, Schor mentioned that many schools watch Channel One, which broadcasts news and advertising to classrooms full of captive kids. She goes on and says that lack of educational funding spells market opportunity. Corporations, and we can assume colleges and universities, supply resources in exchange for access to students' opinions and pocketbooks - all in the name of education.

In one of her more aggressive statements, Schor says, based on research she conducted with 300 children age 10-13, that "the more heavily involved a child is in consumer culture, the more likely he or she is to suffer depression, anxiety, or other emotional and psychological problems."

This bold statement will no doubt send many marketers scurrying for cover. As brand-creators for colleges and universities, it is important to be aware of some anti-marketing trends in the popular press. Only time will tell whether or not this movement will gain a head of steam.