Thinking Out Loud

The Fine Art of Budget Planning

I remember sitting in front of the blank Excel spreadsheet, provided by our CFO, with emotions ranging from a soaring sense of anything is possible to something that could be more closely described as that poignant scene from Oliver Twist, “please sir, can I have some more?” Budgeting in higher ed can feel like an...
Karyn Adams
on February 19, 2015

MYTH #2. “If I only had a good CRM.”

This post is going to continue deconstructing Student Search myths. Last week started with the myth of buying more names, and now, we’re turning our myth-busting efforts to the promise of CRM in Enrollment Management. The appeal of these three letters can be so captivating. Most of you know of someone who has been disappointed...
on September 14, 2014

Student Search Myths

Student Search season is about to begin (again). Admissions and enrollment offices have closed the binders on their summer retreats and annual planning sessions and codified the year’s goals for the division. I’m going to guess that no one’s goals include “reducing the quantity of names purchased.” I’m also betting no one’s sheet of divisional...
on September 3, 2014

While You’re Planning and Professionally Developing…

It’s conference season. Over the past couple of months, we’ve held three Ideastorms (two private, one public) and presented at an Academic Impressions conference all about Communication Flow Planning. And now we are gearing up for our “Best Ideas” presentation at ACT’s Enrollment Planners Conference, our September Ideastorm at Marian University, and NACAC. It’s a...
Karyn Adams
on July 15, 2014

Shoot!

Let me get straight to the point. It’s spring on your campus, or will be very soon. Now is the time you need to be shooting pictures to build and supplement your image library. “Wait!” you think. “We are taking pictures all the time, of events and groups and things happening on campus.” And you...
Karyn Adams
on April 14, 2014

Student Search Campaigns are Being Renamed

I’d like your help in championing a grassroots effort to start a word of mouth campaign to change the name of what we currently call Student Search in enrollment management. Progressive, forward thinking leaders are leaving behind the inefficiencies of traditional Student Searching and calling their student recruitment campaigns Student Find campaigns. Recently, I’ve rallied...
on April 4, 2014

Are You Using Gravity in Your Enrollment Management Strategy?

Gravity is a great thing. Sir Isaac Newton discovered what keeps us grounded. Later, Albert Einstein revealed gravity’s power and his descriptions continue to be used in modern physics. For all the life-necessary aspects of gravity, and the exciting physics explorations it provides, it is not a recommended strategy for your enrollment management. However, all...
on March 3, 2014

Why Response Rates Don’t Matter

Response rates produced by Student Search campaigns are, in many ways, meaningless. What? Keep reading before you decide that I’ve totally lost it. Here’s where I’m coming from: It is better to receive a response rate your admissions staff can handle than to get a response rate that overwhelms your team’s time and resources. You...
on July 1, 2013

Making a Last[ing] Impression

Not all big ideas are actually all that big, at least in the terms of how most people define big – expensive (big money), grand (big project), or revolutionary (big change). Some of the best, big ideas are notions that are much smaller or simpler in scale but do the work that makes a lasting...
Karyn Adams
on June 18, 2013

Ideastormers Unite!

  Ideastormers! That was the rallying cry for our event last week, the 2nd Annual Ideastorm Summit. The session, held on the campus of Elon University in North Carolina (thanks again for hosting, Elon), brought together 14 different institutions and 25 enrollment leaders for a full day of rich idea exchange, discussion, trend reviews, and...
Karyn Adams
on June 14, 2013

A Lesson in Using What You’ve Got

This summer (like the last several summers), H·A ThirtyOne presented at ACT’s Enrollment Planners Conference in Chicago. Our session, title “The Best 31 Enrollment Marketing Ideas of the Year,” was extremely well attended and saw us sharing great ideas with an overflowing audience, and collecting new ideas, too. In fact, it was the idea sharing...
Karyn Adams
on February 27, 2013

An Idea for Parent Communications

Our blogs typically cover strategies and ideas for helping our higher ed clients reach and recruit students for their schools. Many of our client schools look to us for advice in reaching their parent constituents, and wisely so. Parents and families will have the largest influence on the college decision process. Developing effective communications for...
Karyn Adams
on November 20, 2012
H·A ThirtyOne
Grown organically, one client at a time, simply by being ourselves and being good at what we do. We specialize in enrollment and admissions solutions with real results. Every time.
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