The University of Washington’s College of Arts and Sciences (UWCAS), with 25,000 students and hundreds of thousands of living alumni, is larger than most stand-alone universities in the western United States. The College is very strategic in their use of communications to cultivate meaningful relationships with students, alumni, donors and faculty. As they developed their next generation communications and marketing plans, UWCAS retained Seven November to provide comprehensive market research to determine how well they were communicating to these core audiences, and learn areas for improvement and growth.
In concert with UWCAS, University Advancement and the University of Washington Alumni Association, Seven November crafted the following research objectives:
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- Assess the effectiveness of the College’s current external and student communications,
- Evaluate potential new communications strategies, and
- Learn how the communications efforts may most effectively support the College’s development activities.
In order for UWCAS to create targeted communications programs for their varied audiences, we surveyed, and provide specific recommendations for nine segments of their target population:
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- Graduates of the Last Decade (G.O.L.D. alumni)—current donors, lapsed donors and non donors.
- Older alumni (graduated prior to 1999)—current donors, lapsed donors and non donors.
- Non alumni donors.
- Donors at the Dean’s Club level, in all three of the above categories.
- Current students.
Seven November designed a comprehensive online survey with a set of consistent questions and also customized question sets for each of the five topline groups to reach a broad cross section of the nine audience segments. An online survey was recommended in this instance because it offered broad reach, quick response times, the ability to highly segment the data, and cost effectiveness. The online survey was designed by Seven November, hosted by UWCAS, and populated by the University of Washington’s Advancement department. 954 completed surveys were received, and represented an email-able universe of 71,000.
Seven November also conducted a series of five focus groups to provide in-depth qualitative perspectives from the top audiences. One session each was conducted with current students, G.O.L.D. alumni, alumni non-donors, Dean’s Club members and non-alumni donors.
After compiling and analyzing the data, Seven November presented the findings and recommendations to UWCAS leadership and staff, University Marketing, University Advancement, the University of Washington Alumni Association and the Board of Trustees of the College.
The research uncovered many key findings for the University. For example, we learned that although the UWCAS younger alumni are very active in social media (even higher than the national averages), they prefer other communications channels for keeping in touch with the University. Current and lapsed donors provided very specific details on how they would like to be communicated to (and how not to) to maximize their giving potential, and the student population’s insights enabled us to present creative recommendations on how to cultivate them as positive spokespeople for the College and as future potential donors.
Many of the resulting recommendations have already been implemented or are in the plans for the coming year. For example, new social media strategies to engage young alumni and donors, increased communications outreach and tactics for the student population, and opt-in/opt-out customizable communications tools for all audiences are all in the works.
The project was completed over a three-month period in mid-2010 and was praised by UWCAS as providing targeted, relevant data, a comprehensive assessment of their communications work, and actionable recommendations.
