3 New Ways to Successfully Engage Students and Alumni Using Mobile

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With the start of every school year comes a new opportunity to jumpstart student engagement.  In the final part of this series on mobile strategy for universities, we’ll share our top 3 tips to successfully engage students and alumni using mobile.

1.  Understand student needs:  Before you start designing an event solution, you’ll want to get a clear picture of how students are planning and creating events today.  At the end of the day, student preferences should drive the event technology decisions you make as a university, because it will make adaption and successful usage that much easier and quicker.

As an example, Stanford University extensively researched their undergraduate student event needs, and then selected an event technology that met those needs.  “Technology moves so quickly.  We started to look out there and we realized students and the way they’re interacting with these things has evolved.  No one’s really going up to their computers as much as they used to.  People want to be able to use their phones,” says Frederik Groce, CEO of Stanford Student Enterprises.  Groce surveyed the Stanford undergraduate student population and found that the following features were consistently requested:

  • Ability to more easily connect with other students, share, and discuss events
  • Mobile platform
  • Modern look and feel
  • Ability to control design and add their branding to the event

Scanning Devices2.  Monitor event attendance:  If you already have an event solution, consider adding mobile check-in tools to gain visibility into event success and attendee behavior.  Actual event attendance can sometimes differ drastically from original registration numbers, so mobile check-in can give you insight into:

  • Attendance rate:  how many registrants ultimately end up showing up at the event?  A solid understanding of this rate will help better forecast event needs from seating capacity to food and beverage quantities
  • Average attendance:  how many people can typically be expected at an event?  How does this differ across event types and times of day?  This metric will help you evaluate event performance, the right mix of events to hold, and the right times to hold them
  • Student engagement:  which students are showing up at the most events, or not showing up at all?  What are their interests?  Understanding this metric will enable you to understand what motivates students, as well as identify students that are not engaging at all and potentially at risk
  • Alumni engagement:  which alumni are making the most effort to attend events?  What are their interests?  Understanding this metric will enable you ensure relationships are being cultivated with your best alumni

Once you’ve become comfortable with the basic metrics, you can also start dipping your toes into the world of predictive analytics.  Connect your event data to your student or alumni database to gain a complete view of how event attendance plays in with your other marketing and outreach initiatives.  For example:

  • Do students who attend 5+ events per year have a higher graduation rate than 3 events per year?
  • If they’re checking into career fairs, how does that tie back to their ultimate job placement rate?
  • Does event attendance make alumni more likely to become active supporters or donors?

3.  Elevate student event success:  There are plenty of mobile tools and technologies that can help streamline the event experience for both event organizers and attendees before, during, and after the event:

  • Mobile agenda management:  If your event has multiple tracks and sessions, consider a mobile agenda management app such as Sched.org.
  • Mobile event apps:  Mobile can be a key aspect for getting your attendees engaged at the event.  For larger events, it’s important to offer your guests the chance to check the schedule and navigate the event on the fly.  A few options include TapCanvas (freemium), DoubleDutch, Attendify, and Yapp.  All of these options include features like a private social network unique to your event, social timeline, photo sharing and messaging.
  • Mobile lead retrieval/multisession management: If your events require badges for guests, there are plenty of mobile-friendly options such as EventHero, Boomset, and ConferenceBadge.com that easily integrate with event registration.
  • Mobile surveying:  Last but not least, you’re going to want to gather your post-event feedback as quickly and easily as possible.  You can use mobile-optimized tools like SurveyMonkey to easily send surveys based on attendance status, and get a flying start for next year’s event!

This post concludes our 3-part series exploring how to leverage mobile to more easily accomplish your university’s goals.  Previously, we covered how to increase security and compliance and lift revenue using mobile.  Interested in bringing more mobile to your university events?  Simply fill out the form on the right to receive a free event consultation.