About every other week, more than 9,000 custom, personalized e-mail newsletters are created and sent on their way, using the alumni database to target the interests and particular demographics of each recipient. Distribution takes about 30 minutes. The results outpace all benchmarks of traditional marketing. Seven issues have been sent since the debut in April 2000. An average of 7,263 alumni have received each newsletter, with a total click-through to targeted messages of 17,792, or nearly 35 percent, and the unsubscribe rate is less than .02 percent per issue.
Costs are minimal, and gains are substantial.
The e-marketing tool was put in place with no additional budget or staff. Resource reallocation provided the staff time and money to create an entirely new Web portal for the alumni audience. It's widely acknowledged that we cannot achieve that goal alone. Alumni are the only lifelong partners the University has. Administrators change, faculty change and students change.