There are two words worth remembering when communicating and maintaining strong relationships with your young alumni: effortless and seamless. Because effortless and seamless are what young people have come to expect from most of their transactions on a daily basis.
Look at Uber or Lyft. You click on the app, enter the place you want to go, and then you are told when to expect a car. You are then picked up and delivered to your destination. You don’t hand over any cash or credit card. You don’t sign anything, or even leave a tip … unless you choose to the next day.
Effortless, seamless …
Have you heard about the new Amazon cashier-less grocery store in Seattle? Essentially, you walk into the store — it’s called Amazon Go — take what you want and, well … go. You just walk out.
“There are no checkout clerks, or even checkout stands,” writes Rachel Metz in the MIT Technology Review. “Instead, a smartphone app, hundreds of regular and infrared cameras on the ceiling (black on black, so they blend in), computer-vision algorithms, and machine learning work together to figure out what you’re picking up and charge you for it on a credit card connected to your Amazon account.”
Effortless, seamless …
More and more, your young alumni are going to want — let’s face it, expect — these kinds of interactions, especially on your website. There are so many things vying for their evermore-precious attention spans these days. If you make it hard to find the things they want on your site … If you add too many steps to complete a process, like signing up for an event … If you throw a bunch of information at them for which they have shown zero interest … You’re going to lose them, which can lead to the kind of growing disconnect that can last years, even decades.
Your newest graduates are often your most passionate. Keep them engaged with your university community from graduation day on into their professional lives.
How?
Your young alumni are empowered by technology and ubiquitous connectivity. They are mobile and boundary-less. Most of your youngest alumni are “digital natives.” The internet has been weaved into their daily lives for as long as they can remember. They don’t know what a rotary phone is. God bless ‘em, they probably haven’t even experienced the eardrum-splitting shrill of a dial-up internet connection.
They prefer — no, they expect — a digital approach to most things.
Marketing automaton, like the kind developed by Capture Higher Ed specifically for higher ed, is all about effortless and seamless interaction. Find out how it can elevate your efforts to keep your young alumni connected with their alma mater.
By Kevin Hyde, Senior Content Writer, Capture Higher Ed
