New Data Means Better Decisions, Not More Work

Marketing automation is new to university advancement, and with anything new — especially technology — there are often plenty of questions and no small amount of intimidation. Will this create more work for my team? Will I need to hire new staff to run the software? How long will it take to implement? How can I be sure that I am using it correctly? How do I know that I am getting the most out of it?

Marketing automation isn’t as new as many think. It was developed 30 to 40 years ago but didn’t become useful and scalable until the internet population hit critical mass. Now, this modern, effective and useful technology is an everyday reality of digital life. If you shop, research or otherwise transact online, you likely are engaging with some form of marketing automation. This is how business is conducted in the digital world.

Areas of higher education, including university advancement, are adopting these technologies at record pace. What does this adoption require? In the case of Capture Behavioral Engagement (CBE), Capture Higher Ed’s software developed specifically for higher education, not very much.

CBE for university advancement, which focuses primarily on enhancing schools’ donor engagement, is a managed service. Our team is not only with you every step of the way, we become an extension of your team. With our managed service, it is not necessary for you to interview, hire or train new staff to run the software and your dedicated advisors ensure strategies meet best practices to get the most out of the technology.

No need to feel intimidated; you will have all the help you need.

Implementation is lightning quick — measured in hours, not days or weeks. Using a similar approach as Google Analytics, CBE has a very light footprint on your site. Adding our tracking code can be accomplished in minutes. Again, if Capture manages your CBE usage, we do almost all of it for you.

Once it is running, you have a tool that transcends anything else you will find in advancement offices across the country. Other technologies, like Google Analytics, can tell you how many people visited your site from a particular banner. How many people clicked on a particular link.

CBE tells you ‘who’ visited and ‘what’ they did. It also gives you a variety of tools to solicit potential donors in real time, based on their engagement and their specific interests and behavior. These include: real-time onscreen messaging, triggered personalized emails and texts, and alerts to development officers when high-capacity prospects are active.

By communicating with potential donors in real-time, based on their current interest and behaviors, you strengthen alumni connections with your university and encourage future browsing behavior. This is a key factor in “influence-giving” behavior, increased pledge rates and a cornerstone to long-lasting relationships with alumni.

As a matter of fact, alumni who receive custom messaging through CBE are 44 percent more likely to return to your site, and they return 30 percent sooner. As a managed service, your advisor will know there is a direct correlation between the number of visits and participation. And as an extension of your team, he or she can coordinate creative, manage brand standards, seek your approval and even take campaigns live.

New data means better decisions, not more work. We should know … we’re there with you every step of the way.

By Kevin Hyde, Senior Content Writer, Capture Higher Ed