Student Recruitment.

Cruising campus online

John Alan Suter struggled to find information about a college to fit his educational plans after high school. Yet, most college Web sites became a labyrinth, frustrating him rather than giving details about just how the college would help his future.

Then Suter discovered a CD-ROM in the mail from the University of Dayton in Ohio. "I was impressed with the simplicity of the program," he said. "My first reaction was that I didn't know you could apply online."

With the program, Suter moved around the Dayton University site, learning about the lifestyle on campus, the academics and the requirements. "The unusual thing was how easy the program was to use," he said.

Now imagine a donor, member or vital part of your audience being drawn directly to your Web site with the right type of connection. The person then sets up a personalized page that gives specific requests. That allows you to directly answer questions about your organization. Now you send details by email right to the potential member..

Last October the school took a snapshot of how this CD could help its admissions process with high school students. Of 300 registered applicants who used the CD, around 186 clicked on apply online. As many as 65 percent of that figure started the application process. Before using the CD, the university recorded a 57 percent response using traditional methods.

"The CD is a revolution in direct marketing because it jumps to the next level," said Chris Munoz, associate provost for enrollment management at the university. Dayton is the only university so far using the new CD.

The next level of marketing obtains the consent of a prospective student to register and accept email answers as the CD system tracks where the student visits on the various pages at the university's Web site.

The university started the process by mailing approximately 20,000 high-tech CD-ROMs to high school seniors around the country. These students had at some previous point re quested information from the university.

The CDs give students a fast way to reach the Web site at http://admission.udayton.edu. As they click on topics such as academics, or life on campus, the special software tracks their areas of interests and returns that information to college recruiters who then can provide more customized, targeted information. The goal aims to help prospective students apply online.

"We know that students who join the list serv or personalize the Web site have a high conversion yield rate," Munoz said.

The number of 20,000 mailed students comes as part of a total of 37,000 prospects. Around half of the total was selected randomly. In the attempt, the university used figures from Web trends that show approximately 75 to 85 percent of the population uses a computer that could accept the CD.

"We're using a control group to see if there is a lift with the people who receive the CD," Munoz said.

Most recruiters would love to know more details of a student's background at high school. From the CD a personalized Web page forms that allows the student at home to fill out certain information online directly at the university's site.

The procedure is called a precursor to the application and engages the students to tell more about themselves. The personalized part of the page. comes from the CD but links to the university site. On the site further layers of details increase the chance students will explore more about the university.

"We know the hot buttons of content that are important to students for the college selection," Munoz said.

While the application part of the Web site offers no privacy statement at the bottom, students appear to treat the information they give in the same way as a form or card sent out through direct mail, according to Munoz. The details consist of demographic information such as: name, age, sex and major interest.

"The student is aware of providing specialized information," Munoz said. "In each case, when we send email we provide the means to unsubscribe, and not many want to leave. The reason is they have expressed a desire for the information."

The CD's interaction with the Web site makes the application more advanced than others, according to Munoz. "Other CDs would strike the audience like junk mail," he said. "The lack of the interaction with others is simply like using an ad in the newspaper."

Such technology fits in with the message that Dayton is one of the most wired universities, according to Craig Martin at PortCD.com, the Baltimore company that produces the CD.

"When a consumer or student receives an eye-appealing package that comes off as different from AOL with a high bandwidth flash file, that catches an interest," he said.

Technology helps direct marketing because most people live harried lives, as seen by the increased cell phone activity. The attention span has shrunk, according to Martin. Strategies have to enable a nonprofit or school to respond quickly.

Much of the search for students by higher education comes today by print methods such as letters to prospective students resulting in response rates less than one percent.

In higher education most students are wired and they look for schools with technology. These students will quickly leave a college's site if they don't see the right amount of technology displayed to address their needs.

"What is revolutionary is the patented registration and tracking technology of the PortCD," Martin said.

Martin admitted that mailing the CD randomly could place the application in the hands of people who fail to have the appropriate hardware. He further points out that 100 million people are hooked up to the Internet.

Also, direct mail strategies recognize that mailings will not obtain 80 percent responses "We're competing with a market that's getting 1 to 2 percent right now," Martin said. "Our CDs receive 3 to 5 percent."

Costs to reach the 3 to 5 percent presently are two times the normal print cost with high volume, according to Martin. So, direct mail users would seek twice the usual response rate to find success with the new CD. If the traditional response rate is 0.5 and the CD brings in 3 percent, that figure adds up to six times the norm.

"We don't expect 3 percent with millions of pieces mailed, but we do expect three to four times the current responses rate," he said. "The CD is a direct measurable marketing program to discover who uses, and how many along with what type of direct impact."

PortCD provides Internet and Explorer upgrades for its customers and the ability to go online with a free ISP.Dayton needed nothing extra than Web browsers, according to Munoz.

The new form of direct marketing requires mailers to have several types of packages to respond to various requests. Extra information calls for a database.

Dayton already maintained a highly developed information system that married data and content using a relational database. While the PortCD is separate from the database, the university needed the database to respond on time to the numerous potential students.

The database, however, is hosted by PortCD. "The beauty is I don't have to manage any of that database," Munoz said. "People can receive emails almost right away and it's managed through the back end."

Dayton's fall class already applied online to the tune of 57 percent without the CD-ROM, yet Munoz is excited about tracking with the CD compared to previous strategies. "You have to compare the lift between the 57 percent and what we think might be higher," he said.

Actually, the university is at its capacity for students, but the new technology allows the organization to become more selective. "Our bottom line isn't going to be how many can we enroll, but how to meet the best type of student. For the increased content on the CD's ability, the student becomes compelled to look closer at the university."

Tom Pope is a New York City-based journalist who writes about management issues.