I call it the bucket theory. It’s simple, it’s basic and it works. In the radio business, we used to categorize the listeners into buckets – P1’s, P2’s, and P3’s (I’m sure the radio industry still does). P1’s were the most loyal of all listeners. They would get up in the morning, have the radio set to one of our stations and listen from sun-up to sun-down. Our main goal was to keep them listening and create brand advocates out of them. In consumer marketing terms, our job was to RETAIN those listeners.

Our P2’s were people that listened every once in a while, like when we carried a sports show or niche program that appealed to them. Our job was to get them to listen more and turn them into P1’s. So, ACQUISITION AND RETENTION.

The P3’s – well, they didn’t listen to us at all, and it was our job to use traditional media (at the time) – billboards, newspaper, events – to try and capture their attention. That’s CUSTOMER ACQUISITION.

What does this have to do with you and your campus, you ask?

Well – unlike most consumer brands, you don’t have to go looking for your customers. You have an entire database list of them. Most of them already have a fond affinity to your college or University brand. Your job is to engage them and to offer them content that they deem valuable enough to make them want to join your alumni association or give money to your foundation.

For universities we work with, we help focus on customer RETENTION – how to make sure the offerings they have and the way we position them reduces churn out the back door. It’s not any good to get 50 new donors if 75 just left.

We also focus a great deal on customer CONVERSION. We find that universities don’t need acquisition in the true sense of the word. You need to convert those brand affinity-based alumni into card carrying alumni donors.

How do we do that? It’s all in the offer. What it is, where the value lies and how you position it. And that’s for next time…