The Power of the Human Story: In Enrollment Campaigns & In Life
Here’s one: a student came to a remote campus from more than halfway across the country. When I asked why, he told me how his parents were deported when he was finishing high school, wrenched from his life and sent back to their home country. As a U.S. citizen, he was allowed to stay — alone. A friend’s family took him in and he enrolled in a college close to home. He struggled, though, and soon dropped out. “I didn’t know what to do or how to move forward,” he said.
Then a friend mentioned this college. It was so far from everything he knew, but it offered him the opportunity to play the sport he loved: “I decided I had to try it. I knew it would be hard and I’d be homesick, but I made my decision and came to campus without even seeing it first.”
Of course, it has a happy ending: shocking as his arrival was, he found a home on campus. “This is my family, my community,” he said. “I’ll learn everything I can here to build a life and help other people. I want to be a lawyer and fight for people who are disenfranchised.”
So here’s this young man, more or less alone in the world, who pushed through the fear and loneliness, forged a life, and is inspired to help others. That’s a great story — one that speaks on the strengths of that particular college and one that can motivate others to check it out.
In enrollment marketing these micro-stories offer great content — as short narratives, testimonials, videos, even headlines for story-telling photos. Research shows that prospective students want to hear from current students — their experiences, their impressions, their life stories.
I saw this again when reviewing our first round of stats for a digital campaign: the story-telling ads were 80% more effective than the other ads (measured by click through rates). It was enough to remind me of the power of stories — and to make them a focal point in every campaign.