Looking for ways to maximize alumni participation for your upcoming reunion? Here are 8 of our key learnings from analyzing over 300 reunions.
Published:
June 17, 2019
Updated:
June 17, 2019
Yes, we know everyone does alumni reunions. You’re probably doing it too and while you already know that alumni reunions can help you increase alumni engagement, how do you ensure that you maximize this growth?
After helping over 100 schools organize 300+ successful alumni reunions in the past two years, we did a detailed analysis of all this data and came up with actionable insights on what works best in engaging alumni via alumni reunions. Here are the 8 key findings:
Using registered alumni to influence other peers in their network to sign up has proven to be highly effective. There’s a greater chance of more alumni signing up upon receiving invites from their classmates/friends. However, a key factor here is to ensure that the registration and event-sharing process is easy.
Leveraging faculty and staff to influence high alumni turnout at reunions has proven to be an effective technique. Sending out personalized invites to your entire faculty and staff is a practice you might want to follow as this resonates well with alumni who have been looking forward to reconnecting with their former teachers.
Ensuring you have a dedicated event page is pivotal to your event’s success. Creating an event page is important because it helps your alumni get an overview of the event you’ve planned. Also, it is always a best practice to reach out to your alumni well in advance, for registrations. Typically we’ve seen schools start reaching out to alumni 6 - 9 months before the reunion.
We already know that social media plays a pivotal role in keeping alumni engaged throughout the year. Evidence also suggests that schools have been able to drive higher alumni participation for their reunions with various approaches on social media. While providing updates concerning your reunion to your alumni is a best practice that you should follow, it is also equally important to be creative in your approach. Posting photos from previous reunions and running campaigns that urge your alumni to actively participate are some of the ways via which you can spread the word about your reunion. Here’s a list of 7 tested approaches to promote your reunions on social media.
Here’s how McCarthy Alumni Association grabbed the attention of its alumni by posting yearbook photos on their social media to promote their upcoming reunion:
https://www.facebook.com/mccarthyhighschoolalumni/posts/2073750082666696
Alumni reunion promo videos have proven to be one of the most powerful methods to draw alumni attention. Personalization is key when it comes to reaching out to alumni. A personalized invitation video can be highly engaging as compared to your regular email blasts. Here’s all that you can try to make a more personal connection with your alumni:
The best location to shoot your reunion promo is none other than your own campus. Shooting the video in multiple locations within your school campus adds a nostalgic factor to it and helps your alumni relate better.
Personalize it further by featuring in your video, people who are recognizable and relatable to your alumni. They could be professors, students, or maybe a more diverse set of people who your alumni might feel delighted to hear from.
Once you’re done creating this video, the challenge lies in maximizing its reach. Ensuring your alumni don’t miss out on this video is integral. Other than sharing it on social media and emails, and encouraging alumni to share it within their networks, try to publicize this video in alumni groups, in order to reach maximum people.
Here’s how Greater Atlanta Christian School used a personalized video to maximize participation for their Alumni Weekend 2018 event.
Schools have found success in bringing alumni attention to their reunions by publishing in their newsletter. Even paid advertisements in the local media have resulted in good visibility. This might be highly relevant to you if you have an outdated alumni database and a large majority of your alumni are living in the same vicinity as your school. Other than getting the word out on your upcoming reunion, this can also be seen as an excellent PR activity for your school and can help boost admissions and donations.
North Allegheny Foundation published an article in the local media to announce alumni who would be awarded at their Distinguished Alumni Awards Gala. Check the story here.
For alumni who might be looking beyond networking opportunities, providing added incentives such as details of speakers attending or activities that would happen during the reunion can help increase event sign-ups.
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Having observed over a hundred schools successfully bring attention to their alumni events and reunions via social media, we have sufficient evidence that it is one of the most powerful mediums to promote your alumni reunion successfully. A little creativity and event marketing can go a long way in making sure that the maximum amount of alumni notice and engage with your upcoming reunions.
With that being said, here are 7 tested approaches to promote alumni reunions on social media:
Sharing photos and videos of previous years reunions on your social media page is one of the best ways to attract attention to your alumni reunion event. While alumni may love hearing about wonderful stories about your previous reunions, these stories become all the more engaging when they hear it from their friends or peers. Encouraging alumni to share their own experiences from previous years reunions, has proven to be highly rewarding for reunion success.
If a large amount of your alumni base is still in touch with your faculty or staff, asking faculty members to share updates about upcoming reunions or their experiences at past year reunions is a best practice you should follow.
Another way to encourage alumni engagement and participation is by creating opportunities for alumni to take some action on your post. Here’s an example: create a simple graphic post with the tagline - “Just three days to go!! Tag 3 people you are looking forward to meeting at the reunion.”
Here’s how William Peace University drew the attention of its alumni and got them talking about their upcoming reunion.
It's generally a good idea to see which alumni event ideas are gaining traction. Take for example the widely popular 10-Year Challenge on Facebook where you can request alumni to simply post two photos, side-by-side, taken at least ten years apart. Alternatively, you can use photos from yearbooks and current profiles of alumni to create ‘10-year challenge’ posts. However, in the case of this approach, consent needs to be established before using an alum’s personal photos.
Instead of promoting your alumni event the traditional way, capture the attention of your alumni by constantly staying in their social media feed and reminding them of the wonderful memories they’ve had over their time spent at their school. Here’s how McCarthy Alumni Association gets this right.
Create a campaign asking alumni to respond to “What's something you loved about your Class of 10 Yr Reunion?”. Share the positive feedback you receive from the campaign and from past year reunions on your social media pages, tagging those alumni who’ve provided feedback, thus ensuring a wider reach for your campaign.
Pick images of 3-5 alumni, combine them to create a collage with question marks on top of each image, and then post it as a challenge for alumni to guess the names of the people mentioned in the post. To make it more interesting, provide hints. For example, if one of the names to be guessed is "Sarah", you can drop the letters ‘S’, ‘R’, and ‘H’ as a clue. Such campaigns not only get you visibility but also encourage your alumni to take action by responding to the challenge you’ve thrown at them.
To effectively promote alumni reunions, institutions today have a good variety of social media platforms, each offering distinct advantages for outreach and engagement.
When it comes to promoting your alumni reunions, there’s no limit to all that you can do. Here’s a list of techniques for increasing alumni participation to your reunions that have brought success to over a hundred institutions.
7 Tested Ideas To Promote Alumni Reunions On Social Media
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With the advent of ‘millennials’, alumni engagement had taken on a whole new meaning. They are the first digital natives, they are social, and the largest generation in the history. Their affinity for technology shapes their thinking. The good news is that technology has never been more available than it is now. All it takes is the right tools, great strategy and some patience to win their respect. That said, technology should not be allowed to overshadow the good ol’ traditions that keep great relations alive. A healthy mix of technology and tradition is what you are looking for.
We’ve done some of the homework for you and narrowed it down to 3 key practices that can help you manage your younger constituents through Reunions.
Probably the oldest lesson in the book – the golden rule for any reunion, homecoming or any other event for that matter. But let’s try to take a look at it from another angle this time.
Why are you really planning the event? Is it because you’ve always been doing it? Is it to benefit the school?
Is tradition preventing you from being strategically relevant in today’s world?
Strategy:Give your constituents a reason to come back.
Not just your alumni – but their parents, family, and friends too. In an age where the man with the most data wins, life-stage segmentation of constituents becomes crucial. Making use of this data Alumni / Advancement offices categorize their constituents into various categories and personalize the messages to suit the segment they are communicating with.
Schools that customize their alumni engagement strategies based on age and generation hold the key to a life‐long connection.
Surprised?
Nothing calls for introspection like when half of your constituents tell you that they don’t like the way you are reaching out to them. Homecoming/reunion events can be a very personal – to share one’s memories, meet their best friends and to relive all those precious moments again. If your alumni feel like you are going to corner them into donating money, they would much rather stay at home.
Does your messaging make your alumni uncomfortable? How do you know?
Strategy:
1. Make your messaging personal. Show them all that is going into the planning. Try to make your e-mail put a smile on their face and rekindle all those memories.
2.Make them a part of the planning process. Reunions are very personal. Your alumni can sense when the event belongs to them, and when it belongs to you.
3. Create a page on your alumni website with photos from previous events so that they are assured there is nothing else they would rather do.
As your class size increases, this may look like a pretty daunting task. But we’ve got your back.
My colleague, a business development executive has put together a great piece with his expertise to help you in writing e-mails that convert great!
Having the right message is only part of the entire picture. How do you get your message out? Where are your alumni most likely to read what you have to say?
Mail has worked great in the past, But very few millenials have a postal address they check and respond to regularly. For a generation that grew up with the internet, e-mails have worked great and have rised to be the most used and reliable form of communication now. Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter are a great way to engage when you want to segment further by age, affinity, interests, etc..
Using the right channels help you target the right alumni segment. Tracking e-mails, analyzing reply rates help make better data-driven decisions. But how do you zero-in on a mode of communication with a large constituent base spread over different generations and various preferences?
Strategy:
1. Widen the playing field by using a central communication center that can both broadcast to and receive info from your alumni. You should be able to send e-mails, text messages, and web push notifications to mobile devices. A central platform should be able to reach each of your alumni segments in their preferred channels.
2.Send an initial invite to everyone via e-mail, followed by a campaign to spread the event page from your website on all social media. Your alumni may miss or not be able to respond to your email. A prompt to register while they browse their social media feeds can trigger them to take a deeper look into the event.
If you are already using Almabase here is how you can do it using our ‘Communication Center’ module which empowers you to take control of your outgoing communications.
In the next part of this ‘Engagement Maximizing’ series, we will take a look at ticketing, discounts, and the metrics you should be measuring while planning an event.
3 Practices for a Successful Modern Day Reunion
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The benefits of alumni reunions can be reaped by schools long after they’re over. Reunions offer alumni the chance to look back at the good old days and also act as a golden opportunity for making lasting relationships with their alma mater and fellow alumni.
While alumni reunions are clearly awesome, ‘when’ you choose to organize your reunion plays a pivotal role in its success.
After observing over a hundred schools organize successful alumni reunions, we’ve finally settled on the end-of-the-year/holiday season as the best time for high school alumni reunions.
High school reunions usually happen in the of Summer (June - August) or towards the end of the year (September - November). What works best for your alumni may vary from school to school but we'll make our case on why we think you should consider the latter part of the year.
Whether your alumni live in another state or halfway across the world, the end-of-the-year/holiday season is when they come home for homecoming and to spend time with their friends and family. It is therefore highly likely that your alumni will be in town to be able to attend your event.
With most offices already closed for the holiday season, alumni have abundant time on their hands to socialize and are often in the mood to meet classmates and revisit fond memories.
November (46.2%) and December (30.8%) are the most popular months for making year-end asks, but 7.7% of organizations start as early as September!
- Jeff Gordy
Co-Founder of Z2 Systems, Inc.
Since the end of the year is peak fundraising season, coupling your alumni reunion with a fundraising campaign can be highly effective for your institution. With the holiday season ringing in and alumni meeting up with old friends, there can’t be a better time to ask them to donate toward your cause.
If you're already prepping for your end-of-year alumni reunion for your school, here are some great tips on increasing alumni donations during the event.
While the best time of the year ultimately depends on your alumni base and can certainly vary from year to year, the end of the year lends itself to some great engagement and fundraising strategies that are exclusive to the fall season. If you've mostly been a summer reunion school, we hope you'll give fall a try this year.
High school reunions are typically held 10, 20, or 25 years after graduation, often during the late summer or fall.
September or October are popular months for reunions as the weather is pleasant and schedules are less hectic.
The end of the year is ideal because many people visit home for the holidays, making it easier to gather.
Plan a summer reunion for outdoor activities or a holiday reunion to coincide with people’s travel and festive spirit.
Why is the end-of-the-year best time for high school alumni reunions?
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