Higher Ed TV: How Marquette University doubled its online donations with a student-produced video

What’s great about flying across the country to attend a conference is the quality time I can get with my laptop.

I meant to post about this great initiative for more than a month now, but I couldn’t find enough quiet time to write it. My apologies.

Back in April, Nicole Sweeney Etter from Marquette University’s magazine brought to my attention a great online video that had been produced by a group of current students. Marquette Magazine published an article about this group, The Spanish O’Donnells, as it had “developed quite a campus following for their pop parodies and YouTube music videos.”

When he read this magazine profile, Dave Murphy, senior director of brand marketing at Marquette University contacted the students and asked them to create a music video for scholarship aid. The Spanish O’Donnells were given a fact sheet about financial aid as a starting point and just ran with it. “The guys were jotting down lyrics before they even left the office. At the guys’ request, we also provided some historical photos and video footage to mix with their own footage,” wrote Etter in her email.

The students recorded the music in a mini-recording booth set up in a dorm room closet. It took them about a month to write, record and edit.

The resulting video has been very successful. At the time of this writing, it has been viewed 9184 times.

Because it includes a very clear and specific call to action – i.e. donate money to support student scholarships, it was possible to measure its results.

The video was promoted to Marquette’s Alums via the university Facebook page and Twitter account as well as on the Give Marquette website. It was also used for an email campaign delivered to close to 38,000 alums and individuals including all donors and non-donors. The email signed by the University President, Father Wild, was sent on March 25 and invited alums to watch the video. The subject line of the email was “A clever video from our students.”

Thanks to Sara Harvey from University Advancement I can actually share with you some very interesting data about the results of this campaign:

• Email open rate: 31%
• Click-trough rate: 18.4% (only 6% in March 2009)
• Open to click-through rate: 59% (only 17% in March 2009)
• Unsubscribe rate: less than 1%
• 34 donations* for a total of $7615 three weeks after delivery (15 donations for a total of $3,832 in March 2009)

* The donations were determined by counting those constituents who clicked on a link to view the video and who also made a gift via the on-line giving form through 4/14/2010.

Sara Harvey also shared with me many replies made via Twitter, Facebook and email. I’m just including a couple below to give you an idea of the feedback the video and the email got from Marquette University alums:

I just wanted you to know that although I had stopped donating a few years ago (putting my own kids through college took most of the discretionary spending), a friend forwarded a link to the Spanish Odonnells’ video. I was immediately moved to donate. I’m happy to help support the education of such clever and talented students. I don’t know how you plan to disseminate this video, but I hope you will do so. This was so much more effective than the telephone call in the middle of “Grey’s Anatomy.”

If this is the kind of energy, communication creativity, and innovation that MU is developing in its students, and if this is how MU students are making efforts to understand generational differences connect with them in a diverse and inclusive message, and if is how they are astute enough to recognize past tradition and memories to connect with alumni to make a meaningful appeal for finanical aid… Then as an former MU student, I need to step up and match the that MU student enthusiasm, their skill,and demonstrate my support this kind of fantastic “reach-out” attitude at Marquette. I will be donating to the scholarship fund for the second time in five days, following an excellent call from an MU student on Sunday who also demonstrated that attitude through her telephone manner. We certainly need more of this “MU Creative Connectivity” in our business environments.

Marquette University also posted another video on YouTube including some of the comments made by alums about the song.

Wow. Amazing how a student-produced video can reach the hearts (and pockets ;-) of alums.

Has your institution used online videos in an original way? Let me know at karine@collegewebeditor.com or by posting a comment below.