I’ve had a fair bit of interest in the Open Days reviews published over the past couple of weeks, and am hoping to bring another one to your inbox after this weekend. I’ve even borrowed a couple of additional prospective students dressed up as mystery shoppers to liven up the roadtrip. Yes, I do live a pretty exciting life.
I’ll be talking about Open Days, the 364 days a year that we aren’t ‘open’, marketing strategy and observations on the future of how the sector positions itself at HE FEST in Adelaide 12-13 September.
In preparation for the weekend, I have made a few notes on what else is going on in Open Day campaigns around the nation – bearing in mind these are my observations, not intending to pick on any institutions, but rather look for examples of trends, issues and opportunities that might be helpful in better serving students.
Key observations relating to Open Day promotions:
- Good coin – there are some good prizes on offer – Deakin has $4k on the line in exchange for the registration details of open day visitors. While the majority probably won’t register, this is really cheap in terms of lead generation costs and I wouldn’t be surprised if institutions started putting $10 or $20k back into the prize pool to catch the eyes of a cost-afflicted public. Of course, the challenge here is that the registration process is no guarantee of lead quality (that is, there is no guarantee the student or parent logging in will choose to or achieve the ATAR to get into your course), so stand by for a move from the scattergun approach to stronger targeting.
- Wave goodbye to calendar certainty. WA has open days in April, NSW institutions are pushing into September and Victoria remains cemented in the August slot – for now. Open Days in their current form should realistically be only about 5% of your marketing and recruitment effort for domestic students, so re-examining dates is a good starting point when reconsidering whether to hold them at all.
- Homogeneity rules. Edit up your video montage from last year, tell me about your half-hour long presentations that I need to book into, and reassure me that your vibrant campus will be best … and you will have covered off the Open Day landing page content for most of the sector.
- F2F or nothing. Virtual Open Days, a go-to during COVID, appear to have largely evaporated (apart from JCU’s virtual open day) , but so too consideration of virtual participation for interstate or regional students who can’t get to the event on the day. It’s in person or nothing if you are approaching unis via an Open Day page route. Swintopia, the cartoon virtual open day pioneered during COVID by Swinburne, appears to have gone to a better place…
- Condolences due … and just like Swintopia, Swinburne’s open day has ‘passed’ – with the sort of terminology you’d normally reserve for the death of a much-loved great uncle. Uni of Adelaide also head down that path and have gone with the you’ll be sorry you missed out vibe – providing a video package of highlights from the day just to make sure you know what you missed but not a lot of reassurance of treats still in store. RMIT is even more blunt, saying Open Day is wrapped up for 2024 ‘but stay tuned for future details about Open Day 2025,’ which won’t much please those deciding whether to choose the big city brand next year, but is perfectly targeted to both of us serial Open Day fans who like to book in a year ahead.
- Compensation content. Finally, a bouquet for Western Sydney and ECU, which replaced their Open Day event bumph with compensation content for those who arrive seeking insights afterwards. They both provide content so you can still explore your options and encourage contacting their recruitment team with questions. There is a rich bank of information available and it’s a set and forget initiative. Once you have developed the content once, it’s not hard to make updates and whack the post-Open Day content up each year. at the same time as the rest of the staff are folding tablecloths and putting down banners.
Let’s talk some more in Adelaide.
