<p>Good description, jhs, of how such a mass-mailing works.</p>
<p>The ancillary benefit of all these blanketed approaches is “PR”- that soft category that is better knowledge of the brand in broader markets and more deeply into those markets. </p>
<p>Alumni mailings are a bit like this: fund-raising is the TANGIBLE goal , but the touchy feely stuff is still worth something even if funds are not raised directly as a result: building better awareness of the brand, building the community, keeping the name in front of the spender/user, updating on news and achievement of the brand, blah blah blah…
The alumni type mailings help with BOTH attracting students and funds from BOTH alums and non-alums.
It is very hard to do a regression analysis to measure which mailing to whom saying what was the most successful at attaining which goal. So it is all lumped together and thought of as being effective in a variety of ways. AND because of this imprecision MORE seems BETTER.</p>
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<p>I do feel that these mailings to prospective students COULD be a little more TARGETED (how much more would this really cost?)given how incredibly selective some of these schools are, and how may excellent AND diverse applicants they already have accessed. I think these colleges see it as another shot at getting a student to DECIDE TO APPLY in the blink of an eye once he/she sees one or enough of these mailers… hmmmm… while spreading around their hallowed brand name to the unfortunate/uninitiated/uninterested LOL</p>