Being new to Carnegie has given me a whole new perspective on the PC&U Platform, the foundation of Carnegie Communications. Having previously worked with another higher education company, I thought I knew our competition. Boy, was I wrong.
The thought of print anything seemed so 1990s to me. We now live in a world of immediate gratification and access to anything we want through our phones and tablets. I believed that schools just placed an ad in one of the magazines and that was it. Now that I am part of the company, it seems like every conversation I have with our clients includes things like, “We generated 386 first-source applications from PC&U” or “We enrolled 53 students from PC&U last year!”
Students like PC&U because it is made up of a collection of schools that range from elite private universities to large public research universities to small, private liberal arts colleges, all bound together. Parents like it because it is something that they can refer back to over and over again. Universities like it because of its shelf life and knowing parents and students are holding onto it.
But the print component of PC&U just scratches the surface of its three-pronged approach to lead generation. Its incredibly strong online presence is next. Most of our leads are generated via the website, and the overall call to action drives students there. Try doing a Google search on the largest college football stadiums or weird scholarships, and look who appears at the top of the list: CollegeXpress.com. This is where students are able to research schools and request more information about any ones they are interested in, not just the ones that purchased their names. In 2014 CollegeXpress.com generated more than 5.4 million leads for our partner schools, which is why we hear things like, “You don’t have to be great at math to determine what a great return on investment PC&U is for our university.”
The third arm of the PC&U Platform is the e-mail outreach we do to more than two million students. By getting the messaging directly to the students, we are inviting them to our site to research schools they have never heard of before or didn’t realize might be a perfect fit. No one piece of the PC&U Platform would stand alone, but when all three parts work together, great things happen!
If your college or university is not currently part of the PC&U Platform, you are missing a great opportunity. PC&U is the biggest no-brainer in the history of college admissions. Whether you are looking for more honors applicants, education majors, nursing students, or multicultural students, Carnegie’s PC&U Platform will connect you with them. I encourage you to reach out to your Regional Director or e-mail us at info@carnegiecomm.com to become our next partner to reach their enrollment goals.