Our ten top tips for reconnecting with lost alumni.

Have you recently started an alumni programme for your school, college, or university, or maybe inherited one which hasn’t been particularly active?

Are you looking to improve your alumni contact data or strengthen connections with volunteers, donors, mentors, and ambassadors?

In an ideal world all alumni would be connected to you before they leave your institution and remain that way, but the reality is that over time, people move, change their contact details and forget to let you know, or simply lose interest in staying in touch.

But how do you define ‘lost alumni’?

Are these people you’ve never been in touch with since they left you, those that you were in touch with but no longer have any valid contact details for, or even those for whom you do have some details, yet they are not interacting with your outreach in any way?

A lot of lost or forgotten alumni will be older cohorts who attended schools before email and social media were widespread, and in a time before collecting alumni details was the norm. But there will also be a significant amount who simply aren’t interested in what’s being offered by way of engagement, alumni who’ve moved abroad who are less likely to be able to attend in person events, those who aren’t interested in what’s happening at the school today (who won’t see the value in ‘News’ items), and alumni who are retired or late in their careers who are less likely to be attracted to mentoring or networking opportunities.

Whilst you may have a desire to reconnect with lost alumni, that doesn’t always mean there is budget available to specifically target the task.  Search campaigns using people to manually track down alum online are highly effective, but due to their manual nature they are time consuming and therefore expensive.

You can try to reach out to alumni you’ve lost contact with over the years, but this won’t be possible for everyone, and even if you do have their details and consent to contact them then what are you offering to interest them? If they wanted to attend events or be up to date on current news then it’s unlikely they’d have become ‘lost’.

So what else can you offer to tempt lost alum out of the woodwork?

Check out our top ten tips to ensure you are in touch with as many of your alumni as possible:

1.     Use social media

Doubtless your institution will already be running some social media channels, be they alumni specific or for the school as a whole.

Remember, consistency beats creativity when it comes to social media, make sure you are posting regularly.

Also different demographics are prevalent on different platforms, tailoring your communications appropriately will make them more effective (see point six for more on this)! Posting across all available networks means you can reach your alumni where they are most comfortable, rather than trying to bring them onto your platform of choice immediately.

2.     Utilise connections

The alumni you are engaged with will absolutely be in touch with some that you’re not, so get them spreading the word.

Hearing a message from a classmate or teammate, as opposed to from someone who works for the school, will often be received better, especially by those with whom you’ve not been in touch for some time.

Getting your existing connections to reach out to their own networks can have a fantastic multiplier effect.

3.     Digital everything

In person events are an amazing way to build and strengthen alumni relationships, but they will never be all encompassing.

Work or family commitments, location, or physical restrictions are just a few of the reasons that even your most passionate alumni might not be able to make it.

Providing digital alternatives for those who can’t attend can dramatically increase the reach of an event with just a fraction of additional effort over organising it to be physical only.

Apply this same thinking to all your activities to ensure they are available to all perspective members.

4.     Provide value/incentives

Many alumni teams we deal with worry that they are only reaching out to their community when they are asking for something, a sentiment that is often echoed by alumni themselves.

Offering incentives is a great way for the relationship to feel more reciprocal. Incentives don’t have to be physical gifts, just some way of giving value back to community members for their attention, interaction, and support.  

5.     List lost alumni online

If you’re lucky enough to have the names of those alumni with whom you are out of touch you can set up a list online. This is low effort but tends to also be low reward as it requires proactive action, either on behalf of those listed or someone who knows them who not only have to see the list but then go through it and reach out.

6.     Remind alumni of their time with you

Personalised engagement has repeatedly been shown to be more effective than non-personalised, and whilst personalising to the individual level might be beyond your systems or resources, tailoring content to be specific for the graduating class, cohort, or group you’re looking to reach can dramatically increase engagement.

Something as simple as posting a picture of the relevant year photo to your Facebook page can create a hit of nostalgia which pushes a previously lost alum to reconnect. This also serves to rebuild the sense of connection that they may have lost with your school after years out of touch.

7.     Develop on-demand services

In today’s attention-based economy you are competing with thousands of other calls on the attention of your alumni. By offering on-demand services you allow alumnus to interact with you as and when you are on their mind, rather than them waiting for you to contact them via mail, phone or at an in-person event.

8.     Know your audience

Looking to find lost alumni from a specific cohort, interest group or age bracket?

The more you can develop data insight into what attracts and engages that group, the more effective your communications can be.

Whilst surveys are a good start in this area they are often only completed by those who are already strongly engaged, so harnessing data based on actual user behaviour allows you to capture information about a far broader spectrum of your audience.

9.     Be interactive

Part of the reason social media is so popular is that it creates conversation. Newsletters and magazines are a fantastic way to broadcast information to your network but connections can be made far stronger on platforms which allow two way communication.

Actively seek out communication from existing and perspective members or your community and look to deploy systems which allow alumni to connect with one another (under your control).

10.   Harness user generated content

Getting your community involved is a huge untapped well for many institutions and offers up several fantastic benefits:

·       You’re not using your own limited resources to create content.

·       Content created by other alumni can often have a more authentic voice to those you’re looking to reach.

·       Those creating the content for you are reinforcing their own social connection to your institution in the process.

Start using as many of these tips as possible and you’ll soon see a host of lost alumni connecting back with you, building a bigger and more engaged community to support your institution.

SocialArchive® can provide support across all these areas. Our tools, such as powerful facial recognition which automatically builds personalised alumni galleries from your history, allow you to grow your alumni community and forge stronger bonds with those in it.

If you’d like to know more why not attend one of our regular webinars or email info@socialarchive.com to arrange a demonstration.