Stevens Institute of Technology : Keep The Shirt. Share the Story.

Background : Stevens Institute of Technology is a university based out of Hoboken, NJ.

Objective : Develop a campaign to engage current students, encourage them to continue their education at Stevens, reduce the “drop” rate and generate word of mouth “referrals” from current students.

How : Keep the shirt. Share the story. Second Melody, in conjunction with Stevens, developed a multi-channel campaign design to make the students feel appreciated and a part of the Stevens community as well as generate viral, word of mouth propagation of the message. The media employed included direct mail, dimensional mail, email and an interactive landing page.

Results : A 500% return on investment, a 70% tracked pass along rate – meaning the message reached 70% more people than it was sent to, a 39.4% response rate, a 20% immediate enrollment rate and a 14.7% referral rate. In addition, many of the students participated by submitting pictures of themselves in their “t-shirts” to keeptheshirt.com .

Equally interesting was the almost instantaneous, user generated “buzz” found in online forums and communities.