Talisma iServices API Integration

EDU Interactive completed another successful integration of Lead Genisys with Talisma CRM for a valued client this week. In real-time Lead Gensiys creates, sources and assigns new leads in Talisma. Remarketing efforts seamlessly update existing lead records. Lead Genisys also automatically pulls complex reports from Talisma and processes the data to drive business decisions.

Talisma CampusCRM

Talisma CRM is a Client Relationship Management software product which encompasses enrollment management, student retention, student services, education finance, alumni relations and more.

Campus Management

Talisma CRM was aquired by Campus Management Corp in November 2008 as part of an agreement with nGenera Corporation that included the asset aquisition of its subsidiary, Talisma Corporation.

Technical Details

The integration utilized the Talisma iServices Web Service using the SOAP protocol. SOAP is a simple XML-based protocol which allows communication between applications running on different operating systems, with different technologies and programming languages.

While sitting in a business meeting yesterday afternoon, my Blackberry suddenly starting buzzing away, indicating a surge of new emails flooding my system. Interested, I snuck a quick peak, only to see the big news – Michael Jackson had died. Stunned, I blurt out in the meeting, “Oh, my God! Michael Jackson died!” I, along with the rest of the world, was shocked by the stunning news, coming in just hours after news of Farrah Fawcett’s demise hit the internet news stream. 

Apparently, the internet is not as robust as we all believe it to be, as Google, CNN, LA Times, Wikipedia, and most other news and search related sites experienced a volcanic eruption of online visitors searching for the latest news updates about what happened to Michael Jackson. Even Twitter crashed and had to be temporarily disabled due to the overload of traffic coming into the site. LA Times, the first news organization to confirm his death, reported being down for 40 minutes after “never seeing anything like this in terms of scope or depth.” AOL consumer Regina Lewis said that the day would likely become a historic milestone for mobile internet traffic. Mashable.com even reported that topics related to his death were responsible for 30 percent of tweets.

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It’s nice to see colleges and universities focus on strong branding campaigns. Check out Walden University’s new TV spots: http://www.waldenu.edu/. 

For many years, it seemed educational institutions got caught up in ENROLL NOW, PICK-ME, LIMITED TIME OFFER messages and forgot to talk to people about how their institution can help them have a better life and why  that institution is right for them.

At EDU Interactive, we have always told our client colleges that staying true to the brand is important, and ultimately, will help increase enrollment . Yes, we all need to meet the lead goals, conversion expectations and fill classrooms, but at the same time, it’s important to remember what the university stands for and how they can help better people’s lives. Don’t get me wrong — there’s a place for the enroll now, limited time offer messages, but it needs to be accompanied by a strong branding campaign that tells a story and inspires people to want to go to school! 

Written by: Chelsea Koehnen, EDU Interactive Managing Director

Higher educational recruitment is getting more and more competitive. It seems like every quarter you hear about a non-profit college being purchased and drenched with cash in the hopes of building online enrollments for the purpose of going public. Each new entity enters the field with huge arsenals of advertising and enrollment staffing dollars in an effort to bolster enrollments. At the same time, the large for-profits continue to expand and spend more money too. Meanwhile, the number of college seeking students grows at a rate considerably slower than the proliferation rate of online college recruiters. Non-profit schools are losing marketshare at an alarming rate. It seems like every quarter there is a new report of a college on the ropes due to reductions in enrollment and the commensurate loss of tuition revenues. What to do?

At this point, you are probably expecting me to say spend more on advertising. It makes sense given I own 50% of EDUI. However, that is not the advice I am giving at this time. Spending more money without properly working the candidate students towards their enrollment into your institution will yield very inefficient returns on your investment. What I am suggesting is that you look at the quality of your admissions staff. Most colleges hire former employees of some of the big brand schools with the expectation that the enrollments will magically appear. This has not been my experience with our sister company Barker Educational Services Team (BEST). Actually, former advisors from many of the larger institutions have been the least productive and they are rife with bad habits.

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Yesterday, I attended “Interactive Day San Diego”, presented by the San Diego Ad Club. While I was hopeful that I would be exposed to some new ideas and fresh perspectives that are taking place within the interactive marketing community, I wasn’t certain if I would take away anything from it that would be beneficial and applicable to what I professionally manage on a daily basis. However, I was pleasantly surprised by all of the various sessions and speakers I listened to.

The keynote luncheon presentation was given by Steve Patrizi from LinkedIn, and he did an amazing job at displaying to his captive audience how LinkedIn (as well as other social engagement sites) can assist professionals who are looking to get feedback and advice from their professional network. I never realized what a valuable source LinkedIn can give to professionals, offering such applications as “TripIt”, where you can not only save your travel arrangements and activities, but also reach out to your network to get suggestions and ideas as to places to stay or sights to see when traveling to a certain destination for either business or leisure. He also had mentioned a new word I plan to add within my dialogue and in my daily business practices, “coopitition”, basically where various competitors work in collaboration together to achieve a common goal. In these challenging economic times, it is refreshing to know that professionals within the same industry can cooperate with one another and join forces to deliver a product or package that best meets the needs of the client, regardless of who is the primary contact or client holder of that piece of business is.

There were so many other notable, worthy speakers who gave refreshing perspectives of new marketing tools that are now available in the interactive marketing community, many of which I hope to see EDU Interactive bring to the table for their clients to take advantage of. More to come…

Meanwhile, I do plan to take some time this weekend to update my own LinkedIn page, since I never know who from my professional network will be calling on me in the near future for helpful tips, advice or feedback. I encourage you all to do the same, and let’s link up soon.