NFC Tracking at SDSU – Proof of Concept
You just tracked making a contact at an outreach event – just by scanning an NFC tag. The scan was added to a Google Sheets database of contacts that currently records your name, the date, the time, and the outreach event associated with that particular NFC tag.
In the future, we’ll setup a per-event page loaded with links to course-specific information, blog posts, contact information, and more – all of which you can easily send to contacts via email or text.
The end result is a benefit for everyone – the contact gets specific information they need to enroll at SDSU Global Campus, and we get valuable insight to event analytics and contact conversion.
Tools Used for this POC (Proof of Concept) Implementation
- Autodesk Fusion – to generate custom designs for SDSU keychains that can be kept on a belt loop for easy access.
- NFC Tags – to store this custom URL that will give outreach reps easy access to their most needed information for this event, and to log interactions.
- Creality K1 Printer – to 3D print keychains in the SDSU logos that are embedded with the NFC tags, looking like nothing more than school swag to the average onlooker.
- Google Sheets – as a low-cost database solution to gather and parse data from the event to gain insight and analytics.
- Make.com – to create a custom webhook that will log each student interaction, including the name of the rep, the date, and the time.
- WordPress – to create this custom landing page.
- ChatGPT – to generate ideas and help troubleshoot along the way.
Ideas on How to Use This NFC Chipped Cards by the Outreach Team
Custom Landing Pages for Each Outreach Memeber, For Each Event
Give each outreach member the capability to load up the links, information, and tools they need for each interaction. Each tap brings them back to this page, which could house event-specific links and information (such as URLs for different programs, relevant blog posts, etc.)
Allow Outreach Members to Send Blog Posts / Course Information / Financial Aid Information / Etc. – While Collecting Valuable Contact Info
Adding in the capability for outreach members to send emails or texts with specific information allows us to know what each user is walking away with, while giving us the ability to follow-up with them and track them through their entire application experience.
The example link below will simulate the action that occurs in Google Sheets when a contact is sent information (in this case, a link to the Global Campus homepage.) This assumes we’ve captured their name (Gertrude McGillicuty), phone (619.555.5555) and email (donotreplyatall@sdsu.edu) in a yet-to-be-implemented form and hit the “Send” button.
Capturing & Updating Contact Data on Send
Easily Share Contact Information
Allow reps to share their contact information to their students with the tap of a button. Future functionality will allow us to log when contact info is sent for a particular interaction.
Other Potential NFC Uses
Add NFC Stickers to Promotional Swag
Want contacts to take more information about a specific program when they pick up that cool SDSU-branded notebook? Pop an NFC sticker with a “Tap Your Phone Here” design on the inside cover. The NFC tag can direct the users to whatever specific information that we want them to take with them.
The contact gets specific information that’s relevant and useful to them. And we get valuable information about the contact – from what day they attended the event, who gave them the swag, and the opportunity to capture contact information at a later date.
And because NFC stickers can be easily edited, we can update this information for each event, without having to order new swag.
Project Impacts
This project has the potential to be a game changer for us.
- Event Analytics – Tracking of how many contacts we make at each event. We can see which events are producing the most contacts, which days are the busiest, which hours are the busiest, and dive into the data to identify when and how we’re most likely to generate quality leads.
- Conversion Ratios…
- …by Event – By capturing emails/phone numbers when we send info, we can link that back to eventual conversions, helping us to understand which specific events/event types are most productive.
- …by Content Shared – Are contacts more likely to enroll when we share blog posts? How about course-specific information? Rep contact information? By tracking what we send to users, we can identify what’s most helpful to contacts to get them from prospect to student.
- Outreach Member Productivity – We can track how many contacts each member of the team is making, allowing us to identify top performers and reward them accordingly.
- Full Student Experience Insights – By getting tracking at our first contact, we can combine that data with analytics tools understand how users flow through our online and offline tools to make decisions about how and when to enroll.
Assessing ROI (Return on Investment) for This Project
To assess ROI, we need to fully understand associated costs and potential impact.
Costs of Project
- Design and Development: The cost of technical and visual design, development, testing, implementation, and training.
- Estimate: $3,500 – $5,000 (at a rate of $48/hr.)
- Physical Materials: The cost of the physical materials required for implementation, including 3D printing filaments, keychains, etc.
- Estimate: $100
- Technical Tools: the implementation to the POC uses make.com, which can provide logging of 10,000 event contacts at $9.99/month. No other additional costs are needed
- Estimate (1yr): $120
- Total Cost: $3,720 – $5,220.
Benefits of This Project
All estimates are designed to be extremely conservative.
- Improved enrollment conversion – we’ll be able to prove an improvement on enrollment rate conversions from using this product by ensuring contacts have access to the most effective and important information quickly and easily
- To calculate the impact, we’ll need to have data about our current enrollment conversion rate, and the average amount a conversion brings in per user.
- Assumption of adding 10 students at $5,000 ROI per year: $50,000/yr
- To calculate the impact, we’ll need to have data about our current enrollment conversion rate, and the average amount a conversion brings in per user.
- Improved Outreach Scheduling – having a better understanding of our busiest events and event types will allow us to better schedule outreach reps for each event, resulting in cost and productivity savings as we better direct outreach rep efforts.
- Calculating impact here is more difficult, but not impossible. We’d need to make a conservative estimate of how many hours we could save by analyzing this data and multiply it by the average outreach member hourly salary to get a final result.
- Assuming we could save 10 hours of Outreach team productivity per month at an average salary of $28/hr: $14,560/yr
- Calculating impact here is more difficult, but not impossible. We’d need to make a conservative estimate of how many hours we could save by analyzing this data and multiply it by the average outreach member hourly salary to get a final result.
- Improved Lead Generation & Support – We’ll be able to better generate and interact with high-quality potential leads, as we improve the ease and speed with which we collect basic contact information. This will allow us to focus contact efforts and improve conversions.
- Getting here means understanding the difference in ROI between generating low-quality contacts and high-quality contacts. I’m not sure we’re measuring everything we need to, but starting to do so before full launch adds to understanding this piece.
- Assuming we could save 10 hours of follow-up time each month by focusing on higher-quality leads: $14,560/yr
- Assuming we could convert 2 more students at $5,000 ROI per year: $10,000/yr
- Getting here means understanding the difference in ROI between generating low-quality contacts and high-quality contacts. I’m not sure we’re measuring everything we need to, but starting to do so before full launch adds to understanding this piece.
- Refinement of Outreach Efforts – By understanding which events and event types generate the most qualified leads, we’ll be able to better identify which events to attend – and which we can remove from our list.
- Getting this number results from understanding the cost of attending different event types, the ROI that comes from each, and making estimates about how shifting those pieces could impact our bottom line.
- Assuming we could eliminate 1 conference from our list each year through analytics analysis, including cost of registering for event, food, travel, personnel, etc: $10,000/yr
- Getting this number results from understanding the cost of attending different event types, the ROI that comes from each, and making estimates about how shifting those pieces could impact our bottom line.
- Improved Content Generation & Focus – By understanding what types of content leads to conversions for which users, we can focus our content creation efforts on high-quality pieces that drive conversions.
- To get this impact, I’d estimate the number of hours we could save creating content that doesn’t move the needle. This would be based off baseline analytics that I don’t believe we’re tracking yet, but should start tracking prior to launching the full initiative.
- Assuming we could save 2 hours per week in focusing our content effort, at $28/hr: $5,824/yr
- To get this impact, I’d estimate the number of hours we could save creating content that doesn’t move the needle. This would be based off baseline analytics that I don’t believe we’re tracking yet, but should start tracking prior to launching the full initiative.
- Total conservative benefits estimate: $104,944.
Total ROI year 1 (Benefits – Costs): $99,720