In recent weeks, I received two well done enrollment marketing pieces through the mail. Very different, but well done. One was an oversize postcard from a K-12 school. The other was a letter from a university.

The postcard was well-themed, advertised an open house, had good design and artwork, and had an interesting offer of a registration discount.

The package from the university was a personal-size window envelope and a personalized letter with a nice offer for a publication that I assume the university created about choosing the right college.

The postcard did a good job soliciting our interest in exploring enrollment at the school—at least as much as you can with a postcard. The only problem: my daughter graduated from the school last May. We also received this same mailing while she was a current student…gulp.

Embarrassing for sure when you make data mistakes, and we’ve all made them, including me. But a baseline requirement for any communication and certainly an enrollment solicitation, is to bounce the list off your current enrollment and alumni database.

Well, you can probably guess what happened with the letter from the university. Yep, they are offering to send enrollment information to my daughter who is already a student there.

Two of my children graduated from the K-12 school and I served as president there. My wife and I are alums of the university, and so is our oldest son, with another son about to graduate.

No, we're not offended, and, according to my wife, we will keep sending those tuition checks. But knowing thy audience or not, is the basis of effective enrollment marketing or the downfall, well before the offer hits the mail or flies into cyberspace.