Earlier this year I was furiously working through edits to a student's college essay while waiting at my daughter's swim practice. My friend Cate sat down next to me, and, as often happens, she asked me what I was doing and then was curious about my background and experience at College Coach. As a parent of three, she was immediately intrigued by the idea of educational consulting for college-bound children.

She was surprised (albeit pleasantly) when I explained that College Coach services are offered through employers as a free benefit...and even more so when she realized that her husband's employer was one of the companies that offered it. She was immediately interested in signing up.

Maximizing your Benefits

This reminded me of an adage that I know to be true: a great benefit is only really great when employees know about and use it. Here was a mother stressed about her children's education  a perfect candidate for College Coach but she didn't know she had access to a benefit that could offer exactly the help she needed!

We know that employees engage when College Coach is marketed to them. For example, a 40-thousand-employee pharmacy client of ours recently offered a live webinar event on college admissions. After working with our outreach team, they opted to send an email to employees with high school juniors and seniors.

Within two hours of sending that communication, more than 10 percent  over 300 employees  registered for the program and were able to benefit from the information. Clearly the employees were eager to get the information about the college process. As with my friend Cate, it was simply a matter of sending the right message to the right people.

The Key Word: Communicate!

What else can you do? We've also captured employees' attention and cut through the "noise" in their inboxes with fun giveaways: entering to win a college sweatshirt of their choice, a free Kindle, or a discount on test prep services through our partner, Revolution Prep. These ideas have all resulted in spikes in registrations and service usage.

As for Cate... I quickly sent an email to my colleague, and by the next day Cate and her husband were fully registered users accessing individualized advice for her eighth grade daughter and fifth grade twin boys. When I saw her at swim practice a week later, she couldn't stop talking about how relieved and less stressed she was.

She remains a loyal and regular user of the College Coach benefit. Cate reports reduced stress within her family and a clearer sense of how she can help her kids grow academically and further their futures.

The moral of the story: when marketing employee benefits, a thoughtful and targeted approach results in more satisfied employees, and when they use College Coach, a more focused and loyal workforce.