What medium works best for different Adult Prospects?

I find this an interesting topic. When I started Market Mapping plus back in 1990, one of my mantras over all these years has been "Track response". Why? If you don't track where your prospects and students are coming from, how do you know where to allocate resources?

Yes, 26 years later I keep asking clients "what gives you the best response?" and they have no idea. The opportunities for spending your marketing dollars are expanding significantly. In the past, you had direct mail (postal) as one of the only and primary methods of advertising. Since then the market has expanded to include Billboards, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, the CAS Devices (like the Amazon Echo) which are new technologies that dilute your marketing budget. But how do you decide which method to fund?

I had a client many years ago who hired me to evaluate their Adult Student marketing program. I evaluated all of the methods of advertising, told them to start keycoding ads/direct mail pieces to identify where a lead came from. After the first quarter of testing this new coding system I had a meeting with the VP of Enrollment Management and asked him which methods were the most effective? He gave me his top 3. Of his top 3, there were zero leads from the top two. The #1 method of advertising was direct mail postal postcards. Marriage mail and newspaper insert programs generated nothing in terms of response. So they reallocated their budget to become more effective in their marketing efforts.

The ultimate question is "How do we track all of these marketing programs?". The key is integrating some method of knowing where a lead came from. For printed marketing materials a user code to identify the source of the lead, and in some cases, the source of the name. Where did it come from? What list? For Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter use a unique code to identify where a lead got motivated to contact you and enroll.

There is an easier way to track campaign success. For every Adult Student who enrolls, give them a short survey. Ask them what got them to enroll to get their degree. This is the best and easiest method of finding out what's working.

If you need help setting up a quality tracking program give me a call. David Fant, Market Mapping plus Inc. at 616-956-7129, or write me at david@marketmappingplus.com.

Quantity or Quality? Do e-mail campaigns have to be large to be effective?

I have been conducting a number of e-mail campaigns lately and have uncovered some interesting facts. More is not necessarily better. Many campaigns have been running in the 100,000+ e-mails sent range, with about a 28% open rate and 1,300 click throughs. Yet, two recent campaigns were under 50,000 emails (one was under 6,000) and they acheived 1,560 click throughs (on 50,000 sent) and the other 1,200 click throughs (on 5,890 sent). Other campaigns with 180,000 e-mails sent got about the same number of click throughs.

In analyzing the difference between the large versus small campaigns the results can be explained in one way. Targeting! Both of the small mailings were for very targeted programs in a VERY specific geographic area. The name recognition of the school, combined with simple, uncomplicated design and copy allowed the recipient to:

1) Identify quickly that this was an institution with name recognition
2) Was in their target area of interests.
3) Was worth looking into more deeply for more information.

Each of these programs, received 100% of their click throughs for follow up. I will be checking with my clients to see what their conversion rate may be. However, in the meantime, e-mail marketing can deliver large numbers of prospects to your door. People waiting to complete their degree, or advance their degree. Will you get them to attend YOUR school? Or will another school win their business?

For more information, contact:
David Fant
Market Mapping plus LLC
616-956-7129
david@marketmappingplus.com