Don’t Trust Growth to Guesswork

Posted on February 16, 2012 by

There’s no question about it, the resources and costs that are both necessary and at stake in new program development are high.  And let’s face it, guessing which programs will be successful is far from a sound approach.  It really comes down to research.

Our very own Joel Borgmeier recently published an article in Today’s Campus in which he outlines the importance of program feasibility studies, and how the underlying research gives schools the insight they need to develop programs that will best serve students.

If you haven’t had a chance to read Joel’s article, “Take Out the Guesswork: A Research-Based Strategy For Program Growth,” I encourage you to do so.  Here are some highlights:

Program feasibility studies allow schools to objectively assess the audience, the site and the program itself.

  • Even without a large research budget, colleges can conduct their own in-depth analysis that relies on both syndicated and school-specific data.
  • Program feasibility studies can help identify and rate opportunities on a relative scale, helping institutions avoid a mismatch of programs within specific markets.
  • Combining research on student segmentation, the market, labor and economic factors, competition and mapping can make costly mistakes avoidable.

Remember, even an educated guess isn’t going to help you grow your program.  Before investing in new program development, ask yourself, is there demand for this program? Are there enough students to make it viable? If we build it, will they come? Can students be successful as a result of this degree?

If this still sounds like a daunting task to go at alone, let us know.  Our team at Datamark has completed hundreds of customized program feasibility studies for schools over the years and would welcome the opportunity to help you!  Contact Joel at 801-886-2002 to learn more about our Research Services.

Posted in Adult Eduction, Datamark News, Higher Education, Industry Trends | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

New Year and New Outlook on CPL and EDU Portals: Media Days Take-Away #2

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

As we come to the next part in our series on the changing landscape of CPL and EDU Portals, let’s talk about our second key finding from the group of CPL vendors who participated in our Media Days event.

Insight #2:

As predicted, there has been a significant sorting out of the “bad” apples - those affiliates that are still trying to “cheat” the system by not playing by the rules of conventional wisdom of compliance. There are still enough other CPL options (personal finance, insurance, healthcare, fitness, etc.) that many of the questionable affiliates are willing to play the game of cat-and-mouse with their “downstream” aggregate partners.  Obviously, questionable non-compliant messaging offering  unrealistic degree outcomes, free tuition or grant money still “hook” the unsuspecting – if they are found out in the EDU space, they can always go to other categories to earn an easy buck.

Many of the “real” players that are committed to the EDU space have made every reasonable attempt to be compliant, at least in principle – they have their livelihoods at stake and they will do all that is necessary to protect their multi-million+ businesses!

There has been a definite move toward “one-strike and you are out of the game” for compliance violations of upstream affiliate partners. Many of the “long-term” players have dropped affiliate networks and have brought everything “in-house.”

By the way, we find it interesting that the media team has fielded dozens of inquiries from many of these “dirty” affiliates within the last 2-3 months who are making a last gasp effort to broker their EDU leads.

We hope you’ll join us next time where we’ll talk about our third key learning, the shift from quantity to quality.

Posted in Datamark News, Enrollment Marketing Best Practices, Industry Trends, Prospect Generation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Year and New Outlook on CPL and EDU Portals: Media Days Take-Away #1

Posted on January 27, 2012 by

As we go into a new year, can we expect a new outlook on Cost Per Lead and EDU Portals, or simply more of the same? At Datamark we recently held our      4th Semi-Annual Winter Media Days event where we brought together 8 of our top CPL partners to answer this very question. The group discussed everything from media mix, conversion, quality assurance and pricing models, to compliance and important post-regulation trends.

In this upcoming blog series, we’ll share with you our three key findings that will help you stay current on the world of CPL and EDU Portals. We’ll wrap up the series with our Top Ten list of trends and directions that we can expect to see EDU Portal moving into the next six months.

Insight #1:

The positive change that we have seen since our last Media Days in spring of 2011 has been more evolutionary than revolutionary.

  • There has been a shift in the channel mix to more paid and organic search.
  • More sites are providing opportunities for the respondent to engage (at no charge) into a career discovery and course test drive process.
  • Not only do these approaches help “filter” to determine if online learning is right, but help laser focus the careers that might best fit interests and capabilities of the prospect.

Stay tuned for our next post that will talk about the significant sorting out of “bad” apples in the industry.

Posted in Enrollment Marketing Best Practices, Industry Trends, Prospect Generation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Where Will the Misrepresentation Rules Take us in 2012?

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

What a year it has been on the regulatory front in higher education. In an industry that has seen such tremendous growth over the years, now more than ever colleges and universities are tightening the reigns, setting different expectations, implementing new policies and navigating a whole new era of compliance.

I recently had a chance to talk to Tom Robinson, editor of Today’s Campus, for his article, “Marketing in the New Regulatory Reality.” Tom and I talked in depth about the misrepresentation rules that went into effect in July, what they mean, and how they will impact education marketers now and in the future.

As we go into 2012, we’ll continue to see this impact. I believe we’ll see more collaboration between the big lead aggregators and schools around lead visibility. We’ll see the processes for schools to control over their messages perfected.  We’ll see new and better ways to monitor compliance. But we won’t – and this is my out-on-a-limb prediction – see much in the way of Federal enforcement – yet.

The bottom line is that colleges will continue to re-assess legal and financial risk while still maximizing their marketing ROI. The opportunity to successfully recruit, enroll and retain the right students exists, and while additional controls are required by the new regulatory landscape, the fact remains that education is still a growing industry.

Posted in Datamark News, Enrollment Marketing Best Practices, Higher Education, Industry News, Marketing Regulation in Higher Education | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

AAACE Attendees Won’t Let “Life” Get in the Way of Student Success

Posted on November 14, 2011 by

A couple of us from Datamark recently had the opportunity to attend and present at the AAACE Conference. The event drew a great crowd of adult and continuing education leaders to talk about the trends and challenges in the industry today.

Some of the key take-aways from the event included the following:
1) The biggest hurdle that adult learners have to overcome in completing their education is lack of time – “life” if busy, plain and simple.

2) Competition for students is ever present – continuing education programs are not only up against the for-profits and each other, but also competing “life” factors when convincing adults to complete or further their education.

3) Job placement and outcomes continue to be a focus and key success metric for all.

4) Adult learners are becoming the “new traditionals” and meeting their needs is critical in driving enrollment growth and retention.

5) Continuing education programs are starting to realize the importance of social media in communicating with adult learners where they are and on their terms.

My colleague, Kari Kovar, and I were also very happy with the feedback from our presentations, which both focused around a shift in marketing strategies.

Kari’s presentation, “Selling Your School Without Selling Your Soul,” got attendees thinking about ways they can compete in a more aggressive market, how to retain and enhance brand value, the right way to recruit, and the importance of maintaining marketing integrity.

In my session, we discussed the opportunity to use interactive marketing as a key lead generation vehicle. Attendees were excited to learn how to get started with interactive marketing, how to set expectations, how to manage interactive marketing with the right sites and tools, and finally, how to analyze the results.

All in all, the adult and continuing education market is looking ahead for ways they can attract more students and better support these students, despite “life” getting in the way.

Thanks, AAACE, for a great event!

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New Student Enrollment Data Released: Where is the Growth Coming From?

Posted on October 20, 2011 by

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released its latest student data, Projections of Education Statistics to 2020. While the trends seem to be in line with previous reports, as well as our internal expectations and research, I wanted to share with you the latest numbers.

According to NCES, total enrollment in post-secondary degree granting institutions is expected to increase 13 percent to 23 million students between fall 2009 and 2020.

Between 2009 and 2020, enrollment is projected to increase:
• 9 percent for students 18-24 years old
• 21 percent for students 25-34 years old
• 16 percent for students 35 and older

Between 2009 and 2020, enrollment is projected to increase:
• 11 percent for full-time students
• 16 percent for part-time students

The good news is that we are all still serving and participating in a growth industry. Growth in non-traditional student enrollments is leading the charge, which is no surprise given the evolution of online learning and flexible term structures, as well as increased opportunities for career training and more.

These statistics can and should impact the way you market to students and develop new programs. For example, with more 25-34 year olds going to (or back to) school, will they be more responsive to mobile marketing or direct mail tactics? Does that same age bracket gravitate toward specific disciplines?

Given today’s highly competitive admissions environment, it is more important than ever that you consider demographic details in deciding who you want to reach, how you want to connect and what you want to offer.

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APSCU Misrepresentation Guidance: Datamark’s View

Posted on October 17, 2011 by

On October 11, APSCU published guidance for its membership on “The Misrepresentation Rule and Third-Party Vendors.” We congratulate APSCU on the publication of this very comprehensive treatment of a very complex topic, particularly its holistic review of the federal and state regulatory issues beyond “Substantial Misrepresentation” that education marketers must consider. We view the publication of this document as an important step in helping us all achieve our common objective – honest, open and effective communication of the benefits of education to prospective students.

Short of ending all promotional activities, it is difficult to proscribe a specific set of practices to adopt or actions to take that will, with certainty, remove all risk of non-compliance.

As APSCU’s paper mentions, the Substantial Misrepresentation rule is both highly specific in some areas, and extremely broad in others. To our knowledge, it has not yet been interpreted in an administrative or judicial proceeding. We have found wide variance among our clients and prospective clients in both interpretation of the rules, and the costs they are able or willing to bear to mitigate misrepresentation-related risk. Further, we recognize that how individual colleges and vendor partners apportion risk in their contractual relationships is a function of a multitude of factors unique to each pair of parties.

In short, Datamark’s view is that APSCU’s guidance provides a comprehensive set of potential actions that each member college should consider in the context of its existing compliance activities, marketing objectives, risk tolerance, market power and channel strategies. Some suggested actions, such as formalization of policies, will be appropriate to almost all colleges. Others will be appropriate or realistic to consider for a very few colleges with unique vendor relationships. We encourage our clients to review the APSCU guidance in the context of their unique objectives and context, and, as always, encourage them to seek guidance from counsel where appropriate in considering additional investments in compliance.

Posted in Datamark News, Enrollment Marketing Best Practices, Industry News, Industry Trends, Strategic Recruiting, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment