Tim Copeland's Blog on College & University Marketing and Enrollment Management

Converting Credits to Degrees - 44 Million Adults to Recruit

For many colleges and universities, the adult learner market is a top-of-mind discussion on your campus. Today there are some 44 million adults in the U.S. with some credit but no degree. The struggling economy and increased global competition are driving many of these people back to college to finish what they began. In turn, institutions are adjusting their enrollment marketing strategies to pursue this growing market. Yet finding adult students is not as easy as placing a name search order with the College Board or ACT.

If you are looking for proven strategies to find, engage, and enroll adult students, you may want to consider the upcoming Aslanian Seminar, Converting Credits to Degrees: 44 Million Adults to Recruit to be held on July 19-20, 2012 at the Harvard Club in New York City.

Speakers will present evidence-based strategies to help you understand the adult learner market, what they want, and how you can best reach and support them in their educational decision process.

I will be presenting two sessions during the conference including:

Reaching Adults Ready for College Using Email and Search Marketing
With 44 million adult learners to recruit, it’s time to get busy. The challenge comes from investing in the right marketing strategies to uncover adult learner demand, and converting interested prospective students into enrollments. The choices are many including: branding and awareness campaigns; online marketing; social media; CRM technology. Where do you start?

In our research and experience, institutions serving adult learners often fail to generate a sufficient pool of prospective students, lack the proper success metrics, and flounder at their attempts to drive enrollment conversions. In this presentation, learn a systematic approach to building adequate inquiry pool to support your degree-completion and adult-focused programs. Discover specific approaches to measure and evaluate your results and learn to execute conversion-focused strategies to turn adult shoppers into applicants.

Managing the Prospective Student Enrollment Experience – New Secret Shopping Results
Enrollment marketers often spend a great deal of time on sizing up the potential market, developing the right message and brand promise, and executing a myriad of marketing tactics to get the “word out”. Yet they often forget an important component – what happens when students actually contact you? Are you ready?

Managing the prospective student enrollment experience is particularly mission-critical for units offering degree completion and adult-focused programs. Adult learners come with a variety of academic backgrounds and life experiences and rarely fit neatly into a traditional enrollment process.

In this presentation, discover the results of recent primary research where we shopped college and university programs serving adult learners. Learn how to overcome lapses in planning, people, processes, and the use of technology to help prospective students evaluate your programs and assist them in making a decision. Identify enrollment prevention activities and discover actionable strategies to tailor your activities to serve prospective students while achieving your goals. This session is applicable to institutions and departments of all shapes, sizes, missions, and budgets.

You can view the entire Aslanian seminar agenda here.

What have others said about Aslanian Seminars?

"This conference is THE definitive training for anyone involved in marketing higher education to adults."
– Robert Heuermann, Metropolitan State University

"The Aslanian Seminar is the best I have ever experienced regarding current topics, research, and practices. Never a dull or needless moment."
– Carol Eades, Asbury College

"I thoroughly enjoyed this seminar experience. The presentations were captivating and highly informative and the topics were relevant to my world in higher education."
– Mark Ash, Kirkwood Community College

"I appreciate the seminar format that encouraged full participation from attendees. The networking opportunities were excellent. Overall a very positive conference, possibly the best that I’ve attended this year."
– Samantha Peterson, The University of South Dakota

"There was so much information. It was well worth the travel and time away to come and learn from industry professionals and educators about this diverse group of students"
– Micah Crews, King College

Education Dynamics Releases eLearner Index - Online Education Market Demand

Education Dynamics has released its' 2011-12 eLearning Index, an annual report delivering a comprehensive review of the online education market.The index evaluates data from more than 3,400 college and university degree programs offered by more than 200 accredited institutions, and not only reveals the most popular online degrees, but also highlights growth opportunities related to areas of study where prospective student demand is not yet met.

“For more than five years, the eLearning Index has been required reading for colleges and universities as they develop their online program and course offerings,” said Carol Aslanian, Senior Vice President of Aslanian Market Research at EducationDynamics. “This incredible resource takes the guess work out of the online education market, enabling institutions to better determine what program levels, fields of study and majors will serve students best, while also providing ROI.”

EducationDynamics first published the eLearning Index in 2007; since then, several interesting trends have emerged regarding the shape of demand for online programs. Among the findings:

• Associate’s level Health Programs have risen from number three to being number one, replacing Business, which has fallen to number two.
• Bachelor’s level demand has remained relatively unchanged with Business degrees maintaining the largest percentage of market demand, followed by Humanities, Social Sciences and Health Professions.
• MBA and other Business masters degrees have seen the most precipitous decline in demand as a percentage of market-share, dropping from number one to number four.
• Education degrees have seen the greatest demand growth, relative to percent of market share, moving from number three in the 2007 report, to number one in 2011.
• Doctoral degrees in the field of Education have remained the largest field of study demanded by prospective students. In the same period, degrees in the Health Professions dropped from number two to number four, with Social Science jumping from number four to number two.

The Index is a must-have for any college or university offering online education. The report is available for $2,500 and can be ordered in both electronic and print formats. An executive summary is available for download (176.1K)

Does Membership Have Its Privileges? Raising the Bar for Today's Higher Education Association

Combined with cutbacks in travel, many colleges and universities are taking a hard line look at seemingly peripheral expenses such as association memberships. In professional and continuing education alone, there are as many as eight relevant associations serving the market.

Associations across the country are reporting declines in renewals and new member growth. Leaders cite networking and access to specialized information as top reasons for membership. Yet, members may not agree with this assessment, as the most cited reason for non-renewal is a lack of value.

On the other hand, higher education professionals are venturing outside of the industry for content. Across higher education, more professionals are stepping outside of the proverbial industry box, attending business association meetings and conferences. Gartner, Direct Marketing Association, and the American Marketing Association are some of the business organizations I hear most often.

As competition increases, associations that limit their core value proposition to event attendance – and the static knowledge it produces – will suffer.

As someone who has attended countless conferences and association meetings as a member, participant, or speaker within higher education and the corporate world, I have a few thoughts. And in December 2010, I put pen to paper.

In Does Membership Have its Privileges? Raising the Bar for Today's Higher Education Association,  I discuss a number of ideas for associations to strenghen their value proposition - to the industry they serve and to their customers - college and university members.

 Request a copy of Does Membership Have its Privileges? Raising the Bar for Today's Higher Education Association:

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An electronic copy of the white paper will delivered online once you hit submit.

Your thoughts are welcomed.

UPCEA Marketing Seminar 2011 Earns Passing Marks

The 2011 UPCEA Marketing Seminar is in the books. Held February 9 – 11 in San Antonio, Texas, the seminar brought together some of the brightest minds in professional and continuing higher education marketing.

As a former marketing seminar committe member, frequent attendee, and now corporate partner, I offer the following observations and passing marks:

Committee Leadership – Excellent

One of the hallmarks of the annual UPCEA Marketing Seminar is the participation of marketing professionals. From planning meetings to conference management, it’s one association event that almost exclusively relies on the time and resources of the members. This year, the Marketing Seminar Committee took the conference to new heights. Jennifer Wooley (Georgia Tech Distance Learning and Professional Education), led a talented team of continuing education marketers to deliver a connected and professionally-delivered conference.

I’ve attended conferences for 20 years - as a presenter and as a sponsor in the corporate world and within higher education – yet I have never received a call thanking me for my previous sponsorship or simply thanking me for being a presenter … until now.

UPCEA Marketing Committee members reached out to corporate partners, talked to presenters, and enlisted all to participate in social media to extend the experience.

It's expensive for corporate partners to attend conferences and time-intensive for presenters. It's nice to have an event actually acknowledge the effort and resources required. This attitude begins with leadership and Jennifer Wooley offered plenty of it.

Kudos to the 2011 committee (and the managers that support them) including: James Campbell (University of Richmond), Dr. Kelly Collyar (University of Oklahoma), Michelle Hamer (Oswego State University), Krista Nielson (San Diego State University), Amy Routhier (Western Michigan University) and Kim Zaski (University of Nevada, Reno).

Destination – Good

This was my second conference trip to San Antonio in the last two years and I’ve experienced the extremes – 90 degree heat in July, and now 20 degree wind chills in February. The region was hit last week by a surprise cold front dropping temperatures – and the HYATT lobby to uncomfortable levels.

However, the River Walk, the high quality hotel venue, and diverse food choices make San Antonio an attractive conferencing destination.

Content – Good

Prominent speakers from the Gates Foundation, Google, and Razorfish gave the conference it's 'sizzle'. It was a real coup by the marketing committee to secure Mark Milliron, deputy director of the Gates Foundation.

Having said that, the annual seminar schedule often devolves into tactical optimization (e.g., how to execute paid search ads) rather than understanding the relevance of tactics and how they connect to the bottom line (e.g., registrations, enrollments).

During the conference, I had the opportunity to visit with a couple of attendees who come from the academic side. They attended the conference to understand how to market their programs, yet they left more confused about what they should prioritize and actually do.

While some presenters fluttered around talking about ‘awareness’, Bill Hampton of Embry-Riddle Worldwide connected the dots in his presentation (Signal vs. Noise: Moving from Conversation to Conversion), drawing a straight line from awareness, to conversion and enrollments. And he had the data to prove it.

Michelle Hamer (Oswego)Todd Gibby and Emily Meehan (Intelliworks) led an extended session for taking a strategic approach to managing student relationships. Unfortunately, they presented to an intimate group of participants. Perhaps others were more interested in hearing about how cool social networks are.

Here’s hoping for more ‘steak’ in 2012.

UPCEA Support and Leadership – Looks Promising

While the UPCEA Marketing Seminar is one of the association’s most successful (profitable) events, the national office has generally taken a hands-off approach, while maintaining rigid control over what members (UPCEA’s customers) could program within the conference.

Under the leadership of new Executive Director, Bob Hansen, this is changing. Since taking office, Hansen has repeatedly commented on the needs of members, the value the association can bring, as well as the value of corporate partners.

If you are not already, get onboard with Hansen’s agenda for transforming the association.

Your comments are welcomed.

Tim Copeland is the CEO of DemandEngine, a higher education CRM consulting and interactive marketing services firm.

Q&A; New Enrollment Marketing Plan for Adult Learners

Adult learner marketing is in need for an overhaul. The typical tools of the undergraduate enrollment manager – purchasing test taker names and financial aid leveraging – don’t fit. While the usual approaches of professional, graduate, and continuing education – ‘build it and they will come’ and mass promotion of course registration and application dates – is not sustainable and increasingly ineffective.

Below are my some of thoughts from a recent UPCEA webinar entitled, The New Enrollment Marketing Plan: A Five-Step Process. The following transcript is from the webinar question-and-answer session. DemandEngine will release the full webinar at a later date.

 

Tim, you mentioned the two types of marketing (direct response). Can you talk more about ways of getting direct registrations as opposed to skimming?

Tim Copeland: Yes, for context, skimming is an acquisition strategy where you try to find prospective students who may not be interested in registering today, but may be good candidates for the future. Direct registrations are specific registration or application promotions often sent to existing inquiries or past student participants.

With a direct registration strategy, you want to avoid these mindless grabs of past participants that may have some sliver of interest in another course.

If you have certificate programs (or this even works with degrees), look at the number of students who have credits toward the credential over the past two years and then target them with specific offers to encourage completion. On one hand, this is a retention issue; alternatively, it is a reasonable and relevant method to identify current students who are more likely to continue, which is much easier than going out to find an unknown student.

Every professional, graduate, and continuing education unit should have a dual prospective student acquisition strategy that is made up of skimming and direct registration strategies. And as I said, more effort should move toward skimming to build the list of future prospective students.

 

What are some questions you would ask a client to get them thinking about what they need to do to develop a conversion strategy?

Tim Copeland: We start with a three-step messaging architecture to uncover what students actually believe about your institution or program, to determine what you want them to believe (your ideal branding messages}, and to discover what evidence can you provide. We also discuss important events and dates, or even important program deadlines, as well as other material you may have that could be used as a response offer. This information provides a basis to craft an ongoing conversation with your prospects using key messages and proof points, in combination with offers, events, and deadlines, to encourage students to take the next step.

 

What advice would you have for a university where enrollment functions are somewhat separated from marketing and advertising functions? (We are the administrative unit for the University's online programs and produce materials, but only provide the back-end for different units across campus. The programs themselves handle the student contact, and getting data about what worked and what doesn't is hard.)

Tim Copeland: First, I would say you are not a lone ranger in your current situation. Historically, the nature of extension, outreach, or continuing education units has been very decentralized and, some might say, entrepreneurial.

As competition has increased, though, there is a need for a more coordinated approach to enrollment marketing. It’s not necessarily an issue of ownership, although having direct-line reports for key enrollment functions—from recruitment, marketing, and operations—helps.

What’s needed is a more comprehensive planning effort that begins with enrollment leadership identifying clear and realistic goals. From there it’s a process of working with your internal constituents to develop a written plan that specifies both the strategies required to achieve your goals and where the accountability lies.

Too often, Deans or other leaders of our units delegate this or perhaps don’t put enough organizational emphasis on the importance of enrollment management. I believe this is a mistake.

 

You made some points about chasing tools. But ultimately, technology has to support what we do. How do you reconcile the two?

Tim Copeland: If we want to be strategic about technology, we would start with defining the business need, identifying the organizational value, understanding our processes, building a business case, and THEN selecting the appropriate tools. Instead, what we see is a warp-factor jump from functional need to technology solution; this is a case of the tail wagging the dog.

 

What is a general revenue growth goal for a CE unit that has only two professional staff and one office manager and is only three years old?

Tim Copeland: In your question, you’ve highlighted exactly why applying growth percentages to a budget is quite mindless. Is the best practice 2% or 20%?

The real question to ask is, “What is the potential opportunity?” Do you have programs with unsold capacity? Are the programs in demand? I like to start with unsold capacity: You may find that you have 100 student seats that are going unfilled, which represent $70,000 in revenue. If you executed specific strategies to capture that 100-seat capacity, could you achieve 50% of it?

These are more interesting planning questions than the rote application of a 5% target on the revenue budget.

 

A lot of the examples you provided today ring true for my outreach organization. Where should we start?

Tim Copeland: Assuming that everyone shares the same information, start with what you know:

· What are your enrollment trends?

· What does your enrollment funnel look like?

· Which programs are profitable?

· What does your organization feel like to students? Are you internally- or externally-focused?

Then you can start building your case for action with data. (For those of you who have your purse or wallet nearby, pull out a dollar bill. What does it say on the back? “In God we trust.” For the rest of us, we have to bring data.) These lead to opportunities to modify or strengthen current approaches and, ultimately, organization change through collaborative planning.

 

How can we get higher-ups to set or see the value of clear goals?

Tim Copeland: Unless there is an internal crisis—say, revenues dropping unexpectedly—it’s often difficult to get the organizational inertia to change. Here are two options:

First, refer back to one of my earlier points in the presentation: if you don’t have goals, what’s stopping you from developing them? Sometimes middle managers blame management for a lack of direction; we expect them to bring the tablets down from the mount.

Another way to look at this is that you have a responsibility to fill in the blanks. When I was in the corporate world, our CEO at a meeting of North American managers told us that things are never perfect, and as managers, you have been hired to fix problems.

We find that organizational performance audits and secret shopping research can expose weaknesses while providing valuable data that serve as a fixed point of reference. If you would like to further discuss how we do this work, contact me.

 

During the presentation, you mentioned some research. Is this information published?

Tim Copeland: The papers I mentioned are available on the DemandEngine website. Again, those titles are, “The Road Less Traveled: Enrollment Management Practices of Professional and Continuing Education,” “Introducing the Enrollment Funnel - A Valuable Tool for Professional and Continuing Education Outreach,” and “ACHE 2010 - Making Outreach Measurable.”

Who Says Direct Mail Doesn't Matter? Not Google

Considering all things digital and social, it's easy to ignore the utility of 'old' media. With Facebook's recent equity $50 billon (yes, billion with a B) valuation, it's tempting to throw the college viewbook, brochure, and catalog out the window and go completely digital.

Recently, though I received a reminder - courtesy of Google - of how powerful direct mail can be.

I received the following direct mail promotion for Google Apps, Google's customizable suite of products including word processing and other office-type functionality, online collaboration, and email, to name a few.

 

The letter is a direct response promotion to encourage a trial of the Apps product. Notice the benefits-oriented copy:

And no direct response message would be complete without reminding the reader of the benefits combined with a strong call-to-action:

Why not simple advertise this offer within the Google network? They do, but clearly the Internet giant values the power of direct mail as well.

It's a good reminder for higher education enrollment managers and marketers that despite the latest tools and technologies, good, old fashioned fundamentals remain relevant.

The Worst College Marketing Idea of 2010

It's a been a couple of years since I last named a 'worst' award winner. In 2008 that distinction was given to Applywise and their use of 'lavatory marketing' at the NACAC Annual Conference.

While there are always many worthy competitors, a certain email promotional email message caught my eye earlier this fall. In a message with the subject line 'Meeting Excellence,' I received this less than excellent email message from Unique Venues, a facility marketing company, sent on behalf of Colorado College:

How can one message go so wrong? Let me count the ways.

1. I never subscribed

2. ... regardless I was never a prospect

Five years ago when I worked at Georgia Tech, our professional and continuing education unit had our own day meeting facility. Today, I reside in Savannah, GA and thus I'm not what one would call a 'hot prospect' for a summer conference in Colorado.

3. The subject line is not descriptive of the content

I suppose that coordinating 260 events (see message content) takes a lot of work though I'm not sure it's indicative of meeting excellence. That's like saying that McDonald's, with over 250 billion hamburgers served, is a four-star restaurant.

4. Irrelevant image

I'm not sure what the outside of a building - that's probably on the historic register - has to do with meeting excellence.

5. Lack of professional design

Add an image, add some text, email is cheap and easy ... at least that is what some vendors would have you believe. The email vendor used to send this message regularly advertises email marketing for "...as little as $15 per month, ... with one-click editing that is super easy to use, no tech skills required." Yes, that hyperbole is proven in this message.

Cisco Systems Inc. estimates that there are 200 billion spam messages circulating a day, accounting for 90 percent of all e-mail. While SPAM is most often thought of as pharma promotions or pleas from Nigerian business men, in actuality it's any irrelevant promotional communication like the 2010 award winner.

Building the Inquiry Pool of Adult Learners ... the Herzing University Way

Are you a professional, graduate or continuing education unit looking to increase enrollment?

Do you have a plan to build and shape an inquiry pool of prospective adult learners for your programs?

If you answered Yes and No, respectively, you may want to consider a new initiative by Herzing University.

Herzing Educational System recently announced it will host “Discovery Days” over the next eight weeks at its U.S. and Canadian campuses for individuals who are either unemployed, uninspired by their current careers, or undecided on their future career paths.

The events provide an opportunity for individuals to learn about careers, job prospects for the future, and of course, Herzing educational programs.

The “Discovery Day” events run from this week through mid-August at Herzing University campuses. The complete schedule to date includes:

· Omaha, Nebraska: June 24 · Toledo, Ohio: June 28 · Montreal, Quebec: June 30 · Ottawa, Ontario: July 5-9 · Akron, Ohio: July 15 ·  Minneapolis, MN July 15 · New Orleans, Louisiana: July 15

· Toronto, Ontario: July 15 · Winnipeg, Manitoba: July 15 · Madison, Wisconsin: July 21 · Birmingham, Alabama: July 22 · Herzing University Online: July 19-23 · Atlanta, Georgia: August 14

In my research, professional and continuing education units often lack dedicated strategies to build the top of the funnel. In fact, only 11% say that have strategies in place to do so, only 24% report tracking interested students (See The Road Less Traveled: The Enrollment Management Practices of Professional and Continuing Education).

If enrollment is a top-of-mind concern, you may want to consider Herzing's lead.

Are You Outsourcing Your Relationships? Should You?

To compete for students, colleges and universities are looking for outside help to generate, and manage follow-up with, their student inquiry pools. And a growing number of vendors are ready to assist. With inbound/outbound call centers as well as pay-per-lead services, some institutions are essentially outsourcing recruitment. While there are valid reasons to do so, the question is should you?

I’m attending the UCEA national conference this week in San Francisco. And fighting jet lag, it’s 4:30 am on the west coast and I’m blogging. A colleague of mine was chatting up one of the aforementioned vendors last evening at the opening reception. In explaining what his company does, he said that they talk to students FOR YOU and that your students think they ARE YOU.

This got me thinking. Take this idea to the limit. When we outsource our relationships through external call centers what we are really saying is that as a department (or an institution) we are not good at talking with our students.

And if we can’t speak effectively with students on the front end when they are considering us, it doesn’t bode well for retention efforts when they enroll with us.

Ten Enrollment Marketing Predictions for 2010

I recently wrote a white paper for DemandEngine forecasting 10 enrollment marketing predictions for 2010. Here's an excerpt and you can download a full copy of the paper below:

While most colleges and universities avoided deep enrollment marketing cuts in the current fiscal year, downward budget pressure is most likely unavoidable in FY2011.

As one industry veteran recently stated, “colleges and universities are used to routinely pulling out all the stops to attract prospective students,” regardless of the cost or irritation to these students. Despite an abundance of interactive technologies, many enrollment professionals are applying the same basic playbook that’s existed for the last 20 years: load up the funnel with direct mail search programs and travel, and then blast, blast, blast. A ‘pulling out all the stops’ approach is really a code phrase for ‘I don’t know what really works.’

In 2010, we expect that simple economics combined with media proliferation will force enrollment professionals to change their stripes. Effectively combining and applying strategy, measurement, and technology will be necessary for enrollment managers to compete for students as well as institutional resources. Looking into our crystal ball, our ten enrollment marketing predictions for 2010 include:

1. Reduced Budgets Shine the Light on Marketing Inefficiencies

2. Lazy Marketing Communications are Out … Students Expect More

3. Higher Education CRM Will Begin to Take Hold

4. Yet, Many CRM Initiatives Will Fail

5. Institutions Will Move to Manage Enrollment Holistically

6. Professional and Continuing Education Will Discover the Benefits of Price Discrimination

7. Social SPAM Will Emerge …

8. … And The Bloom Will Come off the Social Rose

9. Email and Search Engine Marketing will Finally Become Foundational Channels

10. The Enrollment Funnel Still Matters

Download the a full copy of Ten Enrollment Marketing Predictions for 2010