Neat and orderly data

Beverley Hoare -Deputy Director Marketing

It’s the time of year when we write the marketing contribution to our department’s operating plan.  But before we can look forward we have to look back and ask ourselves and each other a few questions. Such as, ‘how did we do last year’?  What contribution did marketing make to achieving recruitment targets? Can we train cats to complete simple admin tasks?

Non-marketers often think there is a direct correlation between what we put in (investment and initiatives) and what we get out (students).  Marketers wish it were that simple.  How should we dis-aggregate the contribution of marketing from all of the other activities that contribute to a person becoming a student?  Brand, competitors, word of mouth, recommendations from others, outreach, face to face recruitment and press stories - all can have a positive, negative or neutral effect on the work of ‘marketing’ in achieving that ultimate registration.

But evaluate we must, as we need to predict behaviour – if we do this, then we should get that…

So, we love data.  It helps us to get a neat and orderly view of a pretty chaotic market place.  We need to analyse and evaluate, so we can aim to understand what is working and what is not. 

A Medjool Data

Final outcomes are important, but for us it’s every stage of the student journey, every channel, each message that is important to the understanding of impact.  Click through rates (CTR) opens and call volumes, live chat conversations and request a call back, registrants and attendance at open days, lead generation from prospectus and website, goal completions to page views and dwell time, impact of design and messaging all get a focus of our attention. 

With all this data we can get a measure of return on marketing investment – and ultimately aim to answer the problem that is – if we put this in we will get this out.  We can make more informed decisions and improve the effectiveness of campaigns and budget, while keeping an eye on what our competitors are doing, of course.   

That’s why we love data…