The importance of data

Almost every blog I’ve written over the last year I’ve mentioned that I’m working on evaluation reports. You may (or may not) be tired of my talking about it, but data and analysing performance is a key part of marketing and key to progressing plans and improving performance year on year.

Without stats and having an understanding of activity performance, we’d really just be putting a finger in the air and hoping for the best. Solid stats mean clever decisions!

So it’s important that after every campaign or initiative we understand:

• what activity worked well – which platforms generated higher interest. Depending on the campaign and inventory this could be clicks, click through rate, phone calls generated, website visits, call back requests  
• where potential students are coming from – was our targeting correct and are there any emerging markets to be aware of
• messaging – which messages and visuals appear to have performed best
• source of interest - how did people reach our website or find out about the University – was it through campaign activity, Google organic traffic, college or UCAS events, printed material
• performance against target and previous years – have we hit target and have we improved on the previous year’s performance
• KPIs – what are they key performance indicators that we want to measure ourselves against, and have we performed well against them
• the student journey – first point of contact with the University, how many attend an open day/request a prospectus/make an application/accept an offer/go on to actually study with us
• and of course, return on investment – for every pound we spent during a particular campaign on or a particular piece of inventory, how much have we generated based on the leads generated

All of the above helps give an indication of performance, which we can use to make recommendations and amend activity for future campaigns.

A lot of the stats we get for evaluations we pull ourselves from various sources such as Google Adwords, Pure360 (our email platform), Facebook and Twitter and Eventbrite. However, we also draw on the expertise of our digital team, our market research team and a media agency and digital consultant. Often insight is a collaborative approach, as people have different skills sets and knowledge that we can utilise to get a more holistic view.

It’s also equally important to be aware of competitors, any new platforms or trends and any factors which can influence or affect our campaign efforts (some of which can be out of our control)- this is where market research, a media agency and a digital consultant can come in handy!

As marketers, it’s important to be able to show the value of what we do – marketing is far more than just printing posters and fliers! And good, hard stats go a long way to show the success of the campaigns and activity we run.

So all in all, the better we are at evaluating activity, the more sound our decisions become. And there’s nothing better than stats showing that something you’ve done has worked well!!

Speak soon,

K