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| Referral Program |
Turn your
contacts into transfers! Make sure you take advantage of our
referral program. For every new client you refer who orders 50
transfers, you'll get 5 free transfers — a value of up to $500!
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I thought it was a reasonable
question. Last month, in a meeting with the Enrollment VP at a
fast-growing, mid-sized career college, I asked him to define
success. "What is you most important KPI?" I queried.
Silence...blank stare.
I immediately filled the
awkward quiet with an explanation. "Almost every school I speak with
tracks their Key Performance Indicators in a different way. Some
focus on cost per start, some on cost per app. How do you guys track
success?"
He shifted in his chair and what he said next
really surprised me.
"We've been talking about doing a better
job at tracking our application costs." Talking about doing a better
job! This from a school that is buying as many internet leads as the
Edu-portals can muster! Granted, this is an extreme case of poor
accountability in lead buying, but I think the lack of a common
standard or best practice in how our industry measures marketing
effectiveness is hurting our collective success. We need to get some
common KPIs!
Most schools measure cost per app or cost per
start, but almost none are measuring it in the same way. Some only
include the total cost of buying internet leads and divide that by
total applications (or enrollments) derived from that lead batch.
Others take the entire app pool and divide it into all enrollment
costs.
Some, like our accountability-challenged enrollment
VP, lick their index finger and hold it to the wind!
After
consulting with several experienced EDU marketers, I put together a
simple calculator for accurately determining cost per application.
(Email me at cscotton@doublepositive.com and I'll send you the cost
per app calculator in an Excel spreadsheet.) Here's the basic math:
Cost of the lead batch + Enrollment Advisor
compensation costs to contact, qualify & enroll / enrollment
pool derived from that lead batch = Cost per Application
One more thing--It's critically important that you
track cost per app by lead source and as a unit. After all, if you
are being held accountable so too should your lead sources! Next
week I'll talk about the importance of including LTV or Lifetime
Value in your assessment of marketing success.
P.S. The Cost per App calculator I created is
a really easy way to determine your true application costs. Send me
an email at cscotton@doublepositive.com and I'll send you the Excel
spreadsheet-virus-free, of course! |
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WallStreetJournal |
| Investing in
for-profit colleges is often considered a haven during a rocky
economy. But turmoil in the student-loan market could add a hint of
uncertainty to Grand Canyon Education Inc.'s plans for an initial
public offering of stock this year. Full Story |
Boston |
| More students
are going online and earning college degrees without ever attending
classes or setting foot on campus Full Story |
WashingtonTimes |
| A pilot
project at nine Virginia high schools will eliminate one step in
college admissions: mailing transcripts to colleges. Full Story |
NYTimes |
| Smith College,
a women's college in Northampton, Mass., and Wake Forest University
in Winston-Salem, N.C., will no longer require prospective students
to submit SAT or ACT scores as part of their applications. Full Story |
DP website
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1501 S. Clinton
Street, Suite 1520 | Baltimore, MD 21224
888-376-7484
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