Professional and Continuing Education marketing efforts need an inquiry management makeover.

Today’s average marketer of adult learner programs is content to stay in the clouds of ‘awareness’ building. Marketers fail to build inquiry pools to sustain their programs, don’t manage the student decision process, and fail to measure digital metrics.

What are the four levels of inquiry management maturity and what five strategies can you use to immediately improve your efforts?

Download our presentation deck (Professional and Continuing Education Needs an Inquiry Makeover … Now!) from the 2011 UPCEA Marketing Seminar.

Thanks to all attendees at the 2010 UC Systemwide Conference, Events & Catering Summit. I always enjoy speaking with collegiate conferencing professionals.

As promised, I am posting links to my presentation as well as the 2010 American Express/MPI FutureWatch report I mentioned (click the icons to download):

If you would like to learn more best practices in collegiate conferencing and events, I encourage you to attend the ACCED-I Annual conference in March 2011.

I had the opportunity to speak on the topic of adult learning marketing at the recent Noel-Levitz conference.

What are some of the common pitfalls faced by professional, graduate, and continuing education units across the country?

1. No focus on the top of the funnel

• Revolving direct mail and email list rentals for one-off course or program promotion
• Lack of a clear follow-up communications plan
• Large direct mail sends with little ability to track results
• No ability to track effectiveness of campaigns

2. Lack of a central data repository

• Many units manage prospect data in a series of Excel spreadsheets, if at all
• Failure to update prospect records when mail is returned

3. No means to manage progress of interested students throughout the funnel

• Most lack of a systematic communication plan to cultivate the interest of students

What strategies should professional, graduate, and continuing education units employ?

1. Develop and manage a central database of prospect data

2. Employ effective online marketing strategies

3. Close the enrollment marketing loop

Growing conferencing revenues is top-of-mind for many collegiate conferencing and event professionals as evidenced by the interest in our recent presentations at ACCED-I 2010. In fact, the conference was dominated by concurrent sessions and workshops on marketing and sales.

With the difficult economic climate, many conferencing units are refocusing … or beginning to focus on business development.  The ‘build it and they will come’ strategy and easy growth environment has been replaced with a new reality for conferencing professionals … competition and increased pressure to generate revenues. One session attendee reported that her unit is facing a growth target of $7 million dollars in the next five years from a current level of under $2 million.

Over the last few years, we have had the opportunity to ‘secret-shop’ a number of collegiate conferencing units for our clients and for our own research.  From finding conferencing centers in Google searches to contacting collegiate conferencing units through email and by phone calls, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. Many units are simply not managing their customer touchpoints … and thus are losing potential opportunities.

Consider the following secret-shopping calls and worst practices. Institution names have been removed and caller voices have been disguised.

Utter meeting confusion …

Consider this buying path. Listen to the conversation

Some can’t wait to send  you back to the web …

This unit was happy to ask about our needs … but direct us back to their web site anyway.  Listen to the conversation

And another … Listen to the conversation

Pass the buck …

If you were a corporate meeting planner, would you waste your time here? Listen to the conversation

Others share their internal dirty laundry …

Wow.  Listen to the conversation

If you are looking to grow conferencing revenues, consider the buying experience of your target audience and develop an intentional strategy to manage your touchpoints.

Oh, the holidays; the hustle and bustle, the lights, the music, and who could forget the shopping mania! As we think about that perfect gift, it’s a good time to remember that your prospective students are shoppers too … educational shoppers, that is.

Instead of shopping for sweaters or the latest must-have gift…they are shopping for educational opportunities and experiences. You know, like the ones you offer.

What is their shopping experience like? Here’s hoping it’s nothing like the madness at the mall with the slew of tired workers and excess of disorganized offers. Too often, we spend all of our time on getting out the new marketing campaign to entice students to contact us … but what actually happens when they do? Read more… »