Traditional Advertising’s Impact on Interactive Inquiries

Gone are the days when we could calculate return on media spend solely on directly attributable inquiries. That is, respondents view or hear the ad or commercial and then reach for the phone or go online and type in a unique web address.

Our new normal for higher education marketing is students view our commercials and ads and then go online to research options using a search engine like Google. Traditional advertising is still a strong driver for inquiries. We’re just not getting the credit for the inquiry that we once did.

Now, more than ever, your education marketing strategy should include tracking and evaluating the performance of all marketing efforts combined. To gauge the true influence of traditional advertising like television and radio, enrollment marketing specialists need to realize the impact of these efforts on the increase in interactive inquiries.

To give you an example of how this might work, assume your school’s monthly spend for television is $12,300, which results in 35 inquiries or $351 per inquiry. If you were to closely monitor your online search activity when it correlates with your TV schedule, you should notice an increase in interactive inquiries as well.

See the correlation?  Your TV schedule had some impact on the increase in interactive inquiries. Accounting for this lowers your overall Cost per Inquiry. The TV schedule will most directly impact your website inquiries and branded PPC volume. This happens as a result of brand awareness and interest leading to incremental branded searches online. This is a very important area to evaluate when determining your advertising budget. This is also another reason why you will continue to hear about the importance of consistency between your offline and online marketing efforts.

Understanding and tracking consumer behavior is one of the most challenging tasks that higher education marketers face today. Giving credit where credit is due will ensure you see the true value of your school’s integrated marketing efforts.