Resources for Marcomm Benchmarking and ROI
With the importance of data, planning, measuring and surveying in today’s ROI world, how can marketing communications professionals keep up?
Luckily we have a wealth of resources available in higher education to make us more productive. Here are a few of my favorites, some free and some for “members only.”
FREE
Noel-Levitz 2011 Report on the Cost of Recruiting an Undergraduate Student
This new benchmarking report provides typical budget and staffing details for admissions and recruitment. You can see the typical expenditures for public vs. private and small vs. large institutions.
The report compares budgets and staff sizes to final enrollment counts, which is a more reliable way to measure institutional effectiveness than the number of student applications. There’s even a calculator to compare how your institution’s spending compares to schools like yours. It’s a powerful tool to make the case for future budget and staff planning.
GMAC research and trends
http://www.gmac.com/gmac/researchandtrends/surveyreports/
For graduate business school professionals, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) offers research and trend information to help you learn about who’s hiring MBAs now (and why), what motivates prospective B-school students and how applications are trending at MBA and master’s programs across the U.S. and around the world.
The GMAT interactive profile allows you to build an accurate picture of changing business school applicants as the pool of candidates continues to grow and diversify.
If one or more programs at your school requires GMAT scores for application, you are eligible to use this free service.
MEMBERS ONLY
AMA marketer’s toolkit
http://www.marketingpower.com/ResourceLibrary/_layouts/marketers_toolkit.aspx
The American Marketing Association brings a full range of interactive tools and online resources to its members.
The brand assessment tool measures your brand success drivers of brand strategy, alignment, communications and execution. You can evaluate your brand in its current state and compare it to your goal. This is a great tool if you are working to refine your brand.
Other tools useful in higher education:
- Advertising effectiveness evaluation
- Campaign impression calculator
- Marketing collateral management
- Marketing communications budget template
- Key marketing metrics dashboard
Additional templates:
- Ad publication calendar and budget tracking
- Brand perception survey
- Brand strategy scorecard
- Marketing communications calendars
- Marketing communications plan
- Marketing communications priority
CASE’s surveys, research and tools
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education offers an equally robust offering of valuable tools.
A tool that we’ve used recently is the magazine readership survey, which was developed in 2009 as a web survey to evaluate how readers view their campus magazine and benchmark the results. Participating member institutions get a summary of their readers’ responses and an interactive report with responses from other institutions.
We used the survey for a client whose internal stakeholders were questioning the value of their magazine. Results of the survey convinced the school’s leadership that the magazine was worth continued investment. The survey also provided valuable information on what readers are most interested in.
Other benchmarking and research tools:
- Compensation survey
- Advancement investment metrics study
- Fundraising index
- Survey of educational fundraising campaigns
- White papers and reports on everything from advancement to marketing