The Big Questions Answered your marketing spending How to increase the effectiveness of By Robert A. Sevier MA RKET I N G : T HREE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN MAKING the rounds at the marketing conferences this year, as more and more schools are trying to get a better handle on their marketing expenditures: 1. How much does marketing cost? 2. Is marketing worth the money? 3. How can we increase the effectiveness of our marketing? Before exploring the last two questions, it helps to poke at some of the issues that lurk behind the first. For example, how much does it cost to market, and how much does it cost to recruit a student? Of course, there is a related question: How much does it cost to raise a dollar? Unfortunately, there is no current data that might help answer that question, so we need to let that one pass for now. How Much Does Marketing Cost? Right now, this can only be explained in the most general way. Last year, CASE and Lipman Hearne released a study of marketing expenditures at 157 institutions ranging from research institutions to small liberal arts colleges. “Key Insights April 2007: A Report on Marketing Spending at Colleges and universitybusiness.com May 2008 | 57
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2008