Marketing Report: June 2014
Purpose:The purpose of this report is to show trend information for recruitment and marketing programs at all University of Mount Olive locations. Where possible, comparisons over time are shown. Marketing and recruitment activities differ for traditional and nontraditional programs, so some comparisons are not appropriate. This is not an enrollment report.
Introduction: Recruitment activities, purchased media, website traffic and other promotional and marketing efforts provide visibility for the University of Mount Olive. Some campaigns help to drive prospective students to our website and other points of contact for enrollment purposes. Our information system, PowerCampus, is used to track where inquiries and applications originate, when and where phone calls commence, and what kinds of advertising prompts action for various audiences. This information is gathered from inquiry and contact forms, applications and from SSRS reports.
Inquiries and Applications for June 2011-14: Inquiries and applications to nontraditional programs offered at UMO locations totaled 258 for the month of June 2014. The comparative numbers for June 2011, 2012 and 2013 were 387, 381 and 391 respectively.
Notice the June 2014 line (purple).We believe the decreases are due to increased competition in the nontraditional markets, including on ground local programs and online options.
Nursing is the only nontraditional program showing increases, with most of these inquiries coming from nurses at Duke Hospital. Duke has set a deadline requiring RN’s to become BSN’s. See chart below for program details.
Inquiries and Applications by Program: June 2011-June 2014
PROGRAM / JUNE 2011 / JUNE 2012 / June 2013 / June 2014ACCT (begin F13) / 0 / 0 / 6 / 10
BusMgt / 73 / 62 / 73 / 34
HCM / 73 / 79 / 73 / 39
MIS / 12 / 10 / 12 / 12
CJC / 49 / 46 / 49 / 27
Rel/MRM / 4 / 12 / 4 / 5
ECE: with/without licensure / 67 / 63 / 67 / 29
GenStd(HP) / 35 / 32 / 35 / 21
HRM (began 1/1/12) / 30 / 26 / 30 / 18
Virtual/Nursing (began 1/1/12) / 14 / 33 / 14 / 44
Other Teacher Licensure / 5 / 9 / 9 / 7
Other/Undeclared / 19 / 9 / 19 / 12
Total All / 381 / 381 / 391 / 258
Applications received: The number of applications received by location, for the months of June 2011 through June 2014, shows that the overall number of apps has increased slightly; however, 50 of the 314 received in June 2014 were for online programs (14 CJ and 36 nursing). Adding new programs, or adding online alternatives, has increased our application rate.
Apps received by location / JUNE 2011 / JUNE 2012 / JUNE 2013 / JUNE 2014Mount Olive Traditional / 92 / 70 / 56 / 67
Evening College / 37 / 49 / 63 / 53
Jacksonville / 9 / 24 / 43 / 11
New Bern / 16 / 22 / 21 / 16
RTP / 55 / 51 / 34 / 25
Washington / 31 / 31 / 35 / 25
Wilmington / 27 / 26 / 34 / 16
Goldsboro/SJ / 18 / 21 / 10 / 51
Online Programs / 0 / 0 / 0 / 14
VirtualRNtoBSN start Jan2012 / 0 / 16 / 11 / 36
Total / 285 / 310 / 307 / 314
Phone Inquiries: Over the last few months, we have made some changes in our 800 Vanity calling lines. These changes accommodate more online calls which occur when a prospect clicks on the website phone number (via their mobile device) to make a call, or when someone calls the number after seeing or hearing on our TV, radio or print ads. The 844-UMO-GOAL number appears at the top right corner of All other long distance calling lines have been re-routed to this number except the 800-653-0854. Calls going directly to a location are not recorded on our 800 goal call report. In June 2014, there were 249 total calls to all the vanity numbers, with 177 unique callers. Seventy-two (72) of the callers were from out of state, or using out-of-state phone numbers (typically used by military personnel). In June 2012, we received a total of 151 calls via the vanity call line, and in June 2013, we received only 52 calls.
Top Sources for Referrals to UMO: Hobson’s nontrad online marketing program jumped back up after a short decline last month, to capture the most frequently cited source of new student information at some of the nontraditional locations. WOM (word of mouth), referrals by friends, relatives, employees, and TV, radio and billboards also were popular sources for nontrad students. Since referrals are so important as a source of inquiries, we must make sure that our promise to provide one on one service, advisement, and faculty support are kept. Good WOM is critical to reputation, especially as we work to build our university brand!
For traditional students, the greatest number of inquiries in June 2014 came from ACT scores sent to UMO. At Seymour Johnson AFB/Goldsboro the top referral source was the Base Education Office, and for online programs the top source was WOM. The top inquiry source for the nursing program, along with various other sources, was driving by the location.
Top Inquiry and Application Sources by Location: June 2014
Rank Order / Washington / Wilmington / New Bern / JAX / Evening College / RTP / V/RN/BSN / Online Programs / Goldsboro/SJ / MOC Trads1 / Friend Referral / Hobson's Nontrad / Friend Referral / WOM / Hobson's Nontrad / Hobson's Nontrad / Drove past UMO location / WOM / SJ Base Education Office(38) / ACT score reports (331)
2 / Hobson's Nontrad / Friend referral / Hobson's Nontrad / Friend Referral / Friend referral / Friend referral/Other / Friend referral / Friend referral / Coworker referral / Athletic Questionnaires (34)
3 / TV / TV / Relative referral / Radio / Various other sources / UMO student / Phone call / Drove past location / Friend referral / Friend Referral
4 / Various other sources / Relative referral / walk in / Billboard / Previous UMO student / Coworker referral / Coworker referral / Relative/UMO alumni referral / Previous UMO student / Various other sources
Purchased Media: Purchased media, in the form of billboards, TV, radio and print ads, is having less impact than in years past for first time contacts to UMO. The graph above shows the decreasing impact of TV, radio, billboards and print since June 2012.For some time now, we have known that we must use a greater variety of ways to reach adult students in order to get them to take action. However, we cannot abandon our efforts to make UMO more visible to the public. That is why we continue our advertising programs, and also utilize marketing programs such as Hobson’s nontrad online program to find new prospects. Research shows that it takes 5-8 times of seeing an ad for someone to take action; so we must continue to keep our message out there at a high frequency in multiple mediums.
Hobson’s Nontrad Marketing Program: Since December 2013 the Hobson’s program has 623 applications and 81 enrolled students. This ratio is an excellent marketing return for the cost and effort of the online program. Below is a chart of the last three months of contacts from the program to the locations.
Hobson's Nontrad Marketing Campaign / Mar-14 / Apr-14 / May-14 / Jun-14Mount Olive / 50 / 19 / 18 / 25
Jacksonville / 27 / 17 / 17 / 14
New Bern / 19 / 9 / 10 / 13
RTP / 14 / 8 / 9 / 8
Washington / 14 / 7 / 7 / 8
Wilmington / 13 / 6 / 5 / 8
Online / 13 / 4 / 5 / 6
Smithfield / 9 / 3 / 2 / 5
TOTALS / 159 / 73 / 73 / 87
Cappex.com: UMO utilizes the Cappex.com program to reach traditional students, with targeted programs such as agriculture, science and religion in online format. In June 2014, Cappex reached out to 24,180 traditional students who matched our outreach segment objectives. As a result, 161 new inquiries found their way to UMO.
Cappex will send up to 6 messages to these prospects for UMO. This program helps us get wide spread exposure to many students without having to do it ourselves, thus leaving us time to deal directly with those who show interest via their response.
- There were 755 messages sent on behalf of UMO regarding agriculture programs to 2014-2016 high school grads, with 8 inquiries being returned during the same month.
- For the same time period, there were 6,607 messages sent with 30 inquiries coming back to us with interest in science.
- There were 6,850 messages sent regarding our religious affiliation, with 68 interested responses.
Print Media Plans for July 27, 2014. Watch for our sticky note ad on the front of the News and Observer. UMO will be featured on the front of 38,000 Sunday newspapers (southeastern zone) , and an online will click through to our website. We will also have a print ad inside every N&O (170,000 papers) running on that same Sunday.
Recruitment Activities: Traditional admissions recruitment, for the month of June 2014, included the second admitted student day on June 20. There were 101 students in attendance, mostly new freshmen, and they all completed their class schedules and received UMO ID cards. The next admitted student day will be July 18, with about 50-60 new students planning to attend at the time of this writing. These events are an “all hands on deck” effort, led by the student affairs team.
Nontraditional admissions recruitment activities were prolific during the month of June. The chart below demonstrates, by location, the types and frequency of events admissions representatives were engaged in to find new prospects. Business presentations, booths, email blasts, and other community relations events help to make UMO visible in the communities we serve.
Recruitment Activities by Location/Type June 2014 / Activity at UMO / Community Relations / Email Blast / Mass Mailing / Dropoff Material / Presentation / Recruiting Visit / Table/Booth / Total / First time effortsEVENING COLLEGE / 0 / 13 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 92 / 2 / 107 / 57
JACKSONVILLE / 0 / 20 / 0 / 1 / 91 / 0 / 7 / 3 / 122 / 92
NEW BERN / 1 / 25 / 0 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 36 / 30
RTP / 0 / 6 / 10 / 0 / 9 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 25 / 10
WASHINGTON / 5 / 4 / 4 / 9 / 18 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 41 / 35
WILMINGTON / 3 / 7 / 1 / 4 / 21 / 5 / 95 / 0 / 136 / 74
Total / 9 / 75 / 15 / 14 / 149 / 5 / 195 / 5 / 467 / 298
Traffic to UMO.EDU: Internet traffic to the UMO website has become more and more important, especially since the transition to university status. The average visit length is nearly 3 minutes, and a little over 1/3 of the visits to our page are from newcomers. Google continues to generate the highest number of searches to UMO.
Search Engines / Mar-14 / Apr-14 / May-14 / Jun-14Google / 15,611 / 17,269 / 16,753 / 16,200
Yahoo / 884 / 1,331 / 1,372 / 1,321
Bing / 2,144 / 2,162 / 1,985 / 2,158
Others / 223 / 233 / 202 / 162
TOTALS / 18,862 / 20,995 / 20,312 / 19,841
The graphic below demonstrates the origin of the traffic to the site for the last three months.
The information provided in this report is compiled from SSRS reports prepared by Ken Davis, admissions reports compiled by Georgette Prichard and location admissions representatives, and special marketing ventures analyzed by Jennifer Merritt.
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