Practical Marketing Research for Colleges

1. Practical Marketing Research for Colleges Brad Majors Greenville Technical College

2. “You can only improve something if you can measure it.” William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

3. Marketing Research • The systematic and objective process of generating information to aid in making marketing decisions. (Exploring Marketing Research by William Zikmund) • (This is an excellent textbook for providing the framework for understanding marketing research.) • Process: • Specifying what new information is needed • Designing the method for collecting information • Managing and implementing the collection of data • Analyzing the results • Communicating findings and implications

4. What to research? • Attitudes of current/prospective students • Knowledge of college held by business sector • Attitudes of faculty/staff • Demographic trends of current/past students • Attitudes in the community • Behavior of current students (what did they register for?)

5. Knowledge, Attitudes and Behavior • All marketing research can be divided into Knowledge Research, Attitudinal Research or Behavioral Research. • When we ask someone what facts they know about something, we are measuring knowledge. • When we ask people what they think about something, we are measuring attitudes. • When we measure an activity, like who registered for classes, that is Behavioral Research.

6. Measuring Knowledge • Determining what people know about your college is knowledge research. In many ways, when we measure awareness, we are measuring knowledge: • With what programs at the college are they familiar? • Do they know about stories that appeared in the press? • Do they know how to contact the college? • Do they know how the college contributes to the community? • What FACTS about the college do they know? • Do they recall any of the college’s advertising? • What is the college’s campaign theme?

7. Measuring Attitudes • Here, we are measuring “feelings” and beliefs and your questions should reflect this. • How do you feel about the college’s new name? • What do you believe are the college’s major strengths? • Do you feel the college’s admissions/advising system is student-friendly? • How can the college better address the education needs of the community for business/industry? • Do you believe the college is meeting your individual education needs?

8. What Behaviors can we measure? • Enrollment (by demographic segment) • gender • age • ethnicity • campus • major • Attendance at college events • Articles in the newspaper about the college • Visitors to the college website

9. Secondary vs. Primary Research • If you are performing the initial research study, you are involved in Primary Research. • If you are learning about something from someone else’s research, you are conducting Secondary Research. • Both are excellent sources of learning and market wisdom.

10. Categories of Marketing Research • Secondary Data Analysis • Observation • Pilot Studies • Focus Groups • One-on-ones • Projective Techniques • Experience Surveys • Case Studies • Experiments • Surveys

11. Secondary Data Analysis • This technique should always be the first step in any marketing research. Look at all the information already gathered by others. It could prove very useful and might alleviate the need to fund more expensive primary research. • Sources • Internet search engines like Google • US Census Bureau (population, housing, etc.) • State/Local governments (State Tech, SC CHE, SC Employment Security Commission, Bureau of Labor Statistics) • Business/Professional Organizations (NCMPR, Noel-Levitz, College Board)

12. Qualitative Research • Observation • Pilot Studies • Experience Surveys • Case Studies

13. Observation • This is Behavioral Research at its best. What are people DOING? • Get a clipboard and watch what students, prospective students, their parents, etc. are doing… at • College fairs • Job fairs • Admissions office • Career nights • Reading brochures

14. Pilot Studies • Qualitative techniques • Focus groups • One-on-ones • Projective techniques

15. Focus Groups • Used heavily in the advertising agency business • Best used… • Trying to collect a range of opinions for future quantitative research • What are all of the reasons that students are not registering this fall ? • Generating new ideas by having participants build on each others’ contributions

16. One-on-Ones • An intimate discussion between the questioner and the respondent • Benefits over focus groups • Overcomes the “group think” that can happen in any focus group if the moderator does not monitor closely • Allows for a very in-depth discussion of important issues

17. Projective Techniques • Oscar Wilde: “A man is least himself when he talks in his own person; when he is given a mask he will tell the truth.” • Projective technique: an indirect means of questioning that enables a respondent to project beliefs and feelings onto a third party, an inanimate object, or a task situation. • This type of qualitative technique has been closely associated with Account Planning in many advertising agencies.

18. Projective Techniques • Word association tests • Sentence completion method • Third-person/role playing • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) • Series of action pictures … what happens next? • Cartoon tests • Dialog bubbles completed by respondent

19. Experience Surveys • Exploratory technique in which a person with considerably more experience in a specific area is interviewed about their expertise or previous market experience. A good interviewer can make this search for ‘best practices’ very productive. • This already happens frequently in the SC Tech System. The system facilitates it at times, but also strong professional friendships among college marketing staff encourage open communication about what worked and what did not.

20. Case Studies • Case Studies are another qualitative technique similar to Experience Surveys, but the emphasis with Case Studies is the situation and not the person being questioned. • What was the situation before something happened? • What happened and what was the effect? • How did the college respond? • What was the outcome of that response? • What are the ‘lessons learned’ from the situation?

21. Quantitative Research • Surveys • Experiments/Test Markets

22. Experiments • Quantitative research • Most popular type of Experiment is a test market. These are in-market trials to determine if a certain product or service has market validity. • Most accurate as predictive research • Very expensive

23. Surveys • Several types, but most popular are: • Syndicated ongoing surveys … e.g. Noel-Levitz • One-time study … a snapshot in time • Polling … one question to check attitudes • Longitudinal (panel) study … ask same questions year after year … looking for changes in attitudes or behavior over time

24. Surveys • Big innovation is Survey Monkey • Low cost: $200/year, unlimited number of responses • Simple process • Design your survey • Collect responses • Analyze your results

25. Survey Monkey • Greenville Tech has used many times to determine attitudes regarding • Presidential search • Student survey on class meeting times • Current technologies used by students • Class/seminar evaluations • Opinions about Exchanges • Use of Datatel • Strategic planning priorities for the college

26. Rules of the (Research) Road • Be sure you have identified the information needed thoroughly. • Go into the research wanting the truth from respondents. • Use the appropriate research technique. • Develop your questions so that you remove all bias. • Manage the in-field experience so that your effort is not compromised. • Demonstrate value of research by showing next steps during presentation of findings.

27. Your Next Steps • Think about two burning questions you have right now. • Can one of them be addressed with qualitative research? Go into six classrooms for 15 minutes each. • Can you use Survey Monkey to address the other issue in a quantitative study? • Consider doing one quantitative study every month. (Perhaps just a one-question poll.) This ensures you stay on target in helping your institution make data-driven decisions.

28. Contact me if I help • Brad Majors • Director of Marketing • Greenville Technical College • Greenville SC • 864-250-8994 • brad.majors@gvltec.edu