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Media Software

Is there a big difference in Media buying Software? In today's media mix can you get a Cost per start under $100.00?

Software for Placing Buys

What experience have other people had with using software to facilitate the media buy?

Declines in Newspaper Subscriptions

Does anyone have quantitative data for the trend that seems to point to the decline in newspaper subscriptions? In one of our markets, we are down to a single daily paper. Our cost per lead for this channel is rising.

Declines in Newspaper Subscriptions

Does anyone have quantitative data for the trend that seems to point to the decline in newspaper subscriptions? In one of our markets, we are down to a single daily paper. Our cost per lead for this channel is rising.

Employment papers

We have found in most of our markets that the Employment papers have provide better leads than the traditional papers. Is this pretty common now in most markets?

Internet Marketing

With so many choices these days on the internet, what is the best way to get leads on the internet? Pay per click, Pay per lead, Cost per Action or Cost per thousand impressions?

Market Demographics

We have recently invested in Prizm analysis of our markets and we have found it to be somewhat useful. Does anyone have some experience with using Prizm codes for media buying that they would like to share?

open houses/info sessions

We have recently started having regular open houses. We change our radio and newspaper ads to promote it, as well as put it on our website. We either send out an email or letter (if they don't have an email address) to invite past, present and potential students as well as corporate contacts. We follow this up with a personal phone call. We flyer drop the businesses in the area and then follow up with a phone call. This has been working quite well, however I think we can improve by making sure the local media always knows what is going on at our school via press releases and news articles. I will also try to get on the public announcements.

too many...

I think that we have too many programs in place. We've done every opportunity that has came our way and have not evaluated each one properly. I think that once we start evaluating each program we implement we will be able to decide which ones to continue or increase and which ones to stop or decrease. This will be much more efficient and less expensive.

radio/internet/print

We use the radio to promote our school. Over the years people have came to recognize our jingle-so we have to stick with it now. In everything we do we direct people to our website where they can find out about our programs and submit inquiries. We've also been working at getting links on as many other sites as possible to direct people to our site. We haven't set up an advisory board yet, but after reading the info about it in this course we are planning on setting one up right away. This will work well since we are really working on selling more corporate training.

newsletters

We recently started an email database. Can you believe we weren't asking for email address until this year?!? We called all of our old leads to get as many email addresses as possible and have been collecting several this year. We send out a monthly newsletter with program info, labour market info and sucess stories. There are also links back to our website where people can send in an inquirey. I think that we will come up with more event to promote and put more effort into making sure that the press always knows what's going on at our school.

Evaluation

I believe that evaluation has been one of the key factors to my company getting to where it is today. Each of the past three years we have shrunk marketing costs and heavily increased enrollment. Evaluation is the key to FUTURE successful marketing.

Billboards

Does anyone have any feedback about billboards on major local roadways? We are looking into it.

Press Releases

To get excellent exposure to your website and increase web traffic you can send out monthly press releases through a bunch of websites (PR NewsWire, PRfree, etc). Some are free and some do cost a few dollars. These will create links to many new sites across the web and drive a handul of traffic. One good thing to do is to create a PR page on your site that is also the same page that people get lead to from the PR. On this page you can add promotions, hot new courses etc. I would say we usually add three or four enrollments that we would not have received otherwise, each time we do this.

Missing starts and redireting budget

Our college missed our January start, at the rate we're going, we're scheduled to miss the April start as well. Our leads are on schedule with budget. Where else can we look for possible causes?

Publicity as part of Marketing

Some folks don't quite understand that Publicity is a fundamental part of Marketing...they see marketing as advertising only and that's a shame. We're building new publicty opportunities and working on a PR campaign to help boost our name recognition in the communities we serve. Marci Hosier

Signs are a great idea

I think i will look into more signs on buses/trains in our area. Seems like a great idea.

Will definetley try the Newsletters

Thought that the newsletter idea was a good one. I think that it could definetley be a low-cost way of getting our name in the industry!

Building Relationships Through Charilty Events

We started getting involved with local charity events in our area. Donating our graduates and staff's services for the events. It gets us great publicity and we also get to help our community.

networking

Remember that networking is a powerful tool. Just by communicating with my students, I learned that one student's husband was just starting out in web design. We not only have the opportunity to work with an enthusiastic designer right out of school, we also get a great break on the price.