database marketing campaign business case study
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sample.pptxDatabase Marketing Campaign Oakland University
Business Overview
Oakland University Promotes Summer Program with Comprehensive Cross-Media Campaign
located in Rochester, Michigan
Product or Service: Offers two eight-week summer sessions.
Economic Trends: With Oakland University experiencing declining enrollment rates, new marketing strategies were implemented to increase the number of students enrolling.
Competitive Analysis : this campaign initiative was led by SNAP analysis against their own poor enrollment rates rather than competition with other summer university programs
Oakland had used a number of marketing channels to promote their summer sessions including:
static direct mail
radio and magazine advertisements
Advertisements, promotions on the OU Web site,
Facebook ads.
Database Marketing Campaign Goals and Objectives
Attempting to acquire new students through several channels of marketing
Enhance brand perception as a quality school
Track all marketing initiatives to establish benchmarks for effectiveness
Integrate all marketing initiatives with a centralized marketing management system
Prove new ways of marketing can increase enrollment
Determine which marketing channels deliver the best results
Help OU develop a set of best practices and recommendations for next year’s summer program marketing plan
And at least maintain enrollment numbers from 2009 summer sessions.
Targeting
The target audience for this campaign included the following segments:
Undergraduate students
Graduate students
Continuing education/professional development students
Non-OU Michigan college students.
The messages targeting these groups were customized based on information learned during the SNAP survey.
Marketing Strategy and Tactics
E-Mail Campaign/Targeting
E-mails were sent every two weeks to prospective students during the campaign period of January through June. The goal was to create an e-mail marketing process whereby students were put in different communication tracks depending on how they responded to e-mails.
E-mails were segmented based on the student’s program interest:
Undergraduate,
Graduate,
Summer registrant,
Continuing education
Online course interest.
E-Mail Campaign
The goal of the e-mails was to drive traffic to the summer session Web site.
Cumulative e-mail marketing channel results:
24% open rate.
39% click-through rate–visited landing page.
Of those who went to the landing page, 77% requested more information about the summer session program.
4,638 students who eventually enrolled reacted to an e-mail.
E-Mail Campaign
SNAP Program
Form of servicing survey. Sent out to former OU summer course takers
(SNAP) Student Needs Analysis Process, allows motivating factors to be determined for reasons of summer enrollment
Hear from previous enrolled students on likes and dislikes of summer program as well as their thoughts on how the summer program could be enhanced or more attractive to prospecting students
Understand what students see value in for marketing purposes
Survey was promoted by raffle drawings once completed
Direct Mail
Two personalized postcards were sent to existing students, past students, and a purchased list of prospective students. The first postcard was mailed in January 2010 and the second in March 2010. Personalized URLs and MS tag 2-D barcodes were included as response mechanisms.
The postcards were segmented based on the same program interest groups as the e-mails. The copy for each segment varied based on the key value propositions identified in the SNAP survey.
A total of 89,000 personalized postcards were sent.
Postcard #1 (57,000 sent) generated a 2.98% response rate, with a response being a visit to the Personalized URL.
Direct Mail Cntd.
Postcard #2 (32,000 sent) generated a 3.1% response rate.
749 people requested more information about the summer sessions.
129 MS tag scans resulted from direct mail pieces.
433 students who eventually enrolled reacted to this marketing segment.
Promotions – Surveys & Campus Signage
Upon completion of SNAP survey students entered into $500 textbook money drawing
Just by visiting the summer registration site you could enter for $500 textbook money drawing
Over 150 posters were posted on campus. All the posters had SMS and barcodes for responses
Posters generated 249 SMS responses, and 39 barcode responses
Social Media/ Unique Advertising
Facebook and Twitter feeds to attract non-Oakland University students
Movie theater advertising
Mobile videos to give a full experience of summer course to prospective students
Summer Web Site Optimization
To improve online traffic to the summer session information, the Web site was optimized for search engines (SEO). Oakland also worked to drive traffic to relevant pages.
Compared to the previous year, the OU summer session Web site had:
a 166% (2.66x) increase in traffic
a 151% increase in page views, and
a 106% increase in search engine traffic.
Personalization
Personalized URLs and MS tag 2-D barcodes were included as response mechanisms for the direct mail channel
In addition to this customization, the postcards were personalized with:
Images based on program interest and student gender,
Major the student was pursuing,
Student name
And Personalized URL.
E-mails sent out were differentiated by stating the person’s correct name the e-mail was being sent out to
Testing
Took survey results and made marketing plans from those responses
Took marketing forms of e-mail, direct mail, special advertising, social media, and signage.
Compared old retention and enrollment rates to the new students inquired and retained
Tracked communication channels to determine what worked best
Tested if personalization of marketing would make increases in enrollment
Responses and Closed–Loop
Student data and input learned from SNAP survey helped feed the marketing campaign initiative
Could see how effective posters and campus signage were by the number of barcodes and specific SMS codes scanned from the signs
Kept web pages specific and personalized to each student
Every two weeks e-mail sent, then tracked the number of clicks per student
Analysis and Critique
Segmented effectively to receive increasing results
Reached more markets by multiple channels of marketing to increase enrollment rates
Reasons for success:
Discontinued underperforming marketing channels
Developed E-mail tracks to advertise specific classes
Continued social media advertising
Expanded the use of the mobile web to deliver information instantly to prospective students
Audience first based off student survey (SNAP)
Made communications relevant through personalization
Measures of Success
Total Program Inquiries = 4,904
Direct Mail (total responses) =
Postcard 1 (57,00 sent) = 2.98% response rate
Postcard 2 (32,000 sent) = 3.1% response rate
749 requested more information regarding summer programs
129 MS tags were scanned
433 students eventually enrolled from this market segment
Website – (Google Analytics and web tracking technology) =
Tracked impressions
Compared website traffic from previous year – over 100% increase in all website traffic
E-mail (successful sends, opens, interactions) =
4638 students enrolled after reacting to the email campaigns
Movie theatre Advertising =
402 people used SMS
68 became inquiries
Campus signage =
249 used SMS response mechanism
38 MS tag scans
Resulted in four students enrolling
Online advertising (impressions, interactions and click-through rates) = See graph next page
Source of Program Impressions
| Marketing Channel | Impressions |
| E-mail / landing page / direct mail | 98,009 |
| Palace marquis | 8,589,240* |
| Movie theater advertising | 7,020,860* |
| Social media | 12,366 |
| Paid Facebook advertising | 68,334,518 |
| Summer Web site | 48,246 |
| Campus signage (posters, standees) | 7,500* |
| Total Program Impressions | 84,110,739 |
Overall Results
4% increase enrollment in Summer Session 1
9% increase enrollment in Summer Session 2
84,111,739 program impressions through the web (impressions of all marketing forms)
4,904 Program inquiries
Works Cited
"Oakland University Promotes Summer Program With Comprehensive Cross-Media Campaign." Seybold Report: Analyzing Publishing Technologies 11.24 (2011): 2-9. Business Source Premier. Web. 5 Dec. 2012.
