This exhaustive 200-page study presents highly detailed data from 43 American colleges and universities about their marketing efforts, pinpointing their use of and recent, current and expected spending on an array of marketing vehicles including, but not limited to: Facebook, Google Ads, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, direct mail, opt-in email marketing, viewbooks, podcasts, Snapchat, Pinterest, telephone solicitation, payments to search engines for placement, web optimization strategies and much more.
The study also gives detailed data on use of and spending on public relations, market research and marketing consultants, and billboards, and radio and television advertising. The report also includes data on the use of recruitment-oriented blogs and visits by recruiters to high schools. Survey participants also comment on their favorite marketing vehicles and give advice to their peers.
Data in the reports is broken out by size and type of college, for public and private status, and by the percentage of students attending the college who are drawn from a local or national audience.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
-
27.91% of survey participants had used a market research firm over the past two years.
-
Colleges where less than 20% of students had lived within 75 miles of campus prior to attending the college distributed the most print viewbooks in the past year, a mean of 22,357.
-
Colleges in the sample spent a mean of $2,281 on YouTube advertising in the past year.
-
69.77% of colleges sampled advertised in newspapers for student recruitment in the past year.
-
93.75% of private colleges in the sample had an official marketing budget.