Marketing Report February 2017

Introduction The following data is gathered from inquiry calls/visits, contact forms, applications, and SSRS reports. Recruitment activities, purchased media, website traffic, and other promotional and marketing efforts help drive students to our website and other points of contact. Information is used to track what kinds of advertising prompts action for various audiences.

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.

Traditional Recruitment Activities: February 2017 During the month of February, traditional admissions representatives visited high schools, scheduled and talked with families visiting the campus, and made phone calls and sent emails to individuals planning to attend the first admitted student day on March 25. About 50 students are registered at this point.

Cappex Inquiries February 2017 The Cappex Campaign is designed to help UMO reach more traditional students in specific core states, and students with interest in the biological and physical sciences, music, art and graphic design. There were 32,937 messages sent on behalf of UMO to our core states and 31 new inquiries generated via Cappex.

Nontrad Recruitment Activities: February 2017 The nontrad admissions representatives completed 268 unique recruitment activities this month, with the Wilmington location managing to complete 82, and evening college doing 80. Over 200 of these recruitment efforts were with new businesses, agencies and individuals.

Hobson’s Nontrad Marketing Program The Hobson’s nontrad marketing campaign has been a successful venture for UMO. In February, there were 101 leads at a cost of $51 each. This is very economical. The most cost efficient days of the week are Thursday and Sunday, and our highest click through occurs on Wednesday and Thursday.

February 2017 Applicants In February 2017, there were 267 nontrad applicants and 148 traditional applicants. There were 7 military affiliated apps in the traditional pool, while there were 46 overall in the nontrad programs. SJ had the most military students, most of them on active duty.

Source Mentions for Traditional Applicants Most traditional applicants who mentioned the source of their info about UMO, said that they first heard about UMO by word of mouth. Only 58 of the trad applicants mentioned their first heard source.

Nontrad App Source Information: February 2017 Most of the February nontrad applicants provided feedback on where they first heard about UMO. Word of mouth, radio, web Search and online ads were mentioned often. Other traditional Communication modes like radio, tv, billboards and career fairs and presentations were also mentioned.

Gender Mix of Apps UMO continues to receive more applications from women at most locations. Fifty-three (53%) per cent of the traditional applicants are female, while 75% of the nontrads are female.

Traditional Applicant Profile: February 2017 UMO traditional applicants in February had interests in many of our academic majors; however, the most popular this month were biology, management, recreation, education and criminal justice. There were also quite a few who are undecided in the applicant pool.

Curriculum Preference for Nontrad Apps: February 2017 The MBA was the most often mentioned curriculum by February nontrad applicants. Criminal justice, general studies, HCM, ECE and RN to BSN were next in popularity.

Traffic to umo.edu Nearly 26,000 unique users came to umo.edu in February 2017, with about 28% being new first time visitors. More than 2/3 of the visitors were female, and about 1/3 were 18-24 years of age. About 21% were 25-34 years of age, about 18% were 35-44 years of age, and the remainder were 45 and older.

Traffic to umo.edu Search engines, referrals from other websites and direct traffic defined the visits to umo.edu.

Visitors to umo.edu Visitors to umo.edu used desktops (72.14%), mobile phones (24.68%) and tablets (3.17%).

Phone Calls Received During the month of February, UMO received 528 phone calls at the various admissions phone numbers and locations, with the majority coming to the switchboard (473). There were 411 unique callers speaking for a total of nearly thirty hours.

Conclusions: February 2017 1. The UMO website continues to draw many visitors, of varying ages using a variety of devices. 2. Online programs at the undergraduate and graduate level attracted a large portion of the applications received this month. 3. A popular source of information about UMO is word of mouth; however, web search and online ads are becoming more numerous in the source mentions of nontraditional applicants. 3. Outside partners, such as Hobson’s and Cappex, help to attract new inquiries to UMO by sending many messages on behalf of the institution. 4. Women continue to out number men in the applicant pool; however, the percentage disparity this month was not as great in the traditional pool as in previous months. 5. Nontraditional admissions reps continue to move about in our service areas to promote programs, thus reinforcing the advertising efforts. 6. Traditional admissions reps continue to visit high schools where they can meet individually with applicants. With the high number of applicants coming into the traditional program, now is the time to be selecting out the most promising applicants and working directly with them.

Thanks Thanks to Jennifer Merritt, Georgette Prichard and UMO admissions representatives for their help in compiling the information for this report.