Marketing Report April 2016 2016

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.

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.

1st Time Contacts to UMO Nontrad Programs by Curriculum Interest: April 2016 There were 405 1st time contacts to UMO nontrad locations during April 2016. HCM received the largest number of inquiries (73), 26 to Evening College, 16 to RTP, 12 to Washington, 8 to Jacksonville, 6 to Wilmington, 4 to New Bern, and 1 to SJ. There were 52 inquiries about the general studies program and CJC and ECE received 49 inquiries each. Evening College received the largest number of 1st time contacts (117), and the online programs received 96. =================================================

============================ Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to Evening College: April 2016 There were 117 first time contacts to Evening College, with HCM, ECE and business management being the top 3. ============================

Source Info Evening College The Evening College location had multiple sources mentioned by the 1st time contacts in April, with Hobson’s Nontrad marketing program and word of mouth being the most often mentioned. =====================================

Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to Jacksonville First time inquiries to the Jacksonville location = 43 for April 2016, with the top program of interest being ECE (14) followed by HCM (8). ================================

Source Info for Jacksonville The Hobson’s nontrad marketing program was the most often mentioned source of info for April first time contacts to Jacksonville, with word of mouth being second. ============================

Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to New Bern In April 2016 there were 29 1st time contacts to the New Bern location, with management (9), CJC (6) and HCM (4) being the top programs of interest. =================================================

Source Info for New Bern The New Bern location 1st time contacts mentioned word of mouth and other/unknown as their major sources of info. =====================================

Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to Online Programs There were 96 first time contacts to the online programs in April. The MBA program attracted 32 new prospects, and CJC and general studies attracted 24 each. The RN to BSN program attracted 16 new contacts. =====================================

Source Info for Online Programs The 1st time contacts to online programs mentioned word of mouth most frequently for their source of info about UMO in April 2016. There were also 15 mentions of Hobson’s nontrad, 10 from radio and 6 from billboards. Most of them made contact with UMO via an application. =====================================

Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to RTP The RTP location received 61 new prospects during April, with the highest count (16) having interest in HCM. ================================

Source Info for RTP ================================ The Hobson’s nontrad program was the most often mentioned source of info (27) for the April 1st time contacts to RTP. Word of mouth was mentioned by 11 inquiries. ================================

Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to Seymour Johnson The SJ program received 11 first time contacts in April. ============================

Source Info for SJ The first time contacts to Seymour Johnson mentioned word of mouth and other/unknown. =================================================

Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to Washington Thirty-three (33) new prospects contacted the Washington location in April, with the largest number (12) having interest in HCM. ============================================

Source of Info for Washington Word of mouth and other/unknown were the most often cited sources of info for 1st time contacts to the Washington location in April. ============================

Curriculum Interest of 1st Time Contacts to Wilmington There are 15 newcomers to the Wilmington location, with 6 having interest in HCM. ============================================

Source Info to Wilmington The most often mentioned source of info at the Wilmington location was word of mouth. ============================

Hobson’s Nontrad Marketing Campaign The April leads for Hobson’s nontrad marketing program exceeded March leads by 3 prospects. As the summer continues, these numbers will increase. Since March 2014 this campaign has yielded 2,927 leads. ============================================

Nontraditional Recruitment Activities Nontraditional admissions personnel at the locations completed 341 various recruitment and promotional activities during the month of April. Over 200 of these activities were first time efforts. See the next page for a graph of these events. Recruitment Activities by Nontrad Location/Type Apr 2016 Activity at UMO Community Relations Email Blast Mass Mailing Dropoff Material Presentation Recruiting Visit Table/Booth Total First time efforts Evening College 1 29 57 4 6 103 38 Jacksonville 10 18 16 New Bern 34 7 8 50 RTP 3 9 SJ 2 Washington 71 74 40 Wilmington 5 66 85 77 83 211 11 21 341 208

# Recruitment Activities Nontrad Recruitment Activities, 1st Time Contacts and Apps Received Apr 15 to Apr 16 Nontraditional admissions personnel will gladly tell anyone who will listen that in order to increase enrollment, the groundwork has to be laid with recruitment efforts that produce contacts and applications. The chart below, and graphs following, demonstrate the relationship and upturn we have begun to see over the last 13 months. These changes are also beginning to positively affect the number of new student applicants. Month/Year # Recruitment Activities # 1st Time Contacts # Apps April 2015 147 333 311 May 2015 235 394 322 June 2015 433 364 297 July 2015 398 392 439 Aug 2015 97 450 473 Sep 2015 136 350 264 Oct 2015 83 321 278 Nov 2015 143 365 282 Dec 2015 249 340 281 Jan 2016 220 442 362 Feb 2016 258 289 Mar 2016 313 396 312 April 2016 341 405 343 Totals 3053 4892 4253

Nontraditional Recruitment Activities: April 2016

Nontrad Recruitment Activities and 1st Time Contacts

Nontrad 1st Time Contacts and Apps Rec’d: Apr 15 to Apr 16

Nontrad Recruitment Activities and Apps Received

First Time Contacts for Traditional Admissions There were 118 first time contacts to traditional admissions who identified a curriculum preference, and there were 410 who inquired for the first time ever who were undecided in their major. The large number of undecided students means that we must continue to coordinate efforts after these students arrive on campus to help them make a decision about a major. The graph on the next page demonstrates the type of interest for the students who told us which program is of interest to them, with biology, management recreation and criminal justice showing the larger numbers.

Curriculum Preference of 1st Time Contacts to Trad Admissions

Source Info for 1st Time Contacts to Trad Admissions: April 2016 Traditional students showing an interest in UMO for the first time contacted the admissions office via applications (133), standardized test scores (194), athletic questionnaires (29), info cards to admissions reps (153) and email messages (7). The top sources of info in April came from out of state college fairs in Maryland, SC and other states, as well as NC fairs. The graph on the next page gives more details.

Multiple Sources of Info: Traditional 1st Time Contacts

Cappex Inquiry Summary The Cappex company sends multiple messages to traditional prospects on behalf of UMO, in order to recruit students who are in UMO’s target populations: core states, biology/physical science, music, art and graphic design. The graph below demonstrates the magnitude of messages needed to bring inquiries to UMO. ============================================

Traditional Admissions Recruitment Events During the month of April, traditional admissions personnel visited high schools, arranged campus visits and planned and led two admitted student day events for new freshmen and their families. On April 16 and 30, with the help of all campus offices and departments, a total of 118 new freshmen attended, received their UMO ID cards and were pre-registered for their Fall 2016 classes. This compares favorably to 2015 when there were 116 new students in attendance for the first two admitted student days. Two more events, on June 17 and July 15, are scheduled. About 20-30 new transfer students, readmits and non-degree seeking students were also registered for Fall 2016.

Applications Received April 2016 There were 490 applications received at all locations and programs in April 2016 vs. 498 received in April 2015. Thirteen (13) applications for the planned MSN and MEd programs in Fall 16 are included in this count. ====================================================

800 UMO Phone Calls In April, UMO personnel fielded 230 phone calls, with over ¾ of the calls going to the main switchboard number at UMO. There were 185 unique callers making 230 calls.

Transfer Friendly Programs Over the last two semesters, many efforts to improve the transferability of community college graduates’ courses to UMO have been enacted. The goal of these efforts has been to make UMO programs transfer friendly. This project has involved the review and re-organization of certain TSB programs and courses in order to make a better fit for community college course transfer, as well as a more open policy regarding experiential learning credit. In addition to signing the statewide comprehensive articulation agreement between NC private institutions and the NC Community Colleges for AA and AS degree transfer of credit, UMO has developed articulation agreements with community colleges for AAS graduates. Programs such as criminal justice, business administration, accounting, early childhood, nursing and agriculture technology have benefited by the crosswalk conversations and agreements in place. The chart on the following page demonstrates our progress thus far on this project.

AAS Articulation Agreements Community College AAS Articulation Agreement Summary AAS Articulation agreements N = 11 Sign Date Craven Community College 4/7/2015 James Sprunt Community College 5/26/2015 Brunswick Community College 6/22/2015 Lenoir Community College Bladen Community College 7/2/2015 Beaufort Community College 7/30/2015 Wayne Community College 8/28/2015 Sampson Community College 9/2/2015 Robeson Community College 2/11/2016 South Piedmont Community College 2/27/2016 Martin Community College 5/25/2016 Meetings held,Crosswalks in Process N = 15 Date of last contact Central Carolina Community College 1/1/2016 Carteret Community College 3/18/2016 Durham Tech Community College 4/4/2016 Wake Tech Community College Pamlico Community College 4/7/2016 Johnston Community College 4/13/2016 Central Piedmont Community College 4/27/2016 Mitchell Community College 4/28/2016 Pitt Community College Vance Granville Community College Southeastern Community College Wilkes Community College Cape Fear Community College 4/29/2016 Piedmont Community College Sandhills Community College

Web Analytics There were over 30,000 visits to the umo.edu website via search engines, led by Google, in April 2016. This exceeds the 26,000 received in April 2015 and the April 2014 visits of nearly 21,000. Direct traffic to the site = over 24,000 hits. The average visit length was about 2:30 minutes and the average number of pages visited was 2. ===============================================

Conclusions There has been a slight upturn in contacts and interest in nontraditional programs. Multiple efforts, from academics to marketing and admissions has helped to move this initiative forward. The traditional program continues to move forward with high interest in education, management and biology remaining on the top of the curriculum preference list; however the large number of undecided students entering UMO requires the institution as a college community to help them settle on a major so that they can identify with a group of professors and students as early as possible. This will have a positive impact on retention. Website visits continue to increase. This uptick should continue into the summer and early fall. Agreements with outside vendors such as Cappex, Hobson’s, TWG, Viamark, Blue Tone and others help to increase the visibility of UMO as well as enable a one-person marketing director to manage many programs.

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