{"id":2763,"date":"2016-09-12T16:52:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T16:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/?p=2763"},"modified":"2016-09-12T16:52:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T16:52:00","slug":"6-challenges-inquiry-attribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/6-challenges-inquiry-attribution\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Challenges of Inquiry Attribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the \u201cold days,\u201d lead reporting looked something like this: A TV spot ran, a prospective student called a tracking phone number, and someone at the campus worked the lead and then added a tally mark on the white board to keep track of total leads. Technology has evolved over the years, changing everything we know about reporting and attributing leads to their original source.<\/p>\n

Attribution has become a combination of exact data and opinion or judgment. However, to effectively compete in today\u2019s education marketplace, colleges and universities must improve marketing strategies and measurement to help target specific audiences, and then understand what efforts offer areas of improvement or what sources to continue that are actually providing conversions. \u00a0To make matters even tougher, marketing budgets for many institutions continue to decline, or remain constrained, so the importance of understanding what\u2019s working (or not) has become even more important for marketing teams in reaching business goals.\u00a0 So, why is reporting on marketing benchmarks so challenging?<\/p>\n

Prospective students have countless ways to do their research on a school. They no longer have to see a commercial on TV and call the only school they happen to see an advertisement for.\u00a0 They can search online; a friend or family member may recommend a school; or they may read reviews on social media, hear something on the radio or Pandora, or see a sign along the road.\u00a0 The clutter is everywhere, but if a prospect has education on their mind, and your brand stands out, they will do their research.\u00a0 And, that research may or may not come in through the source where they originally encountered the brand. With mobile usage continually on the rise, prospects have information at their fingertips 24\/7.\u00a0 So, they may be watching TV, or see an ad for a school, then check it out on their phone in a search or on social media.\u00a0 They may hear a commercial on Pandora that asks them to click a banner for more information, but at that time, they can\u2019t click on the banner, so they remember the name and perform a Google search later.\u00a0 The multitude of touchpoints make it very difficult to gauge the original source for a lead.\u00a0 Most institutions rely on \u201clast-click attribution.\u201d \u00a0This method of lead tracking gives credit for converting the lead to the most recent channel used, but not always the best, because that attribution doesn\u2019t recognize all the points that user had before converting. And what do you do when students inquire more than once?\u00a0 Capture both sources? \u00a0Stay with the original? \u00a0Or use the last?\u00a0 That\u2019s a good question to ask your marketing director \u2013 since probably 20% of prospects inquire more than once, AND the students who inquire a second time are much more likely to enroll.<\/p>\n

Years ago, a colleague at another institution recommended asking students at orientation or the first day of class how they heard about or became aware of the school. His point was that capturing source at the time of inquiry was detrimental to the sales process and also meaningless.\u00a0 He believed that asking\/surveying later in the process yielded more accurate results as to the foundational source for motivating students to choose an institution.\u00a0 We are not aware of any schools that utilize this approach, but as marketing professionals, we believe this approach has merit, and to this day, encourage clients to ask this question once students are on campus.<\/p>\n

Another challenge marketers often forget when analyzing reporting is all of the external factors that may impact accurately attributing leads, including the human factor. Attribution does not take into account seasonality, the economy, and in our industry, government regulations. Touchpoints such as open houses, career fairs, etc. are also not well accounted for, and often lumped into a referral lead source bucket.<\/p>\n

Speaking of personally developed inquiries and referrals, do you have one category for these? Or two?\u00a0 We continue to encounter schools that lump these together.\u00a0 For starters, separate these categories.\u00a0 On the human side of things, many smaller schools don\u2019t have the marketing automation tools in place to accurately and automatically track inquiry sources.\u00a0 Instead, they rely on busy front-desk staff to capture the source and record it in the database.\u00a0 The results are often inconsistent and unreliable.\u00a0 Worse yet, we\u2019ve encountered many schools that create multiple categories that essentially mean the same thing.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an example:\u00a0 A few years back we started working with a school and asked for a lead report by source.\u00a0 The source fields in CampusVue included Internet, website, Google, organic web, and web form.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 There was no training or any guide for admissions on how to classify inquiries.<\/p>\n

Admission Training for inquiries<\/strong><\/a> may be one answer. Here\u2019s another story. A couple years back we were copied on the call-in log every week for a school. Upon receipt we\u2019d look at the source as captured by the front desk.\u00a0 After introducing outdoor in the market, we were criticized by the corporate office.\u00a0 Corporate claimed we didn\u2019t generate any inquiries from outdoor.\u00a0 We knew better, but how could we refute their data.\u00a0 Frustrated, we listened to some recorded calls.\u00a0 Bingo.\u00a0 Our frustrations were confirmed when we heard multiple greetings from a cheery front desk employee who always asked before transferring a call, \u201cHow did you hear about us?\u00a0 TV or Internet?\u201d and then she would transfer the call.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dig a little more on the absence of automation. Again, in smaller schools, we observe inquiries being emailed to the school and then manually entered into a Student Information System (SIS) or Customer Relationship Management system (CRM).\u00a0 In addition to increased possibility of error, \u201csomeone\u201d at the school is receiving the lead information and deciding what bucket to attribute it to.\u00a0 And just because you have a pick list on your web form for prospective students to select how they heard about the school, that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that field is passed through to the person on the other end at the school who is entering the lead into the school\u2019s database.\u00a0 When is the last time you looked at the email that is passed? Or asked how staff decides what category to use?<\/p>\n

So, what should an institution do to analyze all marketing mediums to ensure goals are met? Digital marketing can help create baselines for your school\u2019s marketing efforts, find out where your leads originate, and refine your ads to improve lead conversions. Of course, traditional marketing efforts provide a challenge as the world becomes more digital savvy.\u00a0 But, you can monitor increased visits to digital properties when new traditional media launches in a market.\u00a0 Chances are, if there is an uptick in digital traffic when, for example, a new TV spot rolls out, you can probably attribute the positive lift to TV.\u00a0 The idea is that someone may have seen the new commercial, did research on their own, and then inquired via a digital source.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another suggestion. Run a list of all possible sources that are set up in your database.\u00a0 Then compare it to how your leads come in and what advertising channels you are using.\u00a0 Most schools have created too many sources.\u00a0 In their effort to track a specific campaign, they created a unique source.\u00a0 But three years later, that source is still active in the system and can be used to attribute an inquiry.\u00a0 After you are done scratching your head and asking, \u201cHow long has it been since we advertised in the Thrifty Nickel shopper?\u201d you may want to eliminate some sources.\u00a0 It\u2019s one way to improve attribution.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, there are many attribution approaches around, from basic to sophisticated, but the limitations still remain, and the marketing landscape continues to evolve. Not only do higher education marketers have more tools to balance than ever before, but consumers also have more ways to take in information. Next month, we\u2019ll present guidelines for improving your inquiry attribution.<\/p>\n

Written By: Vince Norton and Lindsay Barnett<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the \u201cold days,\u201d lead reporting looked something like this: A TV spot ran, a prospective student called a tracking phone number, and someone at the campus worked the lead and then added a tally mark on the white board to keep track of total leads. Technology has evolved over the years, changing everything we know about reporting and attributing<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":2762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n6 Challenges of Inquiry Attribution - Norton Norris<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you want to improve your admission process and admission inquiries, then you must have to check out the post where you can get detailed guidance on the same.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/6-challenges-inquiry-attribution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"6 Challenges of Inquiry Attribution - Norton Norris\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you want to improve your admission process and admission inquiries, then you must have to check out the post where you can get detailed guidance on the same.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/6-challenges-inquiry-attribution\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Norton Norris\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-12T16:52:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/tally-mark.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"285\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jasmink\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Vince Norton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Norton Norris\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/logo1-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/logo1-1.png\",\"width\":337,\"height\":103,\"caption\":\"Norton Norris\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/\",\"name\":\"Norton Norris\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/6-challenges-inquiry-attribution\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/tally-mark.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/tally-mark.jpg\",\"width\":285,\"height\":177,\"caption\":\"Inquiry Attribution\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/6-challenges-inquiry-attribution\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nortonnorris.com\/6-challenges-inquiry-attribution\/\",\"name\":\"6 Challenges of Inquiry Attribution - 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