As budgets contract, graduate admissions marketers ranked their greatestchallenges as cost, resources and measurement, particularly in onlinemarketing. These challenges are reflected in an interesting dichotomybetween the more than 55 percent of respondents indicating that onlinemarketing "generates the majority of their qualified leads today," whileless than 20 percent of respondents allocate more than 40 percent of theirmarketing dollars towards online marketing.

"The conflict between where dollars are being spent and where qualifiedapplicants are being generated is demonstrative of the confusion aroundgraduate school marketing today," said Clara Pitts, product manager atGradSchools.com. "But it all starts with measurement of what works and whatdoesn't to make informed decisions, and many grad school marketers do notpossess this data."

Nearly 80 percent of those graduate school marketers surveyed indicatedthey do not know their average cost per start. Then again, only 53 percenttrack enrollments to start. The remaining respondents indicated they alsotrack applications to enrollments (74 percent), leads to applications (59percent) and clicks to leads (34 percent), with 14 percent tracking none ofthese metrics.

Other EducationDynamics survey findings include:

-- Most of graduate school online marketing dollars are dedicated to institutional websites (32 percent) and directory listings (25 percent), which may drive the conclusion that organic search and directory listings topped the list of online marketing mediums that produce the best results along with email.-- 42 percent of respondents said they are satisfied with their website rankings for the keywords that matter to them.-- 54 percent of graduate school marketers do not participate in pay-per-click marketing, a search engine marketing tactics conducted through a minute-by-minute bidding process. Among those who do participate, only three percent check it daily.

"Given these findings combined with the fact that 60 percent of respondentsindicated they were novices in search engine marketing, it might be wisefor graduate school marketers to seek professional assistance," continuedPitts. EducationDynamicsoffers a host of resources for graduate school marketers to learn moreabout online marketing, including white papers on The BestPractices in Enrollment Marketing Management and IncorporatingLead-Generation Advertising into a Traditional School's Marketing WithoutCreating Havoc, as well as information on attracting and retaininggraduate school students.

The EducationDynamics marketing survey was fielded at the beginning ofNovember with nearly 300 respondents with titles ranging from Director ofAdmissions, Associate Dean, Director of Web Services, Vice President ofMarketing and Enrollment Management and e-Marketing Project Manager.Sixty-seven percent represented schools with less than 2,000 students, with61 percent serving students classified as traditional, on-campus learners;28 percent classified as non-traditional, on-campus learners; and the restclassified as online learners. Fifty-one percent represented institutionscharacterized as private, not-for-profit; 41 percent public,not-for-profit; and 8 percent for-profit.

About EducationDynamics

EducationDynamics, a portfolio company of Halyard Capital, is the leadingmarketing and information services company dedicated to helping highereducation institutions find, enroll and retain students. Its content-richand highly visible education websites, including EarnMyDegree.com,eLearners.com, GradSchools.com, StudyAbroad.com, and its more than 50special interest microsites, make EducationDynamics the premier provider ofqualified prospective students for colleges and universities. In addition,the company offers a full suite of Web-delivered services proven to driveenrollment growth and reduce student attrition. For more information, visithttp://www.educationdynamics.com.

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