A Marketing Budget Formula for Your Graduate Program's Success
Guide for An Effective In-Market Spend for Higher Education Marketing
Why Is Digital Paid Media In-Market Spend Important?
In today’s climate, it can be overwhelming as an institution to determine the best in-market spend for your graduate degree programs. In-market spend (AKA a digital media budget) refers to the amount of money that you have to put in market for paid media, excluding additional services and fees. In the past, colleges and universities faced less competition and had the luxury of neglecting paid media for promoting degree programs. Yet to stand out in today’s competitive landscape, it’s more essential than ever to prioritize your in-market spend.
Higher education marketing expert, Suzan Brinker (Viv Higher Education’s Co-Founder and CEO ) breaks down how to take a more strategic approach with in-market spend to stay competitive and meet enrollment goals.
The Best Formula for In-Market Spend
By using a simple formula, you can calculate the optimal in-market spend for your marketing budget. In this example, you can see one of our Boston-based clients gave us the following enrollment goal:
- Enroll 200 people for their business portfolio and 175 people for their education portfolio by Fall 2025.
Assumptions
Based on the formula pictured below, and our research with in-market campaigns, you should assume:
- One-third of your enrolled students will be impacted by paid media,
- Out of these leads, about 6% will actually enroll after taking an action to be captured as a lead, and
- 5% of people who click on ads overall and come to your program pages will convert to leads.
Once you’ve researched the cost-per-click of your desired programs via Google Ads or other preferred platform, you have a formula to use to figure out the spend. Alternatively, you can use Google Keyword planner to calculate cost-per-click using a subset of keywords you’re looking to put into market.
How It Works
For the business portfolio, we took the Enrollment goal of 200 and divided it by three to get 66, meaning our overall enrollment goal from in-market spend is 66 students. After applying the formula, our lead goal is 1,111, and our click-goal is 22,220. Knowing that our cost-per-click is $10 via Google Ads research, our total recommended in-market budget becomes $222,200. On the Education side, we came to a recommended in-market budget of $154,666.
Additional Recommendations to Boost Interest and Support Growth:
- Increase Brand Awareness Spend
If you haven’t considered this already, allocate around $100,000 of your marketing budget for brand awareness to enhance lead generation and enrollment efforts. - Consider Enrollment Coaching and Lead Nurture
Viv recommends hiring two enrollment coaches after you capture lead nurture to continue guiding people through the funnel. These enrollment coaches can contact applicants through direct outreach such as phone and email. They can also be a useful asset by surveying leads on a regular basis to figure out what is preventing them from moving through the funnel. We also recommend adding SMS and postcards to support your nurture strategy. - Hire Additional Faculty, if Needed
When making a case to leadership about in-market spend, it’s also important to keep in mind additional resources that might be necessary, such as additional faculty members, to keep up with growth goals. - Determine ROI for New Students
Determining the average ROI for new students enrolled will help other leaders understand the outcome of your marketing budget strategy and help justify your goals.
Calculate New Revenue
So in the case of our example, we can apply the above formula: 75 new students x $35,000 per year = $2,625,000 in new revenue
Subtract In-Market Spend and Other Expenses
Looking at the overall budget below, the net revenue from paid media efforts is $1,604,134 as a result of this spend.
In this example, we can apply the above formula to calculate our net revenue: $2,625,000 – $1,020,866 = $1,604,134 in net revenue.
A Holistic Approach Is Key
Looking at all of these factors in addition to in-market spend sets you and your institution up for success by applying a holistic perspective to budgetary needs. We recommend working with your finance team to help determine what can be taken on internally vs. what you might need to hire external people for based on your budget.
Need Help?
If you’re looking to dive into marketing your alternative credentials but aren’t sure where to begin, we’re here to help! Send us an email or schedule a call for more strategies to get the ball rolling.