John Cavani is Director of Marketing, Communications and International at the University of Suffolk He has over 25 years’ experience in higher education marketing across the UK and in Australia.
He began his career at Glasgow Caledonian University, before becoming Head of Marketing at the University of Edinburgh. He continued his career in Australia as Director of Marketing & Planning for Charles Darwin University, before returning to the UK in 2017 as Director of Marketing & External Relations for Cardiff Metropolitan University.
In his current role, John is responsible for providing strategic leadership across the key areas of communications, marketing, international, brand, student recruitment, admissions and external engagement. John is a Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) and is an AMI Certified Practising Marketer.
In a student recruitment environment where every penny counts, the targeting of marketing spend has never been more important.
Using data to inform this targeting is critical, but what is the best way to do this? Is there a need to use the services of external agencies or can refocusing and realigning internal data usage and processes glean similar results?
In this presentation you will hear how The University of Suffolk and Bath Spa University tested each of these theories.
At Suffolk, they redirected some of their planned advertising spend towards a Propensity Modelling tool developed by an external provider, with the aim of targeting their remaining spend more effectively and reducing wastage. They used their historical application, offer and enrolment data to create a model that would show which types of applicants were most likely to convert to actual students, with the aim of targeting similar applicants more effectively.
At Bath Spa, they kept it in-house and analysed their internal data, reworking how they used it to be more effective and more impactful in cycle. Working with the data and insight team they reviewed and analysed three years’ worth of data. They looked at those students who had enrolled with them and pulled out trends and synergies that would support further activity and campaign spend. What could the data tell them about applicant behaviour to help inform strategies and campaign spend and ultimately improve conversion?
So, did either, or both, of these strategies work? What were the lessons learned?
Come along to find out.