The Math behind a successful MBA Admission Campaign

Every year, as a b-scgool, you are faced with the biggest challenge of strategically choosing communication channels for your Admission purposes, trying to ensure that you get it RIGHT.

I am aware that over 98% of our b-schools get it WRONG every year. There is a reason they repeat their mistakes, sub-consciously at most times.

You measure the results that come from each marketing channel you choose rather than a multi-channel strategy and measurement. You use certain channels incorrectly, without completely understanding the characteristic consumption pattern of your Applicants in that channel. You define usage of channel by the same prejudices that are wrong and need to be corrected.

So,

How will you figure out muti-channel attribution to your Applications each year?

How will you strategize for something that you don't completely understand?

How will you change from a broken system to a correct-system as soon as possible?

How will you improve effectiveness of your Admission campaign and therefore improve application numbers and maintain that for the coming years?

How will you stop random buying and learn to methodically identify channels that work for you, and the integration of such channels?

Consider the following multichannel strategy used by a b-school

 

 

This means that the bschool is using 6 different but integrated channels for its marketing program.

If we consider that Results (Overall Results i.e.) is a function of engagement and action taken, then we can represent it as:

Result = fn(Action, Engagement)

Now, according to integrated marketing assumptions, the action and engagement can happen in two different channels at a given point in time "t".

Which means, that for a result Rt, the set of action and engagement can be (Pagalguy.com, Database Calling); wherein the action happened in PG but the engagement happened over database calling.

Similarly, at a time "t+1", the R(t+1) can be (Database calling, Pagalguy.com); wherein action happened in database calling but engagement happened in Pagalguy.com.

Since it is impossible to attribute specific inputs to specific channels for results, the best can we can predict is the probability of engagement of a particular platform at a certain time for a result "R".

Mathematically, this would mean-

P(PG) = Probability of student engaging with Pagalguy.com

P(C) = Probability of student engaging over a call

R = Result from the overall marketing system

The Probability of a student engaging with a particular platform is directly proportional for the amount of time he spends on that platform, or the "exposure" to that platform. Therefore, lets assume for our calculation's sake that a student spends 40% of his time on Pagalguy.com and the 20% of the time he is exposed to Calls from b-schools.

Then P(PG) = 0.4, and P(C) = 0.2

We want to identify what will be the probability of engagement on Pagalguy, when there is a Result from the marketing system. This can be denoted as - P(PG | R)

To find this probability, we will use the Bayes theorem (since there are multiple events associated with this probability)

Therefore,

P(PG | R) = [P(PG) * P(R | PG)] / [ [P(PG) * P(R | PG)] X [P(C) * P(R | C)] ]

Now,

We will have to calculate: the probability of a result for engagement happening in PG as well as calls.

P(R | PG) = Time x Activity x (1/Total number of options at a given time)

= 4 x 5 x (1/50)  [Considering 4 hours total time, 5 pages viewed each time, and 50 B-schools as option during his visits]

= 0.2

P(R | C) = 0.1 x 10 x (1/100) [Considering 0.1 hours call time, 10 calls, and 100 bschools calling]

= 0.01

Now, 

The P(PG | R) = [0.4 x 0.2] / [ [0.4 x 0.2] + [0.2 x 0.01] ]

= 0.08/0.082

= 0.97

or 97% probability of Pagalguy engagement when Result is "R" from the marketing system.

Similarly, we can calculate and attribute different probability scores to different sets of "(Action, Engagement") to check how effective is the engagement of a particular medium and how it plays out for the marketing system.

Since, the college in this case is using 6 different channels, and given that there are two factors, the number of sets will be 6P2 (permutation), giving us about 30 such sets that will contribute to the overall results.

These sets need to be measured if one needs to figure out the Effectiveness of Every Channel used. But this is hard and near impossible due to complexity of the relationships and theimprobability to tag an action to a particular channel. All we know is that together, they form a cohesive system that provides the advantages of an "integrated" marketing system and allows us to measure the integrity of "Communication" that actually affect the efficiency of these 30 sets.

 

Start practicing the the most scientific and right strategies for your Admission campaign design, else you will keep on doing the same ad-hoc usage of communications channel and Measure them incorrectly - leading to bad results.

Fooling a B-school in India

Are b-schools really smart? We can argue this based on certain parameters - and one of them has to be the way majority of our b-schools approach planning for their Admission process.

Majority of our b-schools in India (along with the new ones too) follow a very similar and outdated approach to their admission process. The process involves - buying database, calling and mailing this database, holding special seminars, attending educational tours collecting more databases, calling and mailing these again, and continuing the process to get intent from some of these applicants to join the college's program.

Over 1500 B-schools in India practice this every year, and they haven't done anything different for the past many years. The trouble is that, two important things are happening:
- The number of calls that are ending with no results, are increasing
- Even the conversions after getting an intent, are decreasing

Every year, some people sitting at Rajasthan provide our Indian b-schools with the databases of MBA applicants of that year (collected from various "sources" that are claimed to be anonymous). Given that one can easily quantify the number of applicants who are serious about MBA, most b-schools purchase the entire data from the market anyways - to cold call, mail, sms etc.

"So what are some educational portals selling these b-schools in the name of validated/verified leads? If the total population of MBA applicants is a super-set {E}, then there is no chance of {E+1} anywhere."

Then why do b-schools buy such leads at almost 100 times the price that they have already bought from other offline sources? Why are they paying for redundant leads which are the same as they have already purchased and prospected?

It makes no sense to me to get the number of the same girl who has rejected my proposal to get married from another source. I already know the outcome.

Then why would I pay 100 times more money to that source to figure out that the same girl again gets to hear my pathetic rambling and then decide to hang-up the phone?

B-schools have not had the central-nervous-system to understand a few very important things:

1) The universe of MBA applicants is well defined and is a finite number. It is not like insurance or jobs market, wherein leads pour in everyday, and websites formed to catch those leads sell them as premium

2) Buying more leads from multiple sources will only add to duplicating the database already bought by the b-school from earlier sources

3) No matter how strong the counseling team is, there needs to be an integrated and strong marketing plan implemented to support conversions

4) Online doesn't mean BTL activity and leads

5) It is foolish (sorry, no let-off here) in buying leads that you already have as a part of your universal database. Also, MBA applicants do not fill in leads. If they are interested to APPLY to you, then they will directly call or mail your team. They are smart people - in case you have forgotten

Imagine the following situation:

You have purchased 2,00,000 leads from a source (that includes all entrance tests data of that year), and have started calling these applicants through your counseling team.

Somewhere between 3001 and 3005, you wonder what is happening to the 5th person in the database you spoke to? What did that person do or where all did the person engage with your b-school's brand after that call/mail of yours? Has he been called by more b-schools in this interval? How are you going to arrest his exit from your system?

B-schools have forgotten what it means to have excellent marketing systems. Every year, they measure which particular channel gave them certain inputs/conversions and then spend a large sum of their money on that. The next year some other channel finds favour.

This happens because, b-schools dont bother to understand that marketing success (in this case the conversions) is always attributed to how the overall system functions, integrated by the usage of different channels (BTL as well as ATL).

Stop getting fooled and making a fool of yourselves. Get smarter and improve your team's potential to see, understand and implement important communications strategies that will help in getting more applications, and better branding for your college.

Leads don't give you conversions. They are just the beginning of a larger and complex process.