Monday, May 28, 2012

What do B-schools across the world fail to communicate?

Let us consider (at the outset), that the applicant whom B-schools would want to admit in their program is a Buyer2.0 persona. That should define the way the applicant would search for information, make proper networks within the community, and look at specific communications to arrive at a conclusion (to apply for a certain program).

The trouble for b-schools can be represented in a dichotomy:
1) They don't understand the Buyer2.0 persona
2) They allocate too much "Air-time" for the kind of info that can be considered Junk

The first issue can probably be solved by the Admission teams by reading more literature and fine-tuning a pretty well integrated marketing strategy, but the core problem will lie in allocating space to the kind of content that will go out to these applicants.

According to formula based on user engagement, I find the following to be true:

User Acquisition = i x n x D x M

Wherein, "i" is the intention of the applicant, "n" is the urgent need, both being variables. The constants D and M are Demographics and Money respectively.

So for a larger user acquisition, one needs to improve the combination score of "i x n" at all times.
Let us see how we can Map the "intentions" with "needs" (of applicants) through the following strategy matrix:

Reference:
A = Low need, and low intent
B = High need, and low intent
C = Low need, and high intent
D = High need, high intent

There might be a factor of "time" (as a part of the communication process) to be considered by the b-school while allocating space for communication, but the deviation will be minimal.

Some examples of the categories for a b-school are:
A = LN+LI = Founding members; Board members; Infrastructure
B = HN+LI = Faculty profile; Accreditation; Pedagogy; Syllabus; Culture
C = LN+HI = Placements; Location;
D = HN+HI = Eligibility; Admit results; Batch profile; Alumni network

One can always look up the kind of communication space provided to the above factors in a b-school brochure. I went through some, and this is what I found (just going by the number of pages the content got in the brochure):
A = 20%
B = 40%
C = 25%
D = 15%

So for a novice, the user acquisition (for a b-school) would look something like:
UA = fn{20a,40b,25c,15d} x D x M

I believe that b-schools could do much better if they changed the way applicants (the Buyer2.0 persona) engaged with the info/content and then shared it with other like-minded people over the internet. At present the amount of content on most of the unnecessary stuff is a pile-on for all such applicants. The info worth going after is mostly 15%-40% of the overall communication. the irony is that most of the questions (~80%) that applicants have over the internet communities (for MBA) are related to a combination of C and D categories (ones that have high intent).

Now imagine a larger integrated & multi-channel marketing program of the b-schools with the right ingredients mixed in the right type of content (story, video, contests, etc) that will have the potential for better engagement and conversion of people from across the applicants population in the country. Such a program will allow for measuring the effectiveness of quality of communications rather than the channel they are using (since we know that for integrated systems, all systems will have to perform and one can't ever credit a single window to do the trick).

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