The success of any marketing campaign depends upon a number of important variables. Here are seven variables for boosting your marketing campaign response rates provided by Ralph Elliott, Clemson University Professor of Economics and Vice Provost, Office of Off-Campus, Distance and Continuing Education.

How strong of a database of prospects do you have? This variable can have the most significant impact on your marketing efforts and can potentially increase your response rates by a factor of nine, says Elliott. There are two broad categories: internal and external databases.

Typically an internal database is comprised of past customers, individuals who have inquired about your program, and people who have been referred to you by others, such as existing students. It’s important to get permission from each group to be in the database and to find out their preferred method of communication, i.e., e-mail, fax, direct mail, etc. When an individual comes to your Web site or receives a mail piece, have them fill out a form that asks how they would like to be communicated with in the future.

Elliott also suggests that you segment your database and use a strategy called recentness, frequency and monetary value (RFM) analysis. For example, a customer who has recently taken a course is theoretically a better prospect to take another course than someone who took a course several years ago. Individuals who frequently take courses are typically better prospects than those who have taken courses periodically. The monetary analysis is how much a customer has spent. "The point is you use RFM analysis to find the segments of your database that are most responsive, and then you allocate your marketing dollars to those segments that offer the greatest potential lifetime value," says Elliott.

These are lists of names and addresses that Elliott recommends you purchase from a reliable list broker to compliment your internal database. There are basically two types: compiled lists and response lists. Compiled lists are the least expensive but they are typically listings of people that have never indicated any particular interest in education. Response lists, on the other hand, can be listings of subscribers to a particular publication, or members of an association, or people who attended an educational event. Response lists cost in the range of $100 to $150 per thousand.

The most effective external databases, and most expensive, are response opt-in e-mail lists, which cost in the range of $200 to $300 per thousand. These are e-mail lists of people who may, for instance, have indicated through another promotion that they are interested in obtaining more information about business education.

"You might say your goal is to create an irresistible offer," says Elliott, who divides this variable into two categories, inquiry generators and closing the sale.

With inquiry generators your task is to make your promotion customer friendly, meaning applying simple techniques, such as providing plenty of response options (postage-paid reply cards, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, fax number, etc). Also, supplying the name of the person they need to respond to is important. Secondly, you need to create a sense of urgency, which could be a deadline for registering for a class with a limited enrollment. Third, you need to offer an incentive to respond. Some typical incentives include offering a free book or report to those who respond within a certain time period.

With regard to closing the sale, Elliott explains that you must provide sufficient information. "Describe the offer in adequate detail to encourage the person to buy. If you don’t want to provide all that information inside the promotional medium you are using, you can offer a click-through option to a Web site that provides additional information."

This is an area that distance education departments typically have little, if any, control. Nonetheless, some strategies used typically in non-credit offerings include offering early-bird discounts or team discounts.

Concerning the price of your marketing efforts, Elliott says "20 percent of your expected revenue should be allocated to your up-front marketing and promotion costs."

This variable deals with the information you provide about your courses. Generally speaking, you want to have a benefit-oriented title for your course, especially if it’s a non-credit course. It’s also important

to provide a detailed course description. Another program component is a guarantee or personal pledge from a department chair that addresses your institution’s commitment to quality.

Make sure your e-mail or snail-mail promotions arrive on a Tuesday and not on a Monday or the first day after a holiday or break period. The best month to promote is January because it’s a new year and people are making plans for their education, says Elliott. September is another good month "because people’s minds often turn to education in the Fall." Additionally, make sure your promotion reaches your prospects well in advance, typically 10 to 12 weeks prior to the course start date, so there is enough time for them to make application and enrollment decisions.

The format of your advertising is an important variable. For e-mail promotions Elliott suggests using html instead of text because statistics show that html e-mail garners higher click-through rates than text-based e-mail. He also suggests that you incorporate a tracking scheme into your e-mail promotion, such as a link to a specific Web page that allows you to count visitors. Other factors to consider include providing an opt-out statement; incorporating a viral marketing technique, whereby you encourage people to email your promotion to their colleagues or friends; and having a strong privacy statement. "All of these will increase the success of your e-mail campaign," Elliott claims.

For direct snail mail, a marketing piece inside an envelope will generally outperform a self mailer; large envelopes and large brochures outperform smaller ones; and personalized promotions outperform mass promotions. Sometimes a teaser on the outside of the envelope, briefly detailing what’s inside, will lift a response rate. Again, some sort of tracking scheme should be utilized inside your direct mailers, such as a priority code.

With regard to space ads, "80 percent read the headline and 20 percent read the copy," says Elliott. Generally, larger ads outperform smaller ads, although a series of smaller ads can be better than one large ad. Also, ads on the right side of a page typically outperform ads on the left side of a page. Elliott also advises to try to place ads on days when a publication has the lowest concentration of total ads.

Says Elliott: "Use ‘you’ copy versus ‘we’ copy. Active voice outperforms passive voice. Directed copy is much stronger than feeling copy. And don’t’ forget the fog index. If your sentences are more than 14 words long, you have foggy copy. If you have left or right justified copy, you have foggy copy (use ragged right). Do not have more than seven lines per paragraph. Indent your sentences and put your copy in columns. Long copy will outperform short copy when you are trying to sell, but short copy will outperform long copy when you are trying to produce an inquiry."

At the end of the day it takes the resources of a talented marketing team to put all seven variables into effect. "If you say I can’t get anything done because I don’t have the support (which is not uncommon at many distance education departments), you’ll never get anything done," says Elliott. "You have to sort out what the economics of taking action might be. If by doing better tracking or better database selection you are able to increase revenue, then you might be better off outsourcing some support to get the job done. If you are demonstrating that you are going to make an improvement in the income stream, then you have a justification for getting additional support."