Assessing Market Potential in the Inquiry Pool. AIR Forum 1982 Paper [microform] / Robert Lay and Others.
The inquiry pool represented by prospective college applicants who seek information from the institution and a marketing response that has been implemented at Boston College are considered. It is suggested that researchers may trace specific individuals from the inquiry stage through application to...
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| Format: | Microfilm Book |
| Language: | English |
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1982.
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| Summary: | The inquiry pool represented by prospective college applicants who seek information from the institution and a marketing response that has been implemented at Boston College are considered. It is suggested that researchers may trace specific individuals from the inquiry stage through application to the final college choice. To benefit from an assessment of market potential in the inquiry pool, (1) the admissions office must have an information system that allows inquiries to be tracked from first contact to application; (2) the college must have a strong and consistent commitment to marketing and marketing research; and (3) a program must be established that integrates research procedures within a differentiated marketing strategy. Three marketing strategies from which the admissions office may choose to communicate with prospective applicants are considered: uniform, differentiated, and outreach. A full research program should address the following points: define the qualified inquiry; estimate the number of qualified inquiries among nonapplicants; calculate the degree of similarity between qualified nonapplicants and applicants; measure differences in the image of the college held by student subgroups; analyze why some qualified inquirers apply and others do not; identify major competitors for qualified prospective applicants; estimate the likelihood that qualified nonapplicants would matriculate if encouraged to apply; and evaluate the effectiveness of policy changes. The Automatic Interaction Detector (Sonquist, 1974) was employed to segment the pool of qualified Boston College inquiries according to prospective applicants' probability of applying. Two preliminary segmentation analyses were performed on the inquiry sample. (SW) |
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| Item Description: | ERIC Note: Paper presented at the Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research (22nd, Denver, CO, May 16-19, 1982). ERIC Document Number: ED220055. |
| Physical Description: | 40 p. |
| Reproduction Note: | Microfiche. |
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