Blog June 10, 2019
For over 10 years, Interact’s Media Preferences survey (Media Prefs for the cool kids) has been tracking the media consumption habits of community college students across the nation. With nearly 30,000 community college student responses this year alone, Media Prefs has become an industry standard tool for community college marketers when it comes to media buying.
Why? Because it gives marketers like you the knowledge they need to make informed, strategic, and effective buying choices
“The Media Prefs surveys have helped me because I do social media, which is a big focus of my job,” says Kimberlee Lapray, Public Information Specialist at College of Southern Idaho. “Knowing which avenue or channel to use, how to use it, and who’s listening to it, is extremely important to me to make sure that I get the right message out to the right people.”
Having this research is, of course, great for you as a customer. It’s terrible for media buying companies who worry about colleges having access to this kind of data, however, because it means they can no longer sell their extra inventory or products that don’t get results. There’s nothing like an informed buyer to pour salt in an upsell!
The big question you’re probably asking is, “Will Media Prefs actually get my college results?”
MiraCosta College in San Diego provides an impressive example of the kind of impact Media Prefs can have, not only your marketing goals, but on the success of your institution as a whole.
When MiraCosta came to Interact, it had a clear intention: to improve the services it offered to its Hispanic students by securing special grant money from the U.S. Department of Education. To do this, it would need to achieve designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) by raising the enrollment of its Hispanic students by a whole 2 percent.
Driven by Interact’s Media Prefs research, ad time was purchased on regional radio stations and streaming services during the times when Hispanic prospects were most likely to be listening.
Did MiraCosta achieve its goal? Check out this post, Turning Up the Volume at Mira Costa College to find out.
Suffice it to say, access to this kind of data takes the power away from media companies and puts it back into your hands. It’ll also help you explain to your boss why spending 90% of your budget on newspapers is a bad idea!
If you’d like to learn more about Interact’s proprietary Media Prefs survey and how it can help you be more strategic and successful, contact Jamie Wagner at (608) 385-4844, or by email at jamie.wagner@interactcom.com.
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