From Motivation to Marketing: Leveraging Market Segmentation for Impact

Presented by Sam Martinez, Emory University’s Candler School of Theology

Recorded by Jennifer Mailey, MEd, Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine

Motivation marketing can be a powerful way to approach a successful recruitment strategy. Tailoring a marketing program based on the unique motivators discovered through data analysis, defining the needs and interests of your audience, and understanding the challenges of the market will help in building a solid communications plan. Market segmentation includes:

• Definition

• Challenges

• Data

• Results

Once common interests such as program interests, common values, location of audience (international & domestic), etc. are discovered you can better understand where to begin defining the motivation of the audience you want to recruit. Qualitative data can be discovered in the application through coding words and phrases and apply to trends worth following.

Motivation helps drive the conversation throughout the admissions cycle. Selling a vision of motivation through social media, video clips in program pages, alumni features, articles about students and graduates, your website, swag, and weaving it into your CRM “Drip Campaign” throughout your recruitment program will provide a consistent message based on your audience definition. This message should be woven throughout the recruitment process from prospect to applicant to matriculant. n