Minnesota State Colleges & Universities Issues Communications RFP

Minnesota State Colleges and Universities has issued an RFP for a full-scale communications campaign.

Background

Minnesota State Colleges and Universities is the seventh-largest system of higher education in the United States. It is comprised of 32 two-year and four-year state colleges and universities with 53 campuses located in 46 Minnesota communities. The System serves approximately 240,000 students annually in credit-based courses, an additional 130,000 students in non- credit courses, and produces 32,000 graduates each year. For more information about Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, view its website at www.mnscu.edu.

Nature of RFP

Winona State University is requesting proposals to enhance and expand existing recruitment and outreach to prospective students that enables university undergraduate and graduate programs to grow in size, quality, and diversity. The selected vendor will identify new recruitment lead generation activities; student engagement strategies and communication campaigns for an educational institution with quality academic and co-curricular programming.

Winona State University is a comprehensive, regional public university with over 8,000 students. The oldest member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, Winona State offers 80 undergraduate, pre-professionals, licensure and graduate programs on its three campuses: the original Main Campus in Winona, the West Campus in Winona, and Winona State University-Rochester Center. For more information about Winona State University view its website at http://www.winona.edu.

Scope:

1. Recruitment: Increase new entering students growth through 2025 with yield enhancement strategies:
   • Include high achieving new students from diverse ethnic and socio- economic backgrounds
   • Develop and manage inquiry pool
   • Track conversion yield to increase enrollment
   • Conduct targeted recruitment for designated programs and majors with capacity for growth
   • Reach new freshmen and transfer students to increase enrollment on both campuses (Winona and Winona-Rochester)
   • Increase the number of new international student
2. Engagement: Search and application campaigns with a focus on students and parents’ engagement in the process.
   • Create a comprehensive recruitment campaign for the Fall and Spring entering classes beginning with the Fall 2018 cohort.
   • Fully integrate across all social media and response platforms to include web, mail and email
   • Track data of each response channel’s performance
   • Parent engagement in search and application marketing campaigns
   • Build and enhance brand recognition for Winona State University in international markets
   • Outreach campaign – based on niche market characteristics
3. Communication Campaign: Communications optimized for mobile devices including mobile phones, tablets and laptops.
   • Produce and deploy online data tracking of each response channel’s performance with response break down direct mail, email, social media platforms, etc.
   • Increase customized communication with target audiences at various points in the recruitment process
   • Identify search fulfillment communication strategies for new freshmen, transfer, non-traditional and graduate students
4. Professional analysis of results and make recommendations for improvements throughout the campaign
   Measurement Metrics: Measure Return on Investment(ROI) and Return on Impact with examples of both:
   • Facilitate a data-informed process for comprehensive student recruitment, engagement and communication campaigns
   • Measure impact of campaigns on enrollment growth and net tuition revenue
   • Build and provide routine responsive cohort reports with description of the results of the campaign by list resource, ethnicity, geographic origin to include zip code + 4
   • Identify intervention strategies at different points in the recruitment process to illustrate conversion and yield rates

Proposal due by Tuesday, March 21, 2017 to:
Laura Mann
Purchasing Director
106D Somsen Hall, PO Box 5838, Winona MN 55987
507.457.5069
507.457.5598
E-mail address: lmann@winona.edu

Padilla-CRT is a strong Minnesota based PR firm.