University of Arkansas at Little Rock Issues Marketing RFP

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) is seeking a comprehensive marketing program for the UALR Graduate School. They want a marketing company ywho can help them maximize the number of submitted applications from students whose achievements and interests mirror UALR’s graduate enrollment goals and objectives.

The UALR Graduate School seeks to increase enrollment through the increase of admission applications – and they feel that “the use of an outside vendor is especially critical in the current, highly competitive market of graduate education.”

In 2014, the Graduate School worked with an external vendor that almost doubled admission applications. The outside vendor designed web applications for both domestic and international students. The application streamlined the application process for prospective students and provided the vendor, and thus the Graduate School, with valuable data to use in shaping future marketing strategies. The vendor also designed marketing strategies targeted at specific groups of potential students using both paper and electronic communications formats with tailored follow-up communications. The result was an increase in graduate students that UALR seeks to continue.

Program design shall include the development, deployment, management, and analysis of a comprehensive communications campaign that will contact students whose achievements, characteristics and prior actions make them strong potential matches for the UALR Graduate School’s graduate programs.

At a minimum, the following shall be included in the proposed program:

• Targeting recommendations designed to obtain optimal results
• Strategic development of marketing campaign to include:

1. Messaging
2. Frequency of campaign – minimum of six (6) campaigns per calendar year
3. Interplay between paper (digital printing only – no printer’s ink on paper) and electronic media

• Production of printed materials (digital printing only – no printer’s ink on paper)
• Development and hosting of program responses sites
• Electronic-only fulfillment of responders to the Graduate Application Marketing Program
• Mailing and mail tracking
• Email deployment and delivery tracking
• Interim and final analyses including relevant data collected by the vendor from applications and marketing campaigns as defined by the Graduate School
• Ad hoc reports as requested by the Graduate School

The awarded vendor will be responsible for the development, hosting, management (including timely updates as required by policy and program changes) and analysis of the UALR Graduate School’s online graduate application.

The marketing RFP is due by March 10^th, 2016 and can be submitted via email to Mary Worthy at mdworthy@ualr.edu