Sam Houston State University Issues Direct Marketing RFP

Sam Houston State University and the Sam Houston State University Enrollment Management Division, through this Request for Proposal, are seeking a qualified vendor(s) to provide complete and comprehensive direct marketing and enrollment management services to support recruitment of undergraduate and graduate constituencies.

Background:

For more than 137 years, Sam Houston State University has been preparing students for meaningful lives of achievement. Its motto, “The Measure of a Life is its Service,” echoes across SHSU’s seven colleges and beyond its Texas campus through student research, creative endeavors, service learning, volunteering and more.

Named for Sam Houston, Texas’ greatest hero, SHSU continually strives to honor its historical roots through academic excellence that includes exceptional teaching from faculty members who care as much about their students’ success as they do about furthering the knowledge of their fields.

While embracing its legacy, SHSU also strives to meet the needs of contemporary students, both traditional and online. With a variety of fully online undergraduate and graduate degrees and numerous certificates and certifications, all of which are taught by on-campus professors, SHSU Online has the option you’re looking for to reach your academic, personal, and professional goals.

SHSU offers over 80 bachelor’s degree programs, more than 50 master’s degree programs, and six doctoral programs, including nationally-recognized programs in Business, Fine Arts, Education, Mathematics and Criminal Justice. SHSU is classified as a “Doctoral Research University” by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education and was recently recognized by U.S. News and World Report for being among the best in the country for online graduate programs. In addition, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education classified SHSU as a “Community Engaged” university. This honor has been awarded to 311 public institutions nationwide and acknowledges the university’s significant commitment to serving the community.

Scope of Work:

Proposer’s Services, at a minimum, must contain the following core functions:

• Increasing the number of qualified prospects who express interest in attending the University;
• Increasing the number of right-fit non-resident enrolling students;
• Ensuring entering students are academically qualified to succeed at the University; and
• Increasing the number of right-fit graduate students,
• Optimization of Financial Aid practices and policies for students attending the university
• Feasibility to affect fall 2019 UG enrollment late in the cycle (March 2019 through August        2019)

Proposers should clearly specify the direct marketing strategies, techniques, expertise, and technological tools that will be used to meet the above-stated objectives.  Proposers should clearly outline their strategies and performance indicators that will allow SHSU to evaluate Proposers performance, Through this RFP, the University seeks evidence of the proposer’s experience providing enrollment management services that enable higher education institutions to achieve their student recruitment goals. Proposals should clearly articulate your firm’s capabilities in the following areas:

UNDERGRADUATE:

1. Identification of qualified high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors through the use of multiple channels of available “search” sources. Please clarify how your firm defines a Search responder.
2. Provision of direct marketing services including message development, publication design and creation, distribution management, digital strategy, communication planning, and tracking, and samples of marketing materials (print and digital) produced and used in the execution of prospective student recruitment campaigns at other higher education institutions.
3. Communications that are optimized for all devices including mobile phones, tablets, and laptops.
4. Dedicated parent efforts across campaigns designed to build an incremental parent pipeline and deepen engagement overall. Please clarify your parent response rate and enrollment rate for those students.
5. Development and delivery of online resources such as electronic inquiry forms and applications for admission. Both certified mobile friendly.
6. Evidence of assisting institutions with effective prospect funnel management from initiating student search, converting the prospects to inquiries, and inquiries to applicants by providing services that include: identifying and purchasing the names of prospective students from multiple channels and maintaining communication with prospective students to encourage them to inquire and apply for admission.
7. Infrastructure for supporting high school guidance counselors with document transfer to facilitate data collection and application completion.
8. The inclusion of technical support for automated daily data loads into our CRM.
9. Ability to create multiple loads for SIS & CRM.
10. Must be compliant with Texas Cyber Security Act.
11. Provide documentation for voluntary product accessibility template.
12. Programs that assess admitted-student opinion, including the intention to enroll.
13. Evidence that your company’s recruitment strategies attract best-fit students who are more likely to enroll, persist, and graduate. The ability to integrate student recruitment data with student retention data allowing for more informed counseling of students.
14. Development and delivery of analytical reports that demonstrate the effectiveness of direct marketing efforts as well as real-time campaign reporting that can be accessed by the University at any time.
15. Measure and analysis of the institution’s return-on-investment (ROI). Provide a minimum of three examples of significant ROI for schools of similar size, scope, and mission.

Due Date:

November 15th

Address:

https://bids.sciguest.com/apps/Router/PublicEvent?CustomerOrg=SamHoustonState

Zeno Group and Ketchum PR have relevant experience.