BUSINESS SCHOOLS MARKETING BENCHMARK REPORT 2021

BUSINESS SCHOOLS

MARKETING BENCHMARK REPORT 2021COVERING DATA FROM JANUARY – DECEMBER 2020

Your School is Great – Why Doesn’t Everyone Know?Working with higher education clients for 23 years

Over 120 higher education clients

• Complete website redesigns – discovery, design, development

• Digital marketing – paid search, digital ads, landing pages, SEO

• Enrollment marketing – email, Slate/Salesforce

• Measurement – web analytics and predictive models

OVERVIEW OHO INTERACTIVE

© 2020 OHO Interactive

Jason SmithFounder & Managing Director

[email protected]

Twitter: @jason_smith


© 2020 OHO Interactive

TODAY’S SPEAKER

mailto:[email protected]

AD COPY & DESIGN

— THE LIST

Marketing Benchmark ReportThis benchmarking report is based on an analysis and review of the digital marketing spend and traffic generation strategies of the 94 business schools listed on the Bloomberg Businessweek list of top business schools 2019-2020.

Using web-based audit and analysis tools, we analyzed the organic search value generated by each website, and we analyzed the advertising spend for paid search.

We reviewed the main website for the school and specific sites and landing pages based on data collected between January 1 and December 31, 2020.


© 2020 OHO Interactive – ADVANCE COPY

https://www.bloomberg.com/business-schools/

AD COPY & DESIGN

— RESEARCH APPROACH

Research Approach• Conducted using a third-party tool that reverse engineers Google traffic and

CPC estimates

• The CPC estimated costs were calibrated against actual spend data to produce a more accurate result.

• Attempts were made to identify all landing pages for PPC advertising – the business school website, stand-alone landing pages, and web pages set up by OPM partners.

• Some business school websites are integrated into the main website in a way that we cannot accurately assess organic traffic or separate out paid search traffic for just business schools. These schools were excluded from the results.



AD COPY & DESIGN

— ORGANIC SEARCH

Why Organic Search Matters.Business schools websites that generate valuable traffic with organic search do so by publishing content that is widely searched by a broad audience. Why does producing value from organic search matter? 1. Prospective students from organic channels are more engaged and more likely to convert. 2. Strong organic results can provide savings on paid campaigns. If you can generate traffic

from organic search, you don’t have to pay for digital advertising.3. Producing valuable content that ranks in search builds your brand.

ORGANIC SEARCH OHO INTERACTIVE


Organic Search Value



LOTS OF KEYWORDSTHAT PEOPLE WILL PAY MONEY FOR

Determining Organic Search ValueThe dollar value is calculated by taking the keywords that are generating organic traffic and multiplying them by the cost it would take to purchase a click from these keywords through paid search.



“Healthcare MBA”

720 Search/month

10% #2 rank in Google Search

72Clicksmonth

$45Cost-Per-Click

$3,240Est. Value of Organic Search

X= =

Example: Chicago Booth



keyword: “business school in chicago”

50 Search/month

10% #2 rank in Google Search

5Clicksmonth

$25Cost-Per-Click

$125Est. Value of Organic Search

X= =

CHICAGO BOOTH IS IN THE #2 SLOT

4 Categories of Search Terms


Includes variation of school name.

BrandSpecific program – usually includes location.

Program

An article that is topical, but could be of interest to a wide audience.

Interest© 2020 OHO Interactive – ADVANCE COPY

Specific term, program, article that does not contribute to recruitment.

$0 Value

Program-Based SEO



4 PAID ADS

#1 ORGANIC PAGE

PROGRAM PAGESTOP SEO PRIORITY FROM

A LEAD AND BUDGET PERSPECTIVE

Interest – Content Marketing



RANKS 5TH FOR “BAIL OUT”

1,900 SEARCHES/MONTH

Program + Content Marketing



PROGRAM:40 KEYWORDS$4,145/MONTH

CONTENT MARKETING3 ARTICLES

45 KEYWORDS$10,500/MONTH

Brand



#1 LINK

#2 LINK

BRANDED SEARCHES ARE MORE FREQUENT DURING

TRANSACTION STEPS.

The .edu advantageThe .edu advantage: Google automatically gives websites with a .edu domain a high-level of trust and credibility. Whereas, .com or .org websites need to build credibility, Google endows .edu sites with instant credibility. This advantage means that schools can more rapidly see results from organic search optimization efforts.



Organic Search ValueWe were able to isolate and to assess the Organic Search Value generated by 78 of the 94 business school websites.

This benchmark ranks business school websites by the quality of traffic (measured in dollars) the schools are able to generate from Google search results.


12 schools are generating less than $100/month in value from organic search traffic

36 schools are generating between $100-$1000/month in value from organic search traffic

3 schools are generating organic search traffic valued at over $20,000 per month or $240,000 per year.

12 36 $20K+

© 2021 OHO Interactive | www.oho.com

http://www.oho.com

Best Organic Search – Top 10 SchoolsThese business schools are generating significant, high-value organic traffic from their website. How? First, by optimizing their degree and certificate pages to be properly crawled, indexed, and ranked by Google. Second, by writing high-value content that users are searching for on Google. Third, keeping their content and site systems up-to-date.


1. Harvard Business School2. Chicago – Booth3. Stanford4. MIT Sloan 5. Houston Bauer 6. NYU – Stern 7. Vanderbilt – Owen8. USC – Marshall9. Northwestern - Kellogg10. CUNY/Baruch – Zicklin

Rankings: Organic Search Value Generated


No. Business School Value/Month 1st Page Keywords

1 Harvard $61,732 3,102

2 Chicago – Booth $39,111 847

3 Stanford $21,927 785

4 MIT – Sloan $18,533 373

5 Houston – Bauer $13,633 579

6 NYU – Stern $13,332 680

7 Vanderbilt – Owen $8,640 867

8 USC – Marshall $8,263 323

9 Northwestern – Kellogg $7,341 736

10 CUNY/Baruch – Zicklin $6,458 174

11 Rice – Jones $6,102 189

12 Columbia $5,262 588

13 Hult $3,895 274

14 Arizona – Eller $3,699 277

15 North Carolina – Kenan-Flagler

$3,123 159


16 Rutgers $2,945 269

17 Yale – SOM $2,596 293

18 Texas at Austin – McCombs $2,518 350

19 Texas A&M – Mays $2,137 238

20 Auburn – Harbert $1,988 54

21 UPenn – Wharton $1,671 126

22 Cornell – Johnson $1,616 128

23 Maryland – Smith $1,423 104

24 Indiana – Kelley $1,350 202

25 Georgia Tech – Scheller $1,226 123

26 Florida Int’l – Chapman $1,179 212

27 Babson - Olin $1,115 289

28 Georgetown – McDonough $1,058 98

29 Minnesota – Carlson $1,049 147

30 UC Berkeley $1,032 185© 2021 OHO Interactive | www.oho.com

http://www.oho.com




31 Washington – Foster $967 204

32 Texas-Dallas – Jindal $952 98

33 Cincinnati – Lindner $894 78

34 Florida – Hough/Warrington $860 135

35 Pepperdine – Graziadio $859 131

36 Virginia – Darden $776 57

37 Kentucky – Gatton $638 49

38 UCLA – Anderson $631 199

39 UC at Davis $611 48

40 Emory – Goizueta $581 68

41 Miami $547 132

42 Notre Dame – Mendoza $545 59

43 Michigan – Ross $492 185

44 Duke – Fuqua $477 84

45 Wisconsin $405 89


46 Arizona State – Carey $366 201

47 Georgia – Terry $362 89

48 Purdue – Krannert $362 86

49 Ohio State – Fisher $333 112

50 Washington U in St. Louis – Olin $319 91

51 Texas Christian – Neeley $307 26

52 Syracuse – Whitman $285 30

53 Northeastern – D'Amore-McKim $244 66

54 Pittsburgh – Katz $243 57

55 Tulane – Freeman $236 25

56 UC at San Diego – Rady $231 58

57 Utah – Eccles $212 110

58 Connecticut $210 26

59 Penn State – Smeal $180 47

60 Case Western Reserve $167 36© 2021 OHO Interactive | www.oho.com

http://www.oho.com




61 RIT – Saunders $141 59

62 SUNY Buffalo $140 73

63 UC at Irvine – Merage $137 48

64 Michigan State – Broad $128 83

65 George Washington $127 96

66 Boston College – Carroll $111 6

67 Oregon – Lundquist $61 47

68 Denver – Daniels $60 84

69 William and Mary – Mason $59 14

70 Tennessee – Haslam $53 27

71 North Carolina State – Jenkins $48 39

72 Dartmouth Tuck $43 5

73 Missouri – Trulaske $38 24

74 Rochester – Simon $21 61

75 Brigham Young – Marriott $1 39


76 Howard $0 6

77 South Carolina – Darla Moore $0 4

78 Mississippi $0 4


For the following schools, we were unable to isolate traffic just to the business schools:• American – Kogod• Baylor – Hankamer• Bentley• Boston University – Questrom• Brandeis• Carnegie Mellon – Tepper• Colorado at Boulder – Leeds• Fordham – Gabelli• Hofstra – Zarb• Oklahoma – Price• Southern Methodist – Cox• Tampa – Sykes• Texas Tech – Rawls• University of Charleston• University of San Diego• Willamette – Atkinson

http://www.oho.com

AD COPY & DESIGN

— PAID SEARCH

This media spend does not include other digital display, retargeting, or social media advertising campaigns – just PPC advertising on search engines.

Paid Search CampaignsBased on the 69 business schools that we were able to evaluate, these schools spent:

PAID SEARCH OHO INTERACTIVE

Over $16 million on paidsearch campaigns in 2020


http://www.oho.com

Paid Search CampaignsWe were able to assess the Paid Search Campaigns were run by 69 of the 94 business schools between January 1 and December 31, 2020.


Of business schools did not spend on paid search

Estimated average monthly paid search spend per business school

There are 3 primary target audiences for the advertising: on-campus MBA, online MBA, and executive education.

10% $19.5K 3


http://www.oho.com

Paid Search CampaignsDetermining exact spends for paid search campaigns is challenging because Google Adwords is a bidding-based platform so prices fluctuate. We excluded the 7 business schools with $0 investments. This resulted in 62 business schools with paid search campaigns running between January 1 and December 31, 2020. We assessed their relative paid search spends and divided these 62 schools into quartiles.


1st Quartile

62nd Quartile

103rd Quartile

214th Quartile

25SCHOOLS SCHOOLS SCHOOLS SCHOOLS


http://www.oho.com

2020 Spend by QuartileWhen we look at the data by month, we see a pull-back in spending in March (likely related to the pandemic), and a drop off in July with the start of the new fiscal year.



$0

$50,000

$100,000

$150,000

$200,000

January February March April May June July August September October November December

1st Quartile 2nd Quartile 3rd Quartile 4th Quartile

Aver

age

Mon

thly

PPC

Spen

d

http://www.oho.com

Rankings: First Quartile


No. Business School

1 Harvard

2 Syracuse – Whitman

3 Fordham – Gabelli

4 Notre Dame – Mendoza

5 Chicago – Booth

6 MIT – Sloan

Each school spent between $700K and $2.4 million on paid search ads in 2020.

The majority of Harvard’s spend is focused on executive education and online programs.

Average monthly spend per school: $104K


http://www.oho.com

Spend Distribution: First Quartile



Together, these 6 schools spent $7.5 million on paid search campaigns in 2020. This is the only quartile with a steady trend line.

$0

$250,000

$500,000

$750,000

$1,000,000


http://www.oho.com

Rankings: Second Quartile


No. Business School

7 Pepperdine – Graziadio

8 Florida International – Chapman

9 Yale – SOM

10 Purdue – Krannert

11 Michigan – Ross

12 Northwestern – Kellogg

13 NYU – Stern

14 Rice – Jones

15 Miami

16 CUNY Baruch – Zicklin

Each school in this quartile spentbetween $300K and $600K in 2020.

The estimated average annual spend per school in this quartile was $463K.



http://www.oho.com

Spend Distribution: Second Quartile



In total, these 10 schools spent $4.6 million on paid search campaigns in 2020, and, as a group, they reduced media spend in the second half of the year.

$0

$150,000

$300,000

$450,000

$600,000


http://www.oho.com

Rankings: Third Quartile


No. Business School

17 Indiana – Kelley

18 Howard

19 Wisconsin

20 UC at Davis

21 George Washington

22 Oregon – Lundquist

23 Babson – Olin

24 North Carolina – Kenan-Flagler

25 Columbia

26 Duke – Fuqua

27 Washington U in St. Louis – Olin

28 UCLA – Anderson

29 Denver – Daniels

30 Arizona – Eller

31 Hult

No. Business School

32 Emory – Goizueta

33 Hofstra – Zarb

34 Virginia – Darden

35 USC Marshall

36 Houston – Bauer

37 Texas at Austin – McCombs

The estimated average annual spend per school in this quartile was $164K.



http://www.oho.com

Spend Distribution: Third Quartile



In total, these 21 schools spent $3.54 million on paid search campaigns in 2020.

$0

$125,000

$250,000

$375,000

$500,000


http://www.oho.com

Rankings: Fourth Quartile


No. Business School

38 Auburn – Harbert

39 Rutgers

40 Stanford

41 Cornell – Johnson

42 Utah – Eccles

43 Ohio State – Fisher

44 Texas A&M – Mays

45 Case Western Reserve – Weatherhead

46 Oklahoma – Price

47 Vanderbilt – Owen

48 Washington – Foster

49 Boston College – Carroll

50 Minnesota – Carlson

51 Tennessee – Haslam

52 Texas Christian – Neeley

No. Business School

53 RIT – Saunders

54 UC at Irvine – Paul Merage School of Business

55 Georgetown – McDonough

56 Michigan State – Broad

57 South Carolina – Darla Moore

58 Arizona State – Carey

59 Maryland – Smith

60 Texas Tech – Rawls

61 Georgia – Terry

62 Florida – Hough/Warrington

The schools in this quartile spent an average of $2,000 per month in 2020.


MASTERS IN MARKET RESEARCH

http://www.oho.com

Spend Distribution: Fourth Quartile



In total, these 25 schools spent $577K on paid search campaigns in 2020. The spending patterns for the schools in this quartile is much more irregular.

$0

$20,000

$40,000

$60,000

$80,000


http://www.oho.com

Why Paid Search Matters.Simply put, paid search campaigns typically target users with a high-degree of intent to purchase.

These ads are targeted based on key words or phrases such as “online MBA program near me” or “MBA accounting degree.” The specificity of the search makes the user a more qualified lead.

The challenge is that paid search campaigns can be expensive with the cost-per-click ranging from $45 – $85/click, and that’s just to get someone to look at your website, not to give you a name, email address or phone number.



Beyond Paid Search.But there are other options.

LinkedIn campaigns can be very effective in reaching prospective business students.

Specialty websites for MBA students, email, and niche websites provide lower cost opportunities for reaching well-qualified prospects with intent to purchase.



Next Steps1. Come up with some ideas

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Head to Head Competitor AnalysisLooking for more information about your competitors?

We’re providing a free competitor analysis for two of your competitors plus a 30-minute presentation of the results.

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Web + Digital Marketing for Higher EducationOHO helps ambitious, forward-looking marketers maximize their investments in digital to elevate their school’s prestige and recruit the students they need.

How Can We Help You?

OHO [email protected]

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BUSINESS SCHOOLS MARKETING BENCHMARK REPORT 2021

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