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AUDITS

One Step Back, Full Steam Ahead
Too often, when you're invested in and passionate about your institution, you can lose sight of essential truths and potential opportunities. Sometimes you need to take a step back and look at the challenges you face with a fresh set of eyes. Stamats can help you identify your strengths, weaknesses, and competitive advantages through our comprehensive audits and assessments. You'll discover what you are doing right and what you can do better, so that you can move your institution ahead with renewed perspectives and invaluable insights.

Click on the links below for a detailed description of the audits and assessments Stamats most commonly conducts:

Academic Program Marketability Audit
Advancement Audit
Marketing/Communication Audit
Campus Visit Audit
Competitive Positioning Audit
Financial Aid Audit
Recruiting Audit
Retention Audit
Tuition Pricing Elasticity Study
Interactive Assessments

The Academic Program Marketability Audit helps you determine which of your academic programs are of most interest to prospective students, which programs you should consider adding to your curriculum, and which programs you might consider de-emphasizing. Using primary research directed at prospective students and looking at both regional employment data and academic programs offered by competitors, the academic program marketability audit is an essential first step in a segmented recruiting strategy, an extraordinarily powerful marketing tool.

The Advancement Audit is a customized and comprehensive analysis of how effectively you establish and maintain relationships with key external and internal audiences for the purpose of raising dollars, building understanding and support, and advancing your institution's mission. It includes an assessment of alumni relations; annual fund design and support; capital campaign design and support; deferred giving, planned giving, and estate planning; communications/public relations/marketing activities; advancement services (database management, prospect research, and other support); as well as general organization, staffing, and funding.

The Marketing/Communication Audit examines how well you communicate to prioritized internal and external audiences. We evaluate your marketing communication efforts against a three-tiered model that addresses strategy, organization, and message. We also examine the resources—people, dollars, technology—that support your marketing communication efforts. The result is systematic look at your internal and external communication efforts that begins with strategy and moves through such tactics as publications, direct mail, advertising, the Web, and other media.

The Campus Visit Audit is a comprehensive review of your institution's total campus visit program for traditional students. Designed to evaluate open houses, and smaller segmented visits, the audit focuses on the three elements:
(1) pre-visit prospect identification and communication; (2) on-campus visit experience; and (3) post-visit follow-up and keep-hold strategies.

The Competitive Positioning Assessment determines how your institution is perceived by prospective students and compared with other colleges and universities. Using both primary and secondary research, this assessment helps you determine your position in the marketplace; perceptions of your institution as compared with your peer, competing, and aspirant institutions; and how you can more effectively position your institution.

The Financial Aid Audit involves a review of your financial aid strategies, practices, and procedures. It pays special attention to how aid is determined, packaged, and communicated. We also examine staffing, staff training, customer service, and other elements of a successful financial aid operation.

The Recruiting Audit is a review of your undergraduate or adult recruiting strategies. As part of the audit, we evaluate your recruiting goals, budget, staffing (size, usage, training), territory management, and campus visit strategy. We also look at the timing and sequencing of all your funnel contacts, including message and audience segmentation, direct mail (postal and e-mail) usage, Web strategy, and telemarketing. Finally, we look at how you communicate financial aid.

The Retention Audit focuses on both recruitment-and retention-related activities to define how students' expectations are being met. It includes reviews of the recruitment funnel and motivations that move a prospective student from the pre-inquiry stage to matriculant, as well as strategies and activities that ensure students achieve their academic and/or personal goals.

The Tuition Pricing Elasticity Study is a powerful research tool that allows you to examine the price and attribute trade-offs that prospective students and their parents make when choosing a college or university. Our study establishes price sensitivity and elasticity models for your institution to determine the impact, both positive and negative, of different tuition levels on enrollment. We identify the importance students and parents place on price, as well as other college-choice characteristics. And, we assess the importance of your brand equity in the college-choice process.

Stamats' Interactive Assessments help you assess what's working on your Web site, what's not working, and what essential functions your site might be lacking. We provide several different interactive assessments, including Web Site Consultation, Interactive Audit, Content Management System (CMS) Consultation, and Usability Testing.