Rajeev M Dhawan

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Successful Marketing of Research Centers

• Rajeev M Dhawan
• Director

Presented at the 58th AUBER Fall
Conference Tucson, Arizona October 19, 2004
Office 404-651-3291 email rdhawan_at_gsu.edu web
www.robinson.gsu.edu/efc
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Marketing of a Center

• Be in business, ala self-sufficiency
• Revenues strategies
• Message Consistency
• Analysis Targeting of Customers
• Get media profile
• --Loss leader strategy/products
• Media trips to DC, NY etc.
• Build bridges with academia
• Solely a function of your creativity

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Challenges of a Changing Revenue Model

• Unlike in the past, when data collection was
  costly and thus valuable to reprocess and sell by
  itself, the emphasis is now on the proprietary
  economic analysis and forecast that is sold to
  generate revenues as data has become a public
  commodity.
• Being a state university unit funded partially by
  tax dollars, there exists the expectation that
  the Centers products should be available
  free-of-charge. Thus, conferences and forecast
  booklets are considered by many to be a public
  good.
• Obtaining sponsorship funding, which forms the
  bulk of the Centers external revenues, depends
  critically on the external visibility of the
  Director, who happens to be the only economist on
  the team.

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EFC Marketing Strategies

• Create consistent marketing message
• Information
• Conferences (Qtr.)
• Forecast Booklets
• Website Presence

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EFC Marketing Strategies

• Analysis - Get to know your customers
• Categorize them
• Who buys our booklets and/or comes to our
  conferences?
• 75 businesses 
• 20 students/professors
• 5 press
• What size businesses?
• 45   small businesses
• 35   large public companies
• 5   medium-sized companies
• What Industries?
• 20   Education
• 15   Real Estate
• 10   Services
• 10   Government

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Other One person each from Engineering,
Hospitality, Insurance and n/a
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EFC Marketing Strategies

• Conference Preparation
• Brochures (4 weeks prior)
• Emails 1x/week (4 weeks prior)
• RA phone calls to Pay people in database
• 1,000 calls made over 3 weeks
• Success rate 1.1

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EFC Marketing Strategies

• Analysis - Get to Know Your Customers
• Track buyer behavior at conference
• 20 of people who register are no-shows
• 35 of comp people were no-shows
• 50 of students were no-shows
• 75 of audience has attended before
• Low booklet subscriber attendance
• Implement strategies
• No show problem
• Require comps to register online
• Inform students of 25 no-show charge
• Repeat attendees
• Call previous attendees from last two years to
  remind them
• Low booklet subscriber attendance
• Send letter about free conference ticket,
  follow-up call

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EFC Marketing Strategies

• Analysis - Get to know your customers
• Survey opinion of products
• Conference rating always high
• Rajeevs speech gets high marks
• Varying industry speakers a BIG plus
• But some problems revealed and addressed
• Want more QA
• Coffee area too crowded
• Make slides easier to read
• Give us color slides (no can do - but we will
  post online the day before for audience to print
  out in color)

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EFC Marketing Strategies

• Target Most Probable Clients
• Surprise Trial and Error
• Investment/Financial firm campaign disaster
• AUBER members ?
• Libraries and local government - success
• Methods
• Letters
• Follow-up RA phone call
• 2nd letter 3 months later
• Repeat conference customers
• Encourage to buy subscription

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Strategies to Achieve Fiscal Balance

• Sell more Center Products
• -Paying conference attendees
• -Forecast booklets
• 2. Raise price of products
• 3. Seek more Sponsorship/Corporate Funding

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Viability of Selling More/Raising Prices

• --Intense selling efforts have resulting in EFC
  now selling 25 more booklets compared to FY2001
• --Prices raised in Feb 2002, and then again in
  May 2004 total increase over 3 years of 100.
• --New paying customer attendance in last 2
  conferences has correspondingly declined in light
  of latest price increase
• Conclusion Raising prices no longer viable
  strategy. Forecast booklet and conference product
  now seem to be unit elastic (see chart on next
  page)

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Box Shows the 50 Drop of New Paying Customers
for the May August 2004 Conference Caused by
the Latest Price Hike
1st Price Hike
2nd Price Hike
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Sponsorship/CorporateDonation

• Sponsorship How you define it is critical. Pay
  according to ability is the key while also
  discriminating in services provided to them.
  Again, limits are there because of the public
  good perception and lack of resources.
• Corporate Donations The cost is loss of
  credibility with the media unless they are
  quiet ones like sponsorships. Also, any
  donation is a one time event and not a recurring
  revenue base. It will help but solve the problem.

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EFC Marketing Strategies
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EFC Review 2003

• Status/Achievements
• Data is collected consistently, with all 3
  forecasts booklets being published on time
• In 2003, the Director was awarded the University
  of Arizonas Most Accurate US Forecaster
• In 2003, FRB Atlanta acknowledged the Center as
  one of the most accurate in the Blue Chip Survey
• 100 corporations and various government agencies
  use the forecast for their strategic planning and
  budgeting needs
• Since FY2001, the Center has increased
  sponsorship revenues by 60, and overall revenues
  by 90 by initiating a price increase, as well as
  recruiting new clients.
• But, challenges remain due to the changing
  revenue model

• Core Goals
• Collect economic data at the national, regional
  and local economy levels
• Provide consistent analysis of economic data
• Produce timely economic forecast and analysis
  reports
• Increase sponsorship, subscription and paying
  conference attendees so that the Centers budget
  is self-sufficient

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EFC Review 2003

• Achievements
• 121 speeches
• 350 media quotes
• 190 TV and radio appearances
• Go-To guy for the AJC, CNN, local TV, NPR and
  Charlotte Radio
• Participate in 12 forecast surveys
• Center profile article in NABEs journal
• EFC_at_RCB brand is being built
• Member Governors Council of Economic Advisors
• 2 university sponsors - UCSB and UNO - use
  Centers forecast
• FRB Atlanta calls upon the Director frequently
  for speeches and advice
• Speeches for GSU Real Estate, RCB and Exec. Ed.
  Alumni

• Post-2001 Goals
• Enhance the visibility of the Center and Georgia
  State University
• Foster relationships with the FRB Atlanta, the
  Governors Office, other national business
  research centers and GSU alumni
• Increase exposure to local and national media
  outlets

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EFC Review 2003

• Post-2001 Goals
• Improve the quality and the attendance of the
  quarterly forecasting conferences
• Increase the interest and participation of
  Georgia State faculty at the conferences
• Improve the Centers web presence

• Achievements
• Wall Street style conference is in place with a
  multiple speaker format (both from the academic
  as well as the business community)
• Attendance is up 300 in last the 3 years - from
  70 to 200 75 attendees are from the business
  community AJC regularly covers the conference
  proceedings (front page news story in Aug 2003!)
• 12 GSU faculty from RCB and AYSPS have spoken at
  the conference. 1/4th of the audience is faculty,
  students and staff of GSU. The Chancellor himself
  has attended, President Patton attends
  frequently, Provost and the RCB Dean do opening
  welcome remarks on a regular basis
• From almost no presence in 2000, the fully
  developed website even allows people to register
  online for the conferences

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Proposed Solution for Fiscal Balance

• 1. Invest in a state-funded economist to assist
  in the following
• - Forecast Modeling
• - Global Productivity Developments
• - Local Demographic and Real Estate Trends
• - Analysis of Local City Budgets
• - Contract/Sponsor Requested Industry Analysis
• 2. Utilize freed up Directors time for
• corporate fund solicitation ()
• consulting ()
• contract research ()
• elevate national visibility for EFC, RCB and GSU
  (PRICELESS!!)