Founded in 1934, MiraCosta College has a long history of providing the residents of San Diego, California, with the education they need to make their career and life goals a reality. Even though it boasts a reputation as one of the best transfer institutions in San Diego, MiraCosta has never been content to rest on its laurels.
 
When MiraCosta came to Interact, it had a clear goal: to improve the services it offered to its Hispanic students by securing special grant money from the U.S. Department of Education. To do this, it would need to achieve designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) by showing that 25% of its students were Hispanic.
 
Despite San Diego’s close socio-economic ties to Mexico and MiraCosta’s already large Hispanic student population, MiraCosta was still 2% shy.
 
So how does an institution raise the enrollment of such a specific demographic without spending a million bucks?
 
Well, you can’t… unless you use Interact’s proprietary Media Preference’s Survey.

Striking the Right Chord

For nearly 15 years, Interact’s proprietary Media Preferences survey has tracked and recorded the media consumption habits of community college students across the country. When colleges subscribe, their own students become part of the survey, giving institutional stakeholders the power to identify not only what their various student populations listen to, but where and when they listen.
 
Not a bad tool if you want your message to actually get to its intended audience.
 
Interact & MiraCosta @ Work…

• Media Prefs: MiraCosta accessed its regional data using the Media Prefs online interface where it filtered data, generated reports, analyzed the media consumption habits of its target demographic, and ultimately decided to focus its marketing dollars on one television and one radio station.
• Media Buys: Driven by Interact’s Media Prefs research, ad time was purchased on regional radio stations and streaming services during the times when Hispanic prospects were most likely to be listening.

Music to Our Ears
After just one semester of targeted marketing, MiraCosta exceeded the 25% threshold it needed to achieve HSI status.
 
As MiraCosta’s Superintendent and President, Francisco Rodriguez (now chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District) put it: “The information we needed to make smart and timely decisions was right there in the graphs. Media Prefs was an insightful tool that assisted us in allocating resources and ultimately made a difference in us becoming an HSI.”
 
If you’d like to learn more about Interact’s proprietary Media Preferences Survey or how Interact can help make sure your college’s marketing materials sound and look great, contact Jamie Wagner at (608) 385-4844, or by email at jamie.wagner@interactcom.com.