Datamark and TARGUSinfo reportedly announced they have entered into contractual agreement to provide a melded solution that will integrate TARGUSinfo’s (News - Alert) ElementOne Analytics Platform into Datamark’s marketing products so that educational institutions find it easier and faster to attract, sign up and keep students through course completion.

“Establishing a connection with a prospective lead is one of the most difficult skills to accomplish for marketers,” said Tom Dearden, president and chief executive officer at Datamark. “Through our relationship with TARGUSinfo, we can leverage the most robust set of segmentation capabilities available for helping our clients target prospects more effectively and accurately.”

Company representatives have said the new solution will help universities all across the nation to have access to the robust and predictive segmentation capabilities. TARGUSinfo provides of On-Demand Insight about prospects and customers, and Datamark delivers direct response marketing applications for colleges, universities and proprietary post-secondary academic institutions.

Such Collaborative efforts, such as this one between TARGUSinfo and Datamark, are in keeping with one of the seven mantras of the time, which dictates that organizations must make serious efforts to reach out and work with each other. The seven guidelines for succeeding in current economic environment are collectively called the CES (News - Alert) 7 and were pronounced and initiated at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009.

“Without a doubt, the educational market continues to be one of the hottest industries demanding the utmost from its lead generation management,” said David Wengel, General Manager at TARGUSinfo. “We are pleased to be working with Datamark because they understand data-driven marketing and the importance of delivering the right knowledge at the right time to lower cost per enrolment.”

Officials at TARGUSinfo claim that their company’s on-demand solutions identify, verify, score and locate prospects and customers at the moment of contact, and therefore helps clients, in this case Universities, to increase revenue, create more satisfying experiences and produce savings from new efficiency.

“By using the ElementOne analytics platform, educational institutions can create custom segments based on the most accurate and reliable consumer information to leverage across their marketing channels – print, television, online, direct mail, and so on,” said Wengel.

President Barack Obama has waxed eloquent about the dire need for improving and restructuring the education system in the United States, and he has backed his statements by signing into law the ARRA, 2009 on February 17, 2009 and by allotting nearly one eighth of ARRA’s fund allocation, which is approximately $ 100 billion out of the grand total of $ 787 billion, for education and related scope of work.

“In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity - it is a pre-requisite,” said Obama on Feb. 24, 2009. “The countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”

Universities that may be short on budget and are interested in procuring this solution could attempt to avail some aspects of ARRA’s educational funds allocation programs.

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Vivek Naik is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Vivek's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Michael Dinan

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