As you might know, I conducted an online survey a couple of months ago to assess the state of print and electronic publications in higher ed.
This was an updated version of a previous survey I did in the summer of 2007.
A total of 198 professionals working in institutions representing more than 2.3 million students completed this survey from January 29 to February 17, 2009.
The survey was completed by people working in marketing/communications (66%), web (7%) and other offices. 38% of the respondents indicated working in private non-profit 4-year colleges, 42% in 4-year public colleges and 6% in public 2-year colleges. The average student population across the data amounts to 11,936 students vs. 15,405 in 2007.
I’ve shared the 7-page executive summary with the respondents, but thought you might all be interested in the following high level findings:
There is a significant budgetary shift towards electronic publications: institutions with growing electronic budgets outnumber those with growing print budgets in the last 2 years— 42% responding note increasing electronic publications budgets while the same is true for only 27% of print. Note that in 2007 the percentages were 44% and 36%, respectively.
82% of survey respondents (vs 77% in 2007) state that their institutions are relying more on electronic publications (Web, blog, email, PDF, RSS, etc) to reduce the budget of print publications.
While the majority of the publications produced by surveyed institutions are primarily available in both print and electronic formats, there is a significant trend across most publications to have them in electronic format only.
- The main publication types showing this trend are: Newsletter (43% vs 29% in 2007), Press Kits (21% vs 10%), Financial Aid Handbook (19% vs 8%) and Student Handbook (25% vs 18%).
- Viewbook (40% print only) remains the only publication primarily available in print only. The Annual Report (34%) and the Admission/Search Brochure (31%) also show significant print only percentages.
Just like the 2007 survey showed, news-oriented publications as well as publications targeted to current students are the most transferable ones to electronic only according to survey respondents, and publications targeted to donors and alums as well as admissions marketing pieces seem to be the least transferable. However, for most publications, except Viewbook, there are on average 8% more respondents who think they can be transferred to electronic only.
40% of respondents on average across all publications types have started moving towards replacing print publications with electronic publications. This trend is most pronounced for Campus News (64%), Campus Calendar of Events (57%) and Newsletters (55%)
If you’d like to get a copy of the 7-page executive summary including charts, just post a comment below. I’ll email everybody early next week.