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| Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter |
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1 April 2008 Greetings on a beautiful spring day in northern California. As you read this, a three day tour of “Writing Right for the Web” workshops between now and Thursday is starting at UC Davis. Interest in how better writing improves website engagement remains marvelously strong, three years after the debut of this presentation. Last Tuesday’s online Web conference for Academic Impressions registered a record 141 institutions, followed by an on-campus session at Fordham University on Thursday. What’s the marketing importance? People are recognizing that effective online communication is critical to the overall success of their marketing plans. And that can’t happen without improving the way we write and present website content. If you’re just getting started on web writing, visit Jakob Nielsen’s “writing for the web” page at www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/ for a variety of old and new reports. If you’re staffing web writing positions on your campus, review the position descriptions at bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/web_editor_descriptions/. And now for this month’s marketing news and tips. Easy Online Scholarship Estimator It isn’t nearly universal yet, but more colleges are letting parents and future students get important information online: what amount of scholarship help will you give me at your school? If they like what they see, they are more likely to visit your campus and to apply for admission. Wilkes University is the latest one I’ve tried. In just a few minutes you can use the “Freshmen Scholarship Calculator” to learn how much merit aid you might receive. The university asks for your SAT score results and skips your GPA. Visitors have the opportunity to fill in their complete address, but are only required to give name and phone number. Visit www.wilkes.edu/pages/570.asp and see how it works. To compare with six other scholarship and cost estimators, visit my blog listing here. From a marketing perspective, let’s hope that standard treatments of financial aid and scholarships are jpined soon by more examples like these. The Power of “3” in Email Marketing Email remains highly popular with Internet users, but it also continues to suffer from the flood of email arriving in online mailboxes each day. Don’t just think “spam.” Think of the total from “worthy” sources that add up to a reading challenge no matter how serious the email. That’s why your email impact will benefit from reading Jeanniey Mullen’s advice in “E-mail ADD and the Power of Three” here. Two of her points seem especially important: remember to relate your email to benefits the reader will receive from it; leverage the value of remembered earlier contacts in your new email to build ongoing engagement. Email marketing is far from dead. But we have to get better and better at how we use it. 5 Clues to Better Online Advertising MarketingSherpa is just out with their first guide to what works and what doesn’t work so well in online advertising. And as an enticement to get you to buy the entire guide, they are sharing the Executive Summary for free. Worth a visit to get you to the “big picture” elements that might help you spend your online ad dollars for higher impact. I was especially taken by one point: better targeting of ads produces better ad results. The authors relate that to the direct marketing maxim that the list is the single most important thing in the success of a direct marketing program. Online advertising is no different. What’s happening now is that new tools are in use to let online advertisers place ads more directly with people who will actually appreciate them. The 12-page executive summary is here. Review this Online Alumni Magazine One of the best online magazines for alumni continues at University of Michigan. The monthly magazine scans and reads quickly. Interactive Web 2.0 features include “letters to the editor,” reports on popular stories as measured by those most often emailed to others, online alumni notes, and the ability for users to adjust font size. The March issue is at michigantoday.umich.edu/2008/mar/. Mobile Devices and Internet Access A new question comes up now at my conference presentations: what about mobile marketing? Mobile marketing is a hot topic on the pages of Advertising Age and similar publications but it hasn’t really caught hold yet. That said, it will gradually become more widespread as more people acquire “smart” phones that empower more expanded Internet contacts than are possible on a regular cell phone. It isn’t too early to start planning on mobile marketing as part of your marketing mix. You’ll find current information in a new March report from the Pew Internet people, a 12-page PDF on “Mobile Access to Data and Information.” The report looks at what people of various age groups and ethnicities are doing with their cellphones and PDAs now. The most important point: 62 percent of the people surveyed (ages 18-29, 30-49, 50-64, and 65+) are using mobile devices to access the Internet, although the frequency of that access is often limited. Most common use is to text message, followed by taking pictures. But a small base exists now in the two youngest groups for using mobile devices to get news, weather, and sports information. As this use grows, so too will mobile marketing. The report is at www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Mobile.Data.Access.pdf. AdAge on Mobile Marketing in 2009 Follow up on the Pew Report with the insights of various advertising people on why mobile marketing may, or may not, finally take off in 2009. The article notes that someone has proclaimed a “Year of Mobile Marketing” every year since 2000 and it hasn’t happened yet. See the overview of “Five Reasons and Five Fixes” at adage.com/digital/article?article_id=125977. The first challenge is critical: mobile marketing depends on people having data plans (and smart phones) and so far that’s been too expensive for most people. Phone prices are falling now and providers are starting to bundle smart phone service plans at lower costs. Change is on the way. Answering a College Question: What’s Web Copy? A web developer at Dixie State College of Utah sent an “Ask the Experts” question asking for a definition of “web copy.” You’ll find the answer, along with comments on how to set goals for a college website, at www.grokdotcom.com/2008/03/17/what-is-web-copy/. Nothing astonishing is here. But use this as yet another reminder that (1) writing for the web is indeed different than writing for print and (2) if you don’t know what your audience wants from your website, you can’t set goals to measure your success. New Search Marketing Standards What can be done to adopt industry-wide search marketing standards? According to search marketing veteran Jill Whalen, not much. The reason? We’d never get people to agree on common definitions and techniques to define acceptable industry practices. For now, that seems a reasonable conclusion to what is very much a caveat emptor situation when looking for search marketing services from an agency. Just like other areas of marketing, and maybe more, this is a sector that requires careful checking with clients and enough background reading to understand where and why good people differ on what’s best to do. Read Jill’s four reasons why standards won’t work at searchengineland.com/080327-080020.php. Impact of Age on Website Use Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox for March focuses on the impact of age on ability to use websites, with special attention to how things change with “middle age” people, 25 to 60 years old. Simply put, the older people get the longer it takes them to do things online. The information isn’t limited to those under 60 years. Internet use is strong among well-educated, affluent people over the age of 60. Your online fund-raising plans will benefit from this article as well. The March 2008 Alertbox is at www.useit.com/alertbox/middle-aged-users.html. New 2009 Graduate School Rankings If you’ve missed the March launch of the 2009 graduate school ratings from US News & World Report, go to the entry point at grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad. Get to the top schools in each of 11 categories with a single click. Trend Continues to Eliminate Loans from Financial Aid Claremont McKenna College has joined a select group of Ivies and others who are tapping endowment resources to eliminate loans from financial aid packages. In this case, the college will spend about $1 million to eliminate loans for both new freshmen in 2008 and currently enrolled students. The colleges total financial aid budget will increase to $14.3 million. Business Week lists the college’s “endowment assets” at $635.8 million, or substantially less than most other schools that have joined the “no loan” or “reduced loans” group. More details are at www.cmc.edu/news/pressreleases/article.asp?article_id=965. Phoenix Reports Enrollment and Revenue Growth Enrollment at University of Phoenix continued to grow in the last quarter despite various legal issues with the Federal Government over the past year. For the latest quarter, the parent Apollo Group reports enrollment at 330,200 students (up 10.7 percent) and revenue at $693.6 million (up 13.9 percent). "Sales and promotional” expenses reached $201.7 million, or 29.1 percent of revenue. See the details, including the impact of legal decisions on profits, here. My Upcoming Presentations in 2008 Share questions and answers with people like yourself who are building a competitive edge in higher education marketing. Hope to meet you at one or more of these events! April 8, Little Rock, AK: CASE District IV: “Search Engine Marketing” and “Marketing Communications and New Technology: Keys to Successful Engagement.” Program and registration details are at www.caseiv.org/conference/?CONTAINERID=95&CRUMB=3. May 29-30, Chicago, IL: The Aslanian Group Spring Seminar: Adult Student Marketing: Electronic, Mass Media, and Print Practices that Work. Session details will be online at www.aslaniangroup.com. June 3, Illinois Institute of Technology, Wheaton, IL: REACh Professional Development Day, “Using Technology to Attract and Recruit Adult Students.” July 9-ll, Chicago, IL: ACT Enrollment Planners Conference: “Student Recruitment in an Online World: Creating a Marketing Communications Plan in World without Paper,” (pre-conference workshop) and “Building and Borrowing from the Best: Crafting a Higher Impact Student Recruitment Website.” See the full program and register at www.act.org/epc/. Get a better ROI on your online marketing. Expand the writing, editing, and search marketing skills of people on your campus. Host a campus seminar on online marketing. Contact me at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com. That’s All for Now Be a marketing champion on your campus.
Bob Johnson, Ph.D. (bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com) Bob Johnson Consulting, LLC Improve your online marketing success with these six services.
Marketing Communications Website Review Customer Carewords Research with Gerry McGovern Content Copywriting Services Competitive Website Reviews Writing Right for the Web On-Campus Workshops Start now at www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/whatwedo.html. Newsletter Archive
28 May 2008 |