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| Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter |
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28 September 2007 Summer is past, fall is upon us, and we are entering the final stages of the traditional student recruitment cycle that started about two years ago for many high school seniors. And so a special “best wishes” that your campus visit season gives everyone the best possible experience of what makes your campus a special place to live and learn. To boost your campus visits, TargetX is offering colleges and universities a no-cost opportunity to list campus visit events at the new “My Campus Visits” website. Test how it works at www.mycampusvisits.com and register to participate at www.targetx.com. My “Link of the Week” selections just started the “Second 50” listings with a feature about Stony Brook University. Most of the links since the first in March 2006 are alive and well for your review at www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/linkoftheweek.html. What questions about recruiting adult students online would you most like to have answered? In the next two weeks, I’ll be working on presentations for Carol Aslanian seminars in November and December. Send me your questions at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com and I’ll try to build answers into the presentations. I can’t promise to answer every question, but if I use yours I’ll be sure to send you an answer. Details about the programs are at www.aslaniangroup.com. Do a favor for a friend. Forward this newsletter and recommend a subscription at www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com. And now on to the News and Notes for the September newsletter. New Tool for Exploring Colleges U-CAN, the result of an initiative by NAICU (National Association of Independent College and Universities), opened last week at www.ucan-network.org with nearly 450 participating private colleges and universities. The number will grow to about 600 in the near future. In test with four colleges, the system worked well. Marketers will take interest in the box for “What Makes Us Special” on the first page for each college. This is an opportunity to learn what your competitors think is truly special about their brand. Alas, in my four tests, only one school (Kalamazoo College) came close to a clear focus on something distinctive. The more people who use U-CAN, the more important it is to develop a new entry page that identifies what makes you special as soon as a visitor arrives on that page. Skip links to the message from the president, the history of the university, and the mission statement. The heading doesn’t have to be more complex than “This is what makes us special!” Congrats to NAICU for quickly fixing an initial omission that didn’t say the site was limited to private institutions. I noted that on a blog posting at the U-CAN site. Tony Wagner, NAICU’s Director of Online and Web Communications, fixed the problem in 24-hours. Read Tony’s response here. US News & World Report Ranks HBCUs In another move on the college ratings front, US News is now ranking Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The “Top Tier” schools start with Spelman College and end with four tied for the 34th place: Bluefield State College, Fayetteville State University, Miles College, and Norfolk State University. Peer Assessment and Retention Rate each counted for 25 percent of the rankings weight and faculty resources counted for another 20 percent. Links to the ratings results and to more information in the ranking criteria are here. NY Times and “The College Issue” The NYT Sunday Magazine was dubbed “This College Issue” on September 30 and included 9 articles on topics that ranged from “The New Affirmative Action” to “No Graduate Left Behind” to “Onward, Christian Scholars” and another with more fashion information about Wesleyan University students than you ever thought you wanted to know. Read the articles at www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/. Another article reported the Times was very pleased with the number of college and university ads taken for this issue. Full page ads (or more) were bought by these 13 schools, in order of appearance: The City University of New York, Hofstra University, Stony Brook Southampton, Seton Hall University, Adelphi University, Iona, Virginia Commonwealth University, Baruch College of City University, Bryant University, University of Richmond, St. George’s University School of Medicine, and Rollins College. What did these ads cost? The front page of the Times media kit website was working in full flash splendor when I visited. But the links to various sections of the site were broken. I’ll check back. 11 Tips for PDFs and Search Engines Colleges and universities have a great deal of content online in PDF format. And thus, it makes sense to do what you can do to make sure that search engines can find the information in the PDF if people are searching for it. To that end, you’ll find 11 steps to review in Galen DeYoung’s article “Eleven Tips for Optimizing PDFs for Search Engines” at searchengineland.com/070912-095906.php. Two of the tips are especially important: “optimize the copy” for online reading and “build links” from the content to other places on your website. In other words, you won’t be able to just take your printed document, save it as a PDF, and post it to the web. And that will defeat the number one reason I hear for posting PDFs: “Quick and easy.” Review the list and find the ones that you can start doing now before you post your next PDF. Steps in a New University Brand Campaign Eastern Michigan University in September launched a brand campaign that includes print, radio, TV, and outdoor locations (billboards, buses and Coke trucks), as well as new signs and a new logo. The goal is to elevate EMU in “Michigan and the region” with a budget of “$1 million plus.” The height of the elevation isn’t specified. Campaign details are at www.emich.edu/branding/ along with background material on development of the initiative. How to measure the ROI for a campaign like this? Two steps come to mind. First, note the quantity, test score levels, and geographic distribution of traditional-age students who self-reported their ACT and SAT scores to in the recruitment cycle before the campaign started. Then compare that data to results for the next two or three years. Second, record the change over a similar period in alumni annual fund contributions. That data will reveal the impact of the one-year campaign investment if the test score results improve and the alumni donations increase. Marketing money falls back to a regular level of $400,000 per year after the campaign ends. Gift Planning Online Newsletter If you’re ignoring online communications with older alumni because you think they aren’t online, ask yourself what Iowa State knows that you don’t. The 2001 Pew Internet report provides early motivation. Way back then, “only” 15 percent of people 65 years of age and older were online, but those 15 percent were much better educated and much more affluent than seniors as a whole. And since then, the number can only have grown larger. Visit www.foundation.iastate.edu/site/PageServer and use the lower right hand link to view a sample copy of the Iowa State newsletter. Better yet, subscribe to the “Gift Legacy Weekly eNewsletter for a long-term look at the content offered and the way this newsletter links back to more information at the Foundation website. Using Flash on Your Website If you’re debating when and how to use Flash features, be sure to read “Flash-al Abuse,” the second item in “5 Things to Hate About Web Design (and how to fix them)” here. The advice is not to ban Flash features from your website, but to use them with caution and a respect for visitors who want to move quickly to information of highest interest. Where should you be most cautious? At the front page of your website. And, by extension, be cautious at the entry page to any major section of your website. In addition to Flash, you’ll also find advice on colors, information overload, image text, and number of columns on a page. Metrics and Online Advertising If you’re thinking about adding online advertising to your marketing mix but aren’t moving forward because you don’t know how to measure the results, read Anna Maria Verzi’s column on “Why Metrics Don’t Matter Yet” at www.clickz.com/3627154. The major take away is that nobody in the advertising world has agreed on how to evaluate the results of online advertising. Despite that, there’s a consensus that online ads are a worthy thing. At least one major agency has recently combined traditional advertising and online work and put an experienced interactive person in charge of the new approach. And Microsoft and Google are making major investments to acquire new online advertising expertise. For those of you who want to move faster than you are now, this article will help you with the doubters who won’t try online ads until half the rest of the world has already moved. How Much for Online Video Production? Thanks to Nancy Schwartz for posting the note in a recent email newsletter that you should plan for about $1,000 per minute of professionally produced video. The impact of video in online marketing is growing fast. Nancy’s of the opinion that amateur video isn’t going to work for professional organizations. She regularly offers wise marketing advice in her Getting Attention blog at www.gettingattention.org based on working with a variety of non-profit organizations. Many of the tips will help colleges and universities as well. Wikis on Higher Ed Websites During last week’s website engagement conference for Academic Impressions, one of the participants asked about using a Wiki on a college website. That means adding a web page to your site so that anyone can add content to topics on the page. A Wiki encourages user added content from a great variety of people. I haven’t yet seen a Wiki on a college site. But the question did lead me in search of details about starting one. To learn more about the pros and cons of setting up a wiki visit www.threadwatch.org/node/1848. My Upcoming Presentations in 2007 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! October 1, Web Conference: Academic Impressions, “Writing Right for the Web.” Outline and registration at www.academicimpressions.com/web_conferences/1007-web-writing.php. November 11, San Diego, CA: AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, “Writing Right for the Web: Key Steps to Engage Your Visitors and Increase Your Search Engine Visibility.” Registration details for the Symposium and the Sunday afternoon 3.5 hour tutorial are at www.marketingpower.com/aevent_event24813.php. November 29-30, San Francisco, CA: The Aslanian Group, “Recruiting and Retaining Adult and Graduate Students.” Program and registration details are at www.aslaniangroup.com. December 5-6, Miami, FL: The Aslanian Group, “Everything Online.” Register now at www.aslaniangroup.com. December 10, Chicago, IL: CASE District V Conference, “Writing Right for the Web: Engage Your Visitors and Improve Your Search Engine Visibility.” Read the session description at www.casefive.org/conference/2007/web.cfm. Expand professional growth opportunities on your campus. Host a seminar to increase the Online Marketing skills of people on your campus and get a better ROI on your future investments. Schedule your presentation soon. 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 Six key services can help you improve your online marketing success:
Marketing Communications Website Review Gerry McGovern’s Customer Carewords Research Content Copywriting Services Competitive Website Reviews Writing Right for the Web On-Campus Workshops Learn more about each service at www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/whatwedo.html. Newsletter Archive
28 May 2008 |