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29 July 2008 Mid-summer greetings to everyone north of the equator. It isn’t long until a new semester opens and most of the enrollment people I know are focused on 2009 and thinking about 2010. With the ongoing pace of change in marketing tactics and techniques, it isn’t easy to craft a budget and a marketing plan far into the future. Good luck to everyone grappling with that challenge. One marketing question that I’m convinced will loom far larger in the future is the question of “real” college costs and the ability to get serious information about them online. My list of pioneers expanded last month from 7 to 10, including the first Canadian entry. See the list here and start planning how you will meet the increasing demand for information like this. If you’re planning to expand “adult” student enrollments in the future, I’m looking forward to meeting you in Boston in October at Carol Aslanian’s conference on “Adult Students: Your Best Option for Enrollment Growth.” Check early information at www.aslaniangroup.com/events/. People are asking about the next online presentation of “Writing Right for the Web.” That’s on October 14. Details are at here. And now here are your marketing news and notes for July. 8 “Real Life” Video Stories in Online Degree Advertising While watching the end of the Tour de France Sunday, along came a rare TV ad for online degree programs that was aimed at the younger part of the “adult” audience. And so of course I checked the URL after the race was over. The most impressive page came up after completing the inquiry form. New prospects can select from 5 student and 3 faculty “real life” videos that tell them about the experience of learning online from people teaching and taking the courses. Helping them find someone to relate to are marvelously short 4 line vignettes introducing each person. Watch the videos here. Email Marketing for Inactive Inquiries Everybody has them. Lots of people who don’t ask to get off your email list but who haven’t opened anything you sent them in months. That’s the group that Jeanne Jennings is helping you with in “Really Simple E-mail Segmentation: The Reactivation Campaign” here. Two points stood out. First, don’t send threatening emails about the dire consequences of not responding immediately to a reactivation email. Be friendly. Second, sign the email with the name of a real person. Sound obvious? About half the emails I receive after making an online inquiry don’t have anyone’s name at the end. Sean Carton and Mobile Communications Sean Carton is a special person. If you ever have a chance to hear him speak at a conference, don’t miss it. Right now, visit here and read his speculations on where the mobile web is going to take the future of communications. Sean doesn’t claim to know the answer. But he is urging us to start thinking about “the mounting evidence that technology actually has the power to rewire our brains and reconfigure the way we live our lives.” Pew Internet on Slowing Home Broadband Growth A new July survey report from the Pew Internet American Life Project, “Home Broadband Adoption 2008,” reports that broadband adoption at home grew more slowly in 2008. One factor is the near saturation level among the highest income group (families with incomes over $100K) at 85 percent participation. Home broadband use for low income families (less than $20K) is low at 28 percent, but the rate jumps quite a bit in the next $20K-$30K tier to 42 percent. All the details by ethnicity, urban/rural, education and more are in the 31-page PDF at www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband_2008.pdf. Princeton Review’s 2009 Best Colleges If you haven’t already seen it, best to get along soon here and see how close 368 colleges and universities came to the brand image they’d like to have. 142 Blogs for Social Media Marketing Is this the hot new marketing topic of the year? Just might be. If you’re just starting to explore, put regular reading of Scott Monty’s social media marketing blog on your list. Start at www.scottmonty.com. Scott’s blog is included among the 142 top social marketing blogs by Friday Traffic Report. Yes, you’ve got 141 others to consider as well. More blogs than any person has time for but you’re sure to find a favorite or two. Scan the list in seconds for titles that appeal, from cute to serious. See the full list here and make your selections. NY Times Series on Online Reading If you missed the first installment Sunday, go along to here and read “Literacy Debate: Online R U Reading?” The first in a new series of articles on “The Future of Reading, Digital Versus Print,” this story explores the generational divide between how people prefer getting information today. Pity this wasn’t at hand for my ACT presentation in July on “Creating a Marketing Communication Plan in a World without Paper.” Let’s do the required ritual: No, paper publications aren’t going to disappear tomorrow. But if you haven’t already planned a significant transfer of resources from print to the online world in the near future, this series just might help you get started. 10 Search Marketing Mistakes by Colleges and Universities Read this article and you’re likely to find something that you haven’t thought of before or haven’t taken seriously enough. Abu Noaman’s list in University Business includes two of my favorites, “Using Copy Not Based on Research” and “Not Monitoring the Metrics.” Compare your practices with the 8 other points here. If you believe in doing research before writing your content, invest in Gerry McGovern’s Customer Carewords research. Contact me at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com and ask me how you can find out what your web visitors really care about in 8 to 12 weeks. 6 Step Guide to Marketing on Wikipedia Wikipedia may be one of the least attractive websites by conventional design measures, but it is also one of the most popular. You can’t overtly market your college or university on Wikipedia, but you certainly should be paying attention to your website there. MarketingSherpa has a valuable case study (open viewing until July 30) about how one business successfully created new Wikipedia content within acceptable guidelines that resulted in leads from the site that converted at high rates. Everyone in higher education can replicate the careful steps outline in the case study. One example: create special web pages for people coming to your site from links in Wikipedia, just as you would for any lead-generation campaign. Another tip: stock the references part of a Wikipedia site with links to research and publications from your faculty. Visit www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30720&pop=no and increase your Wikipedia marketing potential. Advertising Guide to Hispanic Market If connecting to Hispanics is an important marketing goal, you’ll want to download Advertising Age’s 32-page “Hispanic Fact Pact 2008” here. Especially interesting is the “Mobile Data Service Usage” chart that shows Hispanics are more likely than non-Hispanics to send and receive email and match everyone else in the use of IM and similar services. You’ll find another chart on specific online activities. Hint: don’t plan too many podcasts for your Hispanic audiences. Distinctions Shrink in Higher Education Some community colleges will take on new roles with expanded 4-year degree offerings in Florida, a response to both demand and cost control efforts. From a marketing perspective, what’s noteworthy here is that the 2-year colleges aren’t deviating from their primary marketing position: offering higher education directly related to “work force development” at less than university cost levels. Liberal arts degrees are not on the horizon. Established 4-year universities are not overly happy about the plan, but the college-bound public benefits from more bachelor’s degree opportunities at costs similar to existing community college degree programs. Read more here. E-reading on the iRex iLiad Competition is growing in the e-reader marketplace. Visit www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad and review the capabilities of one that I hadn’t heard of until reading a ClickZ article on “Print Editions as a Vital Niche.” Vin Crosbie reviews the relative ability of newspapers, books, newsletters, and magazines to adapt to the digital era. As long as e-readers don’t “do” color, they are not yet a threat to traditional color publications. For now, their strength is with newspapers and books. But sometime in the near future, color will appear. And then the pace of change will move much faster. Who will do the first e-reader viewbook? The ClickZ article at www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630312 notes the surprising sales strength of Amazon’s imperfect Kindle. A year ago I thought this was a silly something that just wasn’t going to work. I don’t think that way anymore. 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! October 14, Online Conference: Academic Impressions, “Writing Right for the Web.” Content outline and registration here. October 21, Jackson Hole, WY: National Council for Marketing and Public Relations, Western Region, “Online Marketing and Social Networks.” Program details soon. October 23-24, Boston, MA: Aslanian Group: Adult Students, Your Best Option for Enrollment Growth. Program details in August. November 19-21, Hilton Head, SC: NIRSA National Marketing Institute. Program details soon. December 14-16, Chicago, IL: CASE V Annual Conference: “Writing Right for the Web.” 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
2 December 2008 |