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| Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter |
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17 December 2007 Greetings of the season to all subscribers and a special welcome to the many new people joining after the “Writing Right for the Web” presentation at CASE V last week. That was my last conference presentation in 2007. Look below for the first listing of 2008 events. Mark your calendar now for Carol Aslanian’s spring conference in Chicago May 29-30. Last year’s event sold out, so if you recruit adult students and want to explore steps to a more cohesive integration of online, print, and traditional media in your marketing, don’t miss this meeting. After this December newsletter, the next Link of the Week email starts again in January and the next newsletter comes along at the end of that month. After a busy and fun 2007, I’m looking forward to working with and meeting many of you in 2008. Blog postings will continue on their usual irregular schedule. If you haven’t yet signed up to get RSS notices of new posts, you can do that at bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/ just above the Yahoo logo. From now until the New Year, best wishes for a very fine time with family and friends. New Web 2.0 Buzzwords in 2008 Be the first in your marketing circle talking about “search moptimization” and “wombagging” after your read Pete Blackshaw’s article at www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627824. In “The Official 2008 Web 2.0 Buzzword Forecast,” Pete takes a skeptical look at upcoming Web 2.0 issues after the initial “overly romantic exuberance” recedes a bit. You’ll find a total of 14 buzzword suggestions. The really diligent can mark them down and see how Pete did 12 months from now. 6 Financial Aid Estimators Online Is serious movement underway to provide more information online about the real cost of attending a college or university? After selecting an online estimator at Bradley University as Link of the Week in November, three more have been sent to me. Together with two that I already knew about, that makes six. Not quite a revolution in marketing services, but an important step in that direction. Check to see if any of your competitors are included. If they’ve moved in this direction and you haven’t, they’ve gained a marketing advantage over you. Links to each of the 6 pages are online now in my recent blog posting here. Quick Survey on Taglines Having discussions on your campus about the value of taglines or what makes a good tagline? If so, you might want to take a quick online survey from Nancy Schwartz prepared especially for not-for-profit organizations. The survey is at here. Tell Nancy when you take the survey that you’d like a copy of the results and that should come along to you in February. Pew Internet on Print vs. Online Communications How quickly are people replacing print media with online sources of information? It is happening, there’s no doubt about that, but it is happening at different rates among different groups. And while age is a predictor of who is more likely to be online for news today and tomorrow, it isn’t the only important predictor. Download and read a 26-page Pew Internet presentation, “Communications & Attitudes: The Internet versus Print Media” here to help sort things out. One point worth remembering: many people have far more technology on hand than they are likely to use anytime soon. Elite Schools Scramble to Eliminate Loans Harvard University announced a few days ago that it was dipping into endowment resources to make a major reduction in the cost to attend the university for families with annual incomes as high as $180,000. Princeton started this trend back in 2001 and it’s been advancing ever since, but the Harvard move is a significant escalation. Read about some of the catch up moves here. The Harvard move surprised people at rival Yale University, which was preparing an announcement in January of its own financial aid changes. The Yale Daily News covers the reaction at www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/22830. If you read to the bottom of the Yale story, you’ll see a quote from yours truly. Don’t remember quite saying what you’ll read, but I guess it gets the point across with a bit more zest than I used during my interview. Press Releases in the Online World If you’re wondering how much of your future time should be spent with press releases in a era of electronic communication, listen to a MarketingProfs podcast at here. When you visit, you can’t miss a podcast feature that I’ve not seen before. You’ll have a chance to scan and select from 6 topics within the not quite 11 minute program. My favorites were the two that talked about press releases and blogs. That’s a great user-friendly feature that more podcasts should adopt. 6 Email Marketing Alert Points MarketingSherpa has issued its 2008 “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide” and even if you decide not to buy the full report, you should visit the free Executive Summary at www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30248 that includes 6 charts reporting highlights of the overall survey. The report is based on input from 1,210 email marketers who responded to a MarketingSherpa survey. Last year, 77 percent of marketers believed that the impact of email was increasing “a lot” or “a little,” with about an even division between the two choices. This year, that number has decreased to 61 percent and leans heavily toward the “a little” response. As you might expect, the primary liability is seen as simply too much email, mentioned by 36 percent. In a distant second was spam, at 21 percent. Wikipedia and Continuing Education Marketing Wikipedia is one of the most successful (measured by numbers of people using it) websites. And here you’ll find a successful example of using a Wikipedia website to connect back to your regular website. That’s what the Harvard Division of Continuing Education is doing from its Wikipedia page, along with links to 5 other locations at Harvard. You’ll find the links at the bottom of the entry. Try something like this for your own site. Before you start, contact Wikipedia online and let them know what you plan to do. If you keep your entry factual without marketing hype, you’re likely to get approval. So far, the only negative comment about this Harvard listing is that the colors in the coat of arms are “incorrectly tinctured.” Landing Pages to Increase Conversion Rates The results of your marketing campaign depend on more than getting people to visit your website. What happens after they arrive? “Think Beyond the Click: How to Build Landing Pages that Convert” by Julie Mason is a comprehensive review of the most important landing page elements to make sure that more people either buy your continuing education class or ask you for more information. Her article covers key points from what place on the page is most important (upper left) to the value of your title tag for search marketing to the need to repeat and reinforce the message that brings people to the page. The full article is at searchengineland.com/071214-124154.php Jakob Nielsen on “Long vs. Short Articles” on the Web How should you decide when long articles on your website are better than short articles? Nielsen offers some observations, including ways to measure costs and benefits of both, at www.useit.com/alertbox/content-strategy.html. Note that by normal standards, we aren’t talking about huge differences here. The definition of a “short article” is 600 words that take 3 minutes to read, while a “long article” is 1,000 words that take 5 minutes to read. But on the web, where everyone is impatient and it is difficult to read, you need a real reason for the extra length. Marketing Director, Drexel University Online This is a top level position in Philadelphia reporting to the president. If you have an entrepreneurial bent for a position focused on increasing online inquiry and application conversions, explore this. More information from Kenneth Hartman, academic director of Drexel e-Learning, at kenhartman@drexel.edu. Marketing Strategist VP Opening in Ohio Oberlin College is searching for a Vice President for Communications “to serve as chief communications, public relations and integrated marketing strategist.” Details of responsibilities and requirements are 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! March 7, Harrisburg, PA: College and University Public Relations Association of Pennsylvania: “Communicating in Today’s World: The Challenge of Integrating Print, Web, and Email” and “Writing Right for the Web: Engage Your Visitors and Improve Your Search Engine Visibility.” Check the conference highlights at www.cuprap.org/default.aspx?pageid=14. 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 are coming soon. June 3, Wheaton, IL: REACh Professional Development Day, “Using Technology to Attract and Recruit Adult Students.” 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 Gerry McGovern’s Customer Carewords Research 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 |