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28 May 2008 Tomorrow is the opening day of Carol Aslanian’s spring conference on recruiting “adult” students. The “adult” goes in quotation marks because this market has changed so much that we are really talking about anyone who works full-time and attends college no matter what their age. Once upon a long ago time, you had to be 23 years of age or more to be an “adult” student. No more. Interest in non-traditional “adult” recruiting remains high, measured in part by the sold-out group of 106 people that will fill our room in the Gleacher Center in Chicago. Personally, I’m looking forward to the debut of a new presentation, “A Marketer’s Guide to Web Analytics.” On another note, it isn’t too early to be thinking about the Mobile Web. Start with the article in the current issue of Website Magazine here on “Mobile Web: Hope or Hype?” to keep things in perspective. But start thinking about this now, not later. Will we ever see a student recruitment communications world without paper publications? That’s the topic of my pre-conference workshop at ACT’s Enrollment Planners Conference in Chicago in July. See the workshop description and the full program at www.act.org/epc/. And now, here are your marketing news and notes for May. 16 Featured College & University Wikipedia Articles Very few articles published in Wikipedia (2,063 of 2,388,292) receive the bronze star accolade of “featured” article, given in part because of how well-written they are. If you’ve been ignoring your Wikipedia entry, you’re ignoring what should be an important element in your brand strategy. In most cases today, when someone looks for you on a Google search, your Wikipedia entry is one of the first 4 or 5 URLs returned from the search. A guideline for writing better Wikipedia articles is here. To compare your school with a small group of 16 colleges and universities that have already won a bronze star visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles and scroll down to the “Education” cluster that starts with Baltimore City College and ends with University of Michigan. Start improving your entry soon. Every day, people are reading it. New Web Visitor Satisfaction Survey Do you offer visitors a quick and easy way to tell you about their most recent visit to your website? If not, consider adding a survey to do just that. Avinash Kaushik, author of “Web Analytics, An Hour a Day” is offering a 4 question survey to provide immediate feedback about what someone came to your website to do and whether or not they were able to do it. You get to pick 5 tasks that you think people want to do, along with an “other” selection. People also get to rate their site visit on a 1 to 10 scale and leave an open-ended comment of the visit if they want. See the details at 4q.iperceptions.com/default.aspx and link to a YouTube video demonstration. Not sure what people really want to do at your website? Check Gerry McGovern’s Customer Carewords research at www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/customercarewords.html before you build your next website. Alumni Magazines and Online Social Networking Call it evolution or revolution, but the continuing change in the role of print publications is at work in a recent acquisition of a Harvard alumni magazine with the intent to create a companion website with expanded social networking opportunities. The announcement of the acquisition of “02138” is at www.02138mag.com along with links to the original press release and a NYT article reporting it. The magazine is now mailed free to “about” 100,000 alumni. Advertising supports the venture that started in 2006. Over the next few years the owners plan to open similar sites for the other Ivy League schools, most likely moving next to Yale or Princeton. 5 “Secrets” for Better Email Lists Pro-active email contact should still be an important part of your online marketing efforts, but how do you go about building a valuable in-house list? Any one of Tom Kulzer’s “secrets” might seem obvious, as they did to me. And then I remembered how few times all 5 are together at the college and university sites I visit. This morning, while working on a client’s communications capability review that includes a section for international students, it was almost impossible to find the form to leave an inquiry for information. The application was easy. But what if I wasn’t ready to apply and needed a little cultivation? Kulzer starts with “Make your sign-up form easy to find” and ends with “Understand why subscribers are leaving.” Check the three in-between secrets here. TV and Print Continue Sliding to the Mobile Web Rebecca Lieb is a keen observer. That’s why her comments on “Everything That Can Be Digital... Is” are worth reading. She’s noting that, especially for the people under 30, TV and print continues to decrease as a source of information and entertainment. That means an expanded reliance on the online world to communicate the virtues of colleges and universities and an early alert from Rebecca to start learning more about how people are beginning to use mobile devices to access the web. How does your website communicate on a 2 inch screen? Share her column at www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629609 with your marketing team. Ranking 200 Colleges for “Green” Status If commitment to a sustainable environment becomes important in the marketing mix, schools that are already ranked high on the “College Sustainability Report Card 2008” will have an advantage. The report is limited to public and private universities with the 200 highest endowments. Schools are ranked in 8 categories. While most improved from 2007 rankings, 24 of the 200 received overall “D” or “F” grades and many others are lacking in individual categories. Top schools listed as “College Sustainability Leaders” were Harvard, Dartmouth, University of Washington, Middlebury, Carleton, and University of Vermont. Find the full report in PDF format at www.greenreportcard.org. New “iCUE” Online Learning Opportunity for Teens NBC is launching a new venture to provide online learning content for teens, starting right at age 13. Based on research from MIT, NBC will design the content to meet AP learning standards. MIT will continue as a partner. The website front page promises that “iCUE” will be Fun, Easy, and Free but also a useful research tool for high school learning assignments. Initial focus is on the 2008 presidential election, with “more offerings this summer.” The online demo emphasizes “video, game, and discussions” with “friends and peers” as the core of the program. Take the demo and read more at www.icue.com. Google Expands Lead in Search The exact ratings differ according to who provides them, but all of them say the same thing: Google continues to expand its lead in online search popularity. The color chart from Compete at searchengineland.com/080523-154545.php puts Google’s April market share at 68.9 percent, with Yahoo a distant second at 14.8 percent. That’s the largest gap I’ve seen yet. Google’s dominance may not last forever. But right now, assume that most people looking for your school online are using it. Check regularly to see what comes back to them. Pay special attention to the several prominent links that likely appear in addition to your home page. Imagine that many people are skipping your home page entirely. Set your analytics software report to make sure you know where they are going. Can a University Turn Back the Clock? Public universities just about everywhere are strapped for funding as legislators curtail budgets for higher education. That sometimes means program and staff reductions, sometimes “just” cuts in discretionary spending. One approach at University of Calgary is to no longer allow students to make tuition payments by credit card, thereby saving the university the cost of transaction fees. That’s causing a kickback as Calgary tries to turn back the clock on how people complete financial transactions today. Since a May 12 CBC news story, 53 people commented for and against the proposal. One enterprising student took advantage of the PR opportunity and paid his fees for two courses with a wheel barrow full of rolled nickel and dime coins because “the government and the university are nickel-and-diming students." How does this impact brand image? Judge for yourself when you read the story and the spirited commentsc here. Proof again that you can’t control your message in the online world. Phoenix Continues as Top 50 Online Advertiser The latest report for March 2008 shows that Phoenix continues to hold two places among the Top 50 Internet advertisers who spent a combined $248.5 million on their programs. Phoenix Online is in 5th place with $13.8 million spent, while University of Phoenix itself is in 11th place with just over $8 million in ads. Together that puts the Phoenix amount of $21.9 million at 7.7 percent of the total. Combine the two amounts and Phoenix is number one, just head of the $21.6 million spent by Bank of America. See the full list of advertisers at www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629635. Best Practices in Web Analytics
If you’re developing an interest in web analytics, consider joining the Web Analytics Association as a professional member. If you’re not quite interested enough to join, you’ll still find open access articles available at their website in 6 categories starting with “Best Practices.” Visit www.webanalyticsassociation.org/en/cms/?1083. 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! May 29-30, Chicago, IL: The Aslanian Group Spring Seminar: Adult Student Marketing: Electronic, Mass Media, and Print Practices that Work. Session details and registration are online at www.aslaniangroup.com (Sold out again!). 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/. 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
30 September 2008 |