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| Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter |
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29 November 2006 Today’s newsletter comes from Carol Aslanian’s conference on Internet Marketing for adult and graduate students, the fast growing enrollment area that has attracted a record number of attendees from public and private institutions of every size, location, and orientation. A critical primary message from Carol’s introduction: for about two years now, her research shows that college websites are the primary source of information about educational opportunities for these students, but the content and presentation of information hasn’t kept pace with this interest. Based on the interest at these meetings, many people are preparing to change that. My new presentations for 2007 are listed at the end of this newsletter. You’ll find updated versions of old favorites as well as new sessions. Hope to meet many of you at these meetings and more. Note the blog that just started at www.eduwebbuzz.com for the eduWeb 2007 conference. The first post is an interview with yours truly about the state of higher education marketing today. And now for our marketing news and notes for November. DM News Guide to Email Marketing for 2006 No matter what your present level of expertise from novice to very experienced, you’re likely to find something of interest among the many articles included in the October 2006 “Guide to E-Mail Marketing” from DM News. Articles are divided for Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced email marketers. This is a proverbial treasure trove of relevant information for more effective mail practices. The 64-page PDF is at www.dmnews.com/cms/lib/6683.pdf and you can print individual articles after you’ve downloaded the file and found the content of most benefit. Gerry McGovern on Killer Content Gerry McGovern’s new book, “Killer Web Content,” is ready to help bring strong content to your websites. You can read the first chapter at www.gerrymcgovern.com/kwc-ch1.htm. If you haven’t already done so, take time at Gerry’s website to subscribe to his email newsletter dedicated to building relevant, accessible content for website visitors. NY Times Spotlights College Presidents Who Blog Are college presidents motivated by articles in the NY Times? If they are, then the recent story about presidents who blog might inspire them to consider starting their own ongoing conversation with key audiences like students, alumni, and financial supporters. Read through to the end for some brief quotes from an interview the writer did with me just long enough ago that I’m not quite sure when it happened. www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/education/22blogs.html?_r=1&oref=slogin New “Must Read” Search Engine Marketing Blog If you’re interested in search engine marketing, you’ll want to mark your calendar for the December 11 launch of Danny Sullivan’s new blog on SEO that he’s calling Search Engine Land. A long-time pioneer in the SEO world, Sullivan promises that this new effort will provide information from a “searcher’s perspective” and that’s a good thing. In addition to the blog, you can also subscribe to a monthly email newsletter and/or a weekly newsletter that will summarize highlights of the ongoing blog entries. Everything is available by RSS feed if you prefer that route. Sign up today for the blog at searchengineland.com/061116-090000.html and make an early resolution to increase your search engine marketing expertise in 2007. 3.2 Million Students Online College students of every age are flocking to online courses. Find the details in “Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States 2006,” a new research report available from the Sloan Consortium. Results are based on reports from 2,200 colleges and universities. The report includes information on reputation of online courses, type of students enrolling in them, and ongoing growth rate. Download the 27-page report at www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/index.asp. The Future is Now: Media Convergence Update Are you involved in planning the future of your promotional activities? Then don’t miss reading Rebecca Lieb’s article “Converged” for ammunition to help convince people on your campus that your website continues to become more and more critical to your marketing efforts. A key point: “television and other offline media are being employed as marketing in support of web properties, not the other way around. That’s a big shift from only a handful of years ago, when the Web was a marketing channel that supported mainstream media.” You can’t afford to plan print publications and media advertising campaigns that are not supported by strong website content that reinforces and expands on your traditional efforts. Today, and even more so tomorrow, your website is at the heart of your marketing efforts. Learn more at www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623941. “Thank You” for Powerful Email Impact Looking for a simple way to increase the impact of your email marketing, and indeed with other forms of communication as well? Be sure to read Al DiGuido’s article on “The Power of ‘Thank You’” and then ask yourself how effectively you are using this simple phrase when someone takes an important action with you. Does your automatic website response after an inquiry start with a “Thank you”? Have you started a parent’s communication program with a letter from the president to the parents of a new inquiry that says “Thank you”? With a little brainstorming, you’ll likely find other ways to introduce a simple phrase into your marketing communications. Visit www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623952 for inspiration. Consumers Creating Advertising? The Advertising Age article by Marc Brownstein deplores the emergence of “Consumer Generated Advertising” that threatens the role of traditional advertising creative work. Nothing shy about the title: “About Consumer Generated Ads: Have We Gone Mad?” What’s as interesting as the article is the stream of comments after it. This one isn’t for everyone, but if you are interested in the changing world of agency advertising and how people are reacting to the changes, read this at adage.com/smallagency/article?article_id=113240. Recommended if you work with an external agency now or plan to sometime in the future. Test Drive a Website Animation Character Have you been to websites that use animation characters, as Carnegie Mellon does on the admissions site? If you want to learn more about how it works and take a test drive to create your own characters and messages, visit www.oddcast.com/home. You’ll get to select the type of character you want and have the “person” deliver whatever messages you create for it. In a great variety of languages, if you like. Have some fun. And maybe experiment with a new feature for international student prospects? Review and Critique Advertising If you’d like to see how your opinion of various advertising campaigns compares to others, plan to be a regular visitor at adcritic.com and cast a vote each week for the selected ad. You’ll immediately get to see how your vote compares with others and each week you’ll be able to read a summary of the results. And you might even read the special comment you left behind. After you’ve visited for a while, you’ll have a new appreciation for the varied reactions possible to what I presume are the best creative efforts of the ad makers. You might even have a new appreciation of Consumer Generated Advertising. Visit adcritic.com/printcritic/email/ to review the ads and offer your opinion on where the creative effort falls between “World Changing” and “Actively Annoying.” Subscribe to the email newsletter when you visit. 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 in the New Year! February 14, San Francisco, CA: University Continuing Education Association, “Online Marketing Boot Camp,” with details at www.ucea.edu/pages/2007mktgseminar.html. February 28-March 2, Boston, MA: Academic Impressions Conference on Integrating Brand Messaging Across Media, “Writing for the Web” and “Conducting a Communications Audit” with program and registration details at www.academicimpressions.com/conferences/0207-brand-messaging.php. March 5, Web Seminar: Academic Impressions, “Writing for the Web” April 3, Dallas, TX: CASE District IV, Program details forthcoming at www.caseiv.org/conference/?CONTAINERID=95&CRUMB=3. July 23, Baltimore, MD: eduWeb, Keynote presentation. Follow development of the conference program and read the conference blog at www.eduwebconference.com. Expand professional growth opportunities right on your campus. Ask about creating a seminar to increase the Internet Marketing skills of people on your campus. Schedule your presentation in 2007 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 I offer consulting services personally to colleges and universities and together with the marketing experts at these partner firms: Aslanian Group offers market research and enrollment management services to colleges and universities to increase their market share of adult students. Learn more at www.aslaniangroup.com. Creative Communication Associates is a 22-year leader in the design and implementation of marketing communication strategies for colleges and universities. Learn more about CCA at www.ccanewyork.com. mStoner helps colleges and universities with Internet strategies and website development to meet changing audience expectations, technologies, market pressures, and institutional positioning. For the details, visit www.mstoner.com. TargetX brings the power of the Internet to recruit students and communicate with alumni through higher education’s only integrated suite of online tools. Explore what’s possible at www.targetx.com. Newsletter Archive
28 May 2008 |