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| Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter |
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30 April 2007 Best late April wishes to everyone counting enrollment deposits. May you end your quest with the number you need, and perhaps one or two or even three more. I’ve just finished the draft of a prologue for a forthcoming AACRAO book on the impact of online communications and content on strategic enrollment management. What’s most evident for student recruitment is that recruiters have lost control of the communications process in a world where Wikipedia, MySpace, YouTube, RateMyProfessor.com, and a host of other online sources provide easy-to-access content for those embarking on the college selection process. For many people, that content is more “real”than what college websites offer. And that, of course, creates pressure on college websites to make a strong impression when future students first visit. Today, your best chance for a first impression isn’t your search piece or your viewbook. It’s your website. The MIT admissions site was the March 30 Link of the Week because the primary content is student and staff blogs. That’s a major step forward when too many colleges still fear what students might publish about them and therefore shun this essential communication tool. Visit now to see how blogs have helped MIT talk frankly about last week’s departure of the dean of admissions. Read “Message from Ben and Matt”at www.mitadmissions.org and see how the blog format served as a natural, honest way to communicate directly with future students and their parents about a difficult situation. That creates trust, and trust will keep the people you value tuned to your website in this era when online communication is so powerful. Refer a friend to subscribe to this newsletter. Tell them it takes less than 60 seconds at www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com. 124 Colleges on YouTube Is your competition on YouTube? Go along to www.youtube.com/school_main for a list of 124 current players, starting with Arizona State University and ending with Yale University. My “eyeball”survey tells me that larger, public universities are most frequent on the list. If you decide its time for you to join the group, there’s a convenient “Join Now”button to get started. You’ll also find a collection of the 20 top-rated college videos. You need an email address from an individual college to visit the actual websites, but everyone can view the most popular videos. 3 Most Important Elements in Picking a College John Geraci at Crux Research has released research results that show that the three factors most important to traditional age students in selecting a college aren’t part of the US News and World Report ratings information. The top three are (1) the final cost of attending, (2) the amount of debt after graduation, and (3) the earnings capabilities of graduates. Use those results as a quick content check guide for your website. Is the content available at all? If so, is it easy to find? The research was done in November 2006 as part of an update for Millennials Go to College. Visit www.cruxresearch.com where the link under “What’s New”leads to a short PDF with the top 10 selection factors. A Possible Alternative for US News Ratings Our people on your campus interested in alternatives to the US News ratings? The Boston Globe highlights conflicting positions at Harvard about using the Collegiate Learning Assessment tool to measure what students in college actually learn. The article is here. Visit the Council for Aid to Education at www.cae.org/content/pro_collegiate.htm for details of the assessment and a list of 120 participating institutions that have agreed to let the public know that they are doing this. The list starts with Alaska Pacific University and runs to Utica College. I’m not expecting colleges to rush to public disclosure, but savvy parents who become aware of the information available might well pressure colleges to let them know about the results. This might develop in a fashion similar to the National Survey of Student Engagement results. Colleges with particularly strong information may start highlighting that on their websites. For samples of how schools are already talking about their participation, visit University of Wyoming and Truman State University. Tips for Online Fundraising If you don’t already subscribe to Fund Raising Success magazine, then visit www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com and sign up for either the online or the print edition. Or, as I do, get both. Regular “Net Gain”and “Web Watch”columns often recount online marketing successes in the not-for-profit world that will work as well for colleges and universities. You’ll find good reports here on how to compete more effectively online for scarce funds with everyone else in the game. Your alumni and friends will expect that from you and this magazine will help keep you current with the latest techniques. Second Life Starts at Case Western Reserve Is the Second Life world hospitable to student recruitment activities? Opinions will differ and the reality is that it is too soon to say. But if you are wondering what early adopters are planning for Second Life, the detailed press release at blog.case.edu/case-news/2007/04/20/secondlife is a good place to start. Case Western has already set up shop on Second Life. You’ll need a membership to visit and see for yourself what life is like in this new social networking opportunity. But isn’t it time that you did just that? Membership takes just a few minutes. After you read the press release, follow the link to admission.case.edu/secondlife.asp print a 6-page PDF of instructions on how to use the site. MySpace Still Rules Social Networking As MySpace becomes more “commercial”and everyone seeks marketing opportunities at the site, are people deserting it? Some of the especially trendy might be searching for new locations, but the latest early 2007 survey shows that in the social networking world, there’s MySpace and everybody else. MySpace has a marketing share of 80.7 percent of all visits to social networking sites and is continuing to grow in total users, followed in a distant second place by Facebook at 10.3 percent. Visit here for the Top 20 sites, including “fast movers”that haven’t yet reached 2 percent of the market. Forbes: “Outlandish Cost Increases”Contribute to Loan Scandals While the fallout from recent revelations about loan recommendation practices in higher education continues, it is worth a moment to pause and consider the overall impact. Forbes magazine goes past the obvious improprieties that have been revealed to raise the question of whether or not colleges themselves are not the real culprits by using rising student debt levels to fund continued high tuition increases. The article is here and the “outlandish”comment is way down at the bottom. In between you’ll find yet another high profile critique of college and university pricing practices. Higher education has been remarkably immune to price pressure from the public. Maybe that pressure will never become serious. And maybe it will. Pew Internet on Teens and Social Networking If you keep a “must read”list and you recruit traditional age students, be sure to put the new April 18 report from the Pew Internet and American Life project on your list. Visit www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/211/report_display.asp to download the 55-page PDF. Review at your leisure, but not too long from now. Some points of note. Men and women act differently in many aspects of social networking. More than 90 percent of teens use social networking to communicate with close friends, making this an ongoing forum for word of mouth marketing. Socio-economic gaps in Internet use still exist, but over 80 percent of teens with parents who did not finish high school are online today. For teens whose parents attended college, the number jumps to 98 percent. Changes in Search Engine Marketing, 2004 to 2007 If you have a special interest in the topic, you’ll like reading “The Gentrification of the Search Industry”by Greg Jarboe at searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3625695. Jarboe compares the presentation titles and presenters at Search Engine Strategy meetings to confirm that most of what was being taught a few years ago isn’t relevant any more. This is indeed a marketing sector where perhaps the best thing you can learn is how to keep up with what’s new. A few things stand out: more search engine work is being done inside organizations rather than with external firms, total interest is growing as measured by conference sponsors and sessions, and strong growth in the number of women participating. See www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625566 for “Search Chicks,”more on women in the search sector by Rebecca Lieb. 10 Top Viral Marketing Campaigns MarketingSherpa is out with 10 winners selected from over 100 entries in a contest to pick the best business-to-consumer and business-to-business viral marketing campaigns. No, there aren’t any college or university winners. But fans of the not-for-profit sector will be pleased that a campaign for Farm Aid finished in the 3rd spot and a fund-raising campaign for Six Degrees was selected as the 7th place winner. Pick up viral marketing tips at www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29947 where you’ll find detail accounts of the winning efforts. Humor in Marketing Personally, I’m not a big fan of humor in marketing. But everything indeed has a place and if you’re planning laughter for an upcoming print or interactive effort, then 6 tips from Brian Beatty might help you avoid some common pitfalls. My favorites were #2 (know your audience, an admonition that never goes away) and #4 (be brief). Read the other helpful pointers at www.marketingprofs.com/7/humor-in-marketing-six-serious-tips-beatty.asp. Is Web 2.0 Driving You Nuts? If you just can’t take one more conversation about online social networking, you’ll find solace in a column by Simon Dumenco that runs over Twitter (www.twitter.com) as a fairly useless addition to online social clutter. If you don’t laugh at least a bit when you read this, don’t try humor in marketing. Dumenco is helping all of us separate hype from reality in the Web 2.0 world at adage.com/mediaworks/article.php?article_id=116068. Danny Sullivan’s Video Interview on the Future of Search Danny Sullivan often is called the founder/father of search engine marketing and he’s just finished chairing his last Search Engine Strategies meeting in NYC before starting on a new venture. For a rambling video interview about the future environment for search engine work, watch the video here. You’ll also see a plethora of other videos from the conference. Some are worth watching; some are pretty inane. Check the titles and see which ones have appeal. 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 soon! May 30-31, Chicago, IL: The Aslanian Group, Advanced Online Marketing. Details are at www.aslaniangroup.com/events/default.asp. June 4, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island: Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education National Conference, “Marketing Communications and New Technology: Keys to Successful Engagement.” Program details are at www.ccaeconf.org/en/. July 18-20, Chicago, IL: ACT Enrollment Planners Conference, “A Marketer’s Guide to Better Search Engine Visibility” (pre-conference workshop) and “The Evolution of Publications in an Internet World.” Expect a website link soon. July 22, 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 an on-campus workshop to increase the Online Marketing skills of people on your campus. Schedule your presentation soon. Contact me at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com or call me at 248.766.6425. 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. Gerry McGovern offers unparalleled expertise in customer-centric website content and the Customer Carewords research program to identify what that content should be. More about Gerry at www.gerrymcgovern.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 |