Archive for November, 2008
Once again I found in my inbox this morning a couple of messages from people who wanted to register for the upcoming webinar series: “Email Marketing 360″ (the initial registration deadline was yesterday at 9PM). As a result, I decided to postpone the registration deadline until next Friday (November 28 - I know it's the Thanksgiving weekend in the US, but I figured out that Canadians and Europeans might appreciate the extra days) at 9PM ET. If you want to learn how to do email marketing right and use it to reach your audiences in these difficult economic times, this 2-webinar...
Read MoreI had some time at the Chicago O'Hare airport before my flight and was lucky enough to find a power outlet and a $7 wifi connection. So, I took the time to write a couple of my thoughts - fresh from the over - after attending the AMA Symposium this week. Social media and applications have finally made it to the Executive Office Social media took its fair (large?) share of this year's program at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. While I haven't heard anything earth-shattering in the presentations I attended (minus maybe some of the results...
Read MoreSince it's been a challenge to get the list of all the AMA Symposium blog posts on what I thought could become the higher ed conference content aggregator, here it is for your convenience (if you were at the conference, blogged about it and your posts are not listed, just email karine@collegewebeditor.com). This is probably the first time that the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education has been covered so much by bloggers (even if we were just a handful blogging) and by twitterers. The blog posts are listed in reverse chronological order. Day 4 and beyond: AMA Symposium: Good...
Read MoreThis session is presented by Richard Hesel from the Art & Science Group. Why this research? studentPOLL is quarterly survey done since 1994 about different issues with a national sample. Now, sample is done through The College Board and their SAT takers database. 90% of every college-bound students visits social networking websites (97% of African American) 84% have a profile page (93% of African American) Why don't they have it? Parents 28% Don't have time 46% Facebook and MySpace dominate 79% on Facebook (55% for Hispanics), 69% on MySpace (Hispanics 88%) 60% Facebook the most often visited with MySpace far behind 38% 70% visit site at least once a day, 32% 3...
Read MoreThis session is presented by Deborah Maue, Assistant VP for Marketing Strategy at DePaul University. DePaul hired a Word of Mouth Marketing Agency to try to tell the story more effectively, using its internal audience more effectively as ambassadors. The WOMM plan was built on DePaul's core values. They decided to build a social community for people who had a strong affinity for DePaul. Parents were chosen for the pilot project. The Quad was launched in August 2007 and targeted to parents of undergraduates (first new freshmen, then deposited freshmen, juniors and seniors and in Jan 2009 DePaul will invite parents of admitted students) Why...
Read MoreThis session is presented by Young Shin, President of Princeton Review Marketing Services. 3rd annual national survey of webite use in undergraduate and graduate school search. Survey made during the active search (3hr/week) phase 20,000 students over past 3 years during winter. When did you start your search? Before 28% in junior year of HS 40% during junior year (from 34% - +6% increase) Active search starts well ahead of 12 months before application. Stealth applications (application as first contact with school) on the increase 43% will submit an app before any prior contact with the school. They spend a lot of time researching on their own. Top sources...
Read MoreAs the AMA conference chair, Elizabeth Scarborough explained in her blog post yesterday, Karlyn Morissette's session attracted a full packed room yesterday at the conference for her session about email marketing: Karlyn Morissette, Web Producer at Dartmouth, had a packed house for her session on taking email to the next level. She framed her presentation with Barack Obama's email campaign and talked about why it was so effective. I'm pretty sure Karlyn's session had the highest attendance of any track session so far. Missed this hit (or the AMA conference altogether)? Register by tonight for the webinar series, Email Marketing 360, including a...
Read MoreThis session is presented by John Roberts, director of Internal Electronic Communications at Furman University. Internal audiences (faculty, staff, etc.) helps institutions define their brand outside of campus, especially with the recent paradigm shift in communication. According to the Families and Work Institute, the main factor in employee satisfaction is "providing and understanding and supportive work environment." 10 years ago, Furman had a newsletter and communication took place in informal settings in the hallways, at lunch, etc. Then, they launched FUnet, an internal news website (I would give you the web address, but it requires a username and password - weird for a news...
Read MoreThis session is presented by Marilyn Kail, AVP of Marketing and Communications and Jay Brown, Director of Marketing for Web Communications. First, CMU started with web 1.0 by doing a homepage redesign with a content management implementation. The old design was done in the mid-90's and... it showed. The new design breaks with the traditional horizontal photo banner format. Interesting take on the traditional higher ed university homepage. Then, CMU moved into Web 2.0 They captured other users on Facebook, YouTube and iTunes U. Very efficient channels that don't cost a dime. Being known as the "robotic" university, they decided to create viral edgy humorous videos: the...
Read MoreAMA Symposium: Why higher ed marketing teams need to start focusing on web analytics and measurement
The opening keynote was presented by Karen Breen Vogel from Clear Gauge. She explained to the conference audience why it's important to set up and use a good measurement system on the Web. Financial people don't care about your marketing tactics, activities or campaigns. They want measurable results. It's all about ROI. The traditional marketing funnel: Acquire > Engage > Convert Visits > Interaction > Leads When you do e-commerce, ROI is very clear. But, most organizations/institutions are trying to start a relationship on the Web: to go from anonymous visitors to known prospects. First, make sure everybody on campus agrees on the definitions (leads, etc.) In the...
Read MoreHere are the slides and links for this workshop I gave on November 16, 2008 at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education Workshop Slides Blogging Boot Camp WorkshopView SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: higher ed) Workshop Links All the links Blogs examples Interesting articles UPDATE: after my workshop, I was invited by Tom Williams from Innogage to answer a few questions live on Ustream. Tom decided to cover the conference by broadcasting some live videos with speakers over his Ustream channel every day - There were a few people asking questions via chat and the session was recorded. I'm addressing a...
Read MoreJust a quick post as I'm packing this morning for the AMA Symposium for Higher Education. Karlyn Morissette and I will be live blogging/twittering as much as we can from the conference. We haven't agreed on a hastag for Twitter yet, so feel free to follow me and I'll make sure I let you know how to follow all the action from the conference attendees (although I'm not sure how active this crowd is going to be on Twitter). While I'm scheduled to present a workshop about blogging tomorrow afternoon, Karlyn will give a presentation on integrated email marketing on Monday morning....
Read MoreAfter blogs yesterday, today is the turn of email. This week, I guess I'm on a mission to rescue you from the sirens of the lost technologies casting the premature death of very good marketing/communication channels with great proven return on investment. So, let me put it this way right from the get-go: email isn't dead. Email marketing is still very relevant in higher education especially in these difficult economic times where ROI is going to become even more important. At one condition though, you got to do it right. Both speakers from the upcoming Email Marketing 360 webinar series, Karlyn Morissette...
Read MoreFor the past few days I've been busy wrapping up my presentation for the marathon 4-hour workshop I'll give this Sunday at the AMA Symposium for Higher Education. And, I can report that blogs aren't dead or "so 2004" as Paul Boutin would love his readers to believe after scanning his Wired article published on October 20, 2008: Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug. Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. [...] And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty...
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