Jennifer Copeland's Blog on College and University Marketing

University online advertising can miss the mark....the enrollment mark, that is

A few months ago while reading an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution online (www.ajc.com), I ran across an ad for the EMBA program at Mercer University. Mercer happens to be my alma matter, so I was intrigued. I couldn’t resist the temptation to click to see how Mercer was using this ad to acquire inquiries.

 

The  ad was linked directly to the University’s main page for the Stetson School of Business. Since things like inquiry acquisition for higher education is among the things we do on a daily basis at DemandEngine, I couldn’t help but notice several things about Mercer’s approach:

DemandEngine Client Wins MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Award!

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte Department of Continuing Education has been awarded the Gold Award for Non-profit Email Newsletter by MarketingSherpa in their annual email marketing awards.

What made the UNCC newsletter stand out above the rest? "An entrepreneurial email newsletter strategy was the cornerstone of the continuing education department’s impressive growth in 2008,” according to MarketingSherpa’s website. “They grew their opt-in list 18%, and boosted average their average open rate 14.5%. The newsletter campaign directly delivered a 13% increase in enrollments, a 29% increase in revenue, and a 380% ROI for their email marketing department."

Congratulations to Lesley Snyder and Laurie Parker for their outstanding efforts!

Four Interactive Marketing Resolutions for 2009

Another new year has started and like many of us, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon of committing to personal and professional improvements in the coming year (and this year, I’m determined these resolutions will extend beyond mid-January!). On that note, I’ve created a list of interactive marketing resolutions that each of us working in higher education marketing and enrollment management should take to heart in 2009.

Best of 2008

With the start of the new year, I thought we'd take one last look back at the best posts from 2008. Here are my personal favorites:

#1: How Students Actually Use Social Technologies


#2: ACHE 2008 Live Update: Stanford Shares How to Make Online Learning Work

#3: Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Email Marketing Practices of Undergraduate Admission Offices

In addition to the top three, I couldn't resist the urge to include (as my personal ultimate favorite post!) the post about the big change in my life in 2008 (Baby Copeland).

Happy new year and here's to a prosperous 2009!

AMA Live Update: Taking Email to the Next Level

Presented by Karlyn Morissette, Dartmouth College

A good overview of email marketing best practices, this presentation provided good fundamentals (which, unfortunately, are overlooked time and time again). Here are the 5 best practices covered:

AMA Live Update: Beyond the Click: Strategies to Generate and Cultivate Online Inquiries

Presented by Jennifer Wooley, Georgia Tech Distance Learning and Professional Education and yours truly

Our presentation this morning focused on 3 main topics:

1. The marketing playing field has changed - institutions must now engage prospective students, customers, donors, and other constituents on their terms...not ours.
2. Paid search marketing represents an opportunity for higher education to engage prospects when they are looking for what you have to offer.
3. To get the most out of your paid search efforts, marketers must develop strategies to move students beyond the click and to conversion (i.e. application, enrollment, registration, etc).

Using institutions experiencing success as our model, primarily the Global Learning Center at Georgia Tech, we provided multiple examples of cultivation once the inquiry has engaged with the institution as a result of a paid search ad.

How can you make paid search work?

Live Blog: American Marketing Association- Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education

This week I'm in Chicago at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. I'm presenting on Monday morning, but will also be blogging from the conference on Monday and Tuesday. Here are the topics I have planned:

• Beyond the Click: Strategies to Generate and Cultivate Online Inquiries
• Taking Email to the Next Level: Practical Advice for Creating an Integrated Email Marketing Program
• The Campus Visit: Who Controls
• The Method is as Important as the Message: You are How You Market
• Effective Marketing Strategies for Adult Students

Questions or comments in advance? Post a comment or email me directly at j.copeland@demandengine.com.

How to Use Email to Start Your Social Networking Engine in Higher Education

With the popularity of social networking, colleges and universities understandably are interested in participating. Increasingly, colleges and universities are asking how to start social communities, measure a return, and sometimes why to start them. In our experience, the "how" to do it unfortunately often comes well before the "why" or the "should."

As part of a larger outreach strategy, communities can an effective channel to deploy, but managed improperly, they can backfire, or fizzle out from the large amounts of institutional time invested, producing very little measurable benefit.

Managing Email Marketing: Ideas for the Institutional Marketer

Despite the plethora of new (and perhaps overhyped) technologies such as blogs, social networks, or podcasts, email has achieved the status of a proven channel on par with direct mail and advertising. In fact, enrollment marketers including undergraduate, graduate and continuing education professionals, athletic departments, and development offices are actively using email to engage their audiences and generate response.

The challenge for the institutional marketer is to provide support for critical enrollment and development email campaigns while maintaining brand image. Often, promotional email efforts are departmentally decentralized and it is not uncommon for an institution to use multiple email delivery applications including the standard campus email software. The end results are typically higher costs and diminished branding.

Five Higher Education Email Marketing Resolutions for 2008

Starting to think about your new year’s resolutions? Makes sense, right? A new year represents an opportunity for a clean slate.

As you think about your 2008 recruitment and outreach marketing plans, consider the growing need to engage students in dialogue rather than marketing pushes, blasts, or broadcasts. With the increasing number of media technologies to share and access information, students are gaining more control – and are less tolerant of irrelevant information, and unidirectional marketing pitches.

Our experience working with colleges and universities across the country shows that a properly planned and executed email marketing program can start conversations, qualify student interest, and nurture relationships to achieve enrollment objectives.

As you think about your 2008 “slate”, erase your current email board and adopt the following resolutions to power your results: