stop pushing & start pulling: inbound marketing for higher education

Stop Pushing and Start PullingThe Evolution of Higher Education Marketing

Ann Oleson, Converge ConsultingJay Kelly, Converge Consulting

May 29, 2014

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Audience is in Control

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Permission Marketing

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Definition of Inbound Marketing

Earning the attention of prospects

Making yourself easy to be found

Drawing students/alumni to your website by producing custom content that is valued

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Search Trends

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Search Trends

About 85% of searchers never go beyond page 1 of the results

53% of all searchers click on the very first link on page #1

94% of search users choose organic over paid listing when searching, particularly for purchases

Sources: "Search Engine Rankings: Why They Matter." PmbmediaWORKS. 2011. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. “Ten statistics that demonstrate the value of SEO”. Intraspin 2012. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.

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Goal

To be found wherever prospective students, parents, donors, and alumni are searching.

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These guys have changed the rules!

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History of SEO Tactics: Humming Bird and Content as King

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Trends and Expectations for the Future

Value is future proof and algorithm proof.”“

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Modern SEO Tactics

• Everything works together to build AUTHORITY– Not just one keyword, lots of keywords

• Develop high level strategic themes

Over 70% of the traffic you earn for any given page will come from keywords you didn’t try to optimize for.

15% of all Google searches, over half a billion per day, have never been seen before.

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More Than Just Webpages

Search engines index more than just Websites

Images

Maps

Videos

News

Blogs

Social Sharing

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Videos and SEO

Think short: length, title, and description

Optimize titles, tags, and descriptions for all content

Tag ‘influencers’ in videos

Encourage FB video ‘likes’ by requesting them directly in the description of the video

Consider Promoted videos

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Keyword Research

What are Branded and Unbranded Keywords?

Do you know your top performing Unbranded Keywords?

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SEO Keyword Report

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SEO Keyword Report

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Quality, Not Just Quantity

–Strength of the linking domain

–Strength of the pages the links are on

–Strength of the links themselves

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That Which is Measured Improves

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SEO Checklist Have you done a

technical crawl?

Do you know your top performing Unbranded Keywords?

Have you thought about 3 to 4 overall brand messages for thematic SEO?

Do you have an SEO evangelist on campus?

Do you have a dashboard, report on SEO monthly?

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Inbound Marketing – The Pillars

Get Found=SEOBe Relevant=Content Strategy Be Social=Social MediaMeasure=Google Analytics

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Who has a content strategy plan?

Where does your school’s content exist?

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Content Strategy

Content Strategy refers to the planning, development, and management of content—written or in other media. The term is particularly common in web development since the late 1990s.

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Why Should I bother with Content Strategy?Your institution’s brand is connected to everything else…Which means Brand Strategy really can’t exist without content strategy to support it.

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Strategize•What content should be created?

•How will it be structured•How will I find it?•How to measure effectiveness?

Create•What is the purpose, audience, and brand message?

•What do we want them to learn?

•What is the best format? (COPE)

Measure •How are you doing with: SEO, Google Analytics, goal conversions, traffic sources, and social insights?

Analyze•What content do you have?

•Who is in charge?•Who is your target audience?

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What content do you have? Webinars Infographics Blog posts Videos Printed materials (publications, magazines) Phone scripts, speeches Other?

Analyze

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What content should be created? How will users find it? How will we measure it?

Strategize

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Working Across the Institution

Communications

IT

Admissions

Financial Aid

Faculty

Sr. Leadership

Marketing

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Content Process

Requested Created Approved Published

• Marketing

• Program Stakeholder

• Marketing

• Subject Matter Expert (SME)

• Marketing• Program

Stakeholder• Compliance

(as needed)

• Marketing

Email to Marketing

Marketing Initiative

Copy, Design,

Interviews

Email to Approve or Edit

Entered and

Published

edits

Estimate Timeline:Varies

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• Who is Using Personas?

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1. What is the purpose of the content?2. Who is the audience?3. What brand messages are we

communicating?4. What do we want the user to learn?5. What is the best format to deliver the

content?6. How will we measure the

success?

Create

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Content Calendar

Create

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• Optimize your On-Page elements for SEO.

SEO + Content Strategy

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COPE Create Once. Publish Everywhere

SEO + Content Strategy + Social

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SEO report, keyword rankings Conversions from blog referral traffic Google Analytics custom dashboard

Measure

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Content Checklist Do you have a strategic

approach?

Do you use templates to determine priority?

Do you use personas to target specific audiences?

How do you COPE?

Do you have a process in place for assessing effectiveness of your content?

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Inbound Marketing – The Pillars

Get Found=SEOBe Relevant=Content Strategy Be Social=Social MediaMeasure=Google Analytics

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If Facebook were a country, where would it rank in size?

3rd, After China and India

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Facebook AdvertisingCustom Audiences- Upload your prospective student list and retarget your ads to move students further down your recruiting pipeline

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What’s new in Higher EducationFacebook

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What’s new in Higher EducationLinkedIn

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Blogs

Ties in with SEO Student and faculty voices Use a combination of content: news

and events, alumni stories, faculty publishing, expertise and thought leadership

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Social Checklist Do you use social

monitoring?

Do you blog?

Do you have a social media strategy?

Do you have a shared social media calendar?

Do you have an identified social media champion on campus?

Do you have a measurement system in place?

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Inbound Marketing – The Pillars

Get Found=SEOBe Relevant=Content Strategy Be Social=Social MediaMeasure=Google Analytics

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Received an

email

Went to a landing page

Looked at degree options

Inquired

Open House

Applied

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Web analytics is a process,not a tool.

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Web Analytics: A Continuous Process

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Measure quantitative and qualitative data Continuously improve your website Align your measurement strategy with your

organizational strategy

Primary web analytics tasks

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Web analytics doesn’t start here

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http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-10-30/

Create a plan

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2,000 page views 70% returning visitors 80% bounce rate

Numbers Rarely Speak for Themselves

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Web Analytics Framework

1 Business Objectives

2 Website Goals

3Key Performance

Indicators (KPIs)

4 Targets

5 Segments

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•

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Goal: More than 3 minutes (180 seconds) on the site

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Universal Analytics is Here…

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Analytics Checklist Do you have GA

installed?

Do you have Goals set up?

Have you discussed a transition to Universal Analytics?

Have you completed a GA assessment?

Do you report weekly or monthly findings to measure recruitemtn success?

Do you have an Evangelist on campus?

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Definition of Inbound Marketing Earning the attention of prospects

Making yourself easy to be found

Drawing students/alumni to your website by producing custom content that is valued

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Ann Oleson ann@convergeconsulting.org@anncoleson

Jay Kellyjay@convergeconsulting.org@jckell3