Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing

In the last few days, my secret shoppers have been receiving a plethora of online email holiday greetings and a continuing stream of postcards and brochures in the regular mail.

And yesterday, on December 20, arrived the Winter 2007 edition of "etc" magazine from Seattle Pacific University. As you might imagine, it stood out well from most of the other items received in the last couple of weeks.

Emphasis on location and jobs... and the Christian environment

Counting the covers, this is 36 pages of (mostly) stories from and about students and alumni and their experiences at Seattle Pacific. The theme for this issue is "Cool City, Cool Jobs" and the content delivers strong examples of both. Seattle, it turns out, has less rain per year than Miami, Boston, New York, and Chicago. But that probably won't change my mental image of the city.

A couple of things to note. Toward the end of the magazine, there's a listing of academic majors available and there is complete coverage of scholarship and financial aid opportunities. The scholarship information presents a clear picture of the academic achievement I'll need for various award levels. I'd like to see a URL that will get me right to a website page with another list of the majors that leads easily to more information about them.

Seattle Pacific is a Christian university and the magazine includes three articles (one about an alumni, one about a current student, one about a faculty author) that explore the impact of the faith experience. Since Christian universities vary, that's a nice mix to introduce the Christian environment at this school.

Asking for reader feedback in an email survey

Just before I checked the mail and found the magazine, an email from Seattle Pacific arrived on the same day asking me to complete a survey to help improve future issues. Sending the survey a week or so after the magazine arrived isn't a good idea for maximum response and so the timing in my case was about as close to perfect as it gets. Tricky to time it right, but this one worked.

As you think about your own contact and cultivation program for traditional student prospects, I recommend you add the Seattle Pacific magazine to your list of things to review. Do your own secret shopping when you visit http://www.spu.edu/depts/ugadm/ and take the link to the subscription form.

Seattle Pacific is friendly to high school freshmen

When you complete the form, note that the "when do you expect to start college" options extend to Autumn of 2010. That's a nice way to tell freshmen in high school that Seattle Pacific will treat their early interest seriously. While there may not be a huge number of high school freshmen getting started quite that soon, this magazine format is an strong way to include those who are asking for information at relative little extra cost. Are you doing something similar?

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Keep in mind the source, as always, but plan to take advantage of the "Featured Trends" and "Featured Research" reports available from Doubleclick's Knowledge Central page at http://www.doubleclick.com/us/knowledge_central/

Two research reports definitely worth reading are "Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Influence Worth of Mouth" and "Best Practices for Optimizing Web Advertising Effectiveness."

Money spent on online advertising is still a small percentage of total ad spending, but it remains the fastest growing area. Even more important than online ads is the link between regular advertising and your website information.

More and more today people are likely to remember a "keyword" or phrase heard or read in your regular advertising and then attempt to use that to find relevant content on your website. And that means when you plan future traditional ad campaigns, be sure to test the words and phrases you expect people to remember in the search engine for your website. If you don't find relevant content, you've either got to

• Change the search so the relevant content is found and displayed high on your list or
• Create the relevant content in the first place.

Make sure that you don't disappoint those in a position to influence others.

Posted by Bob at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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The Tuesday, December 12 edition of the New York Times gives prominent front page space to another story that demonstrates the power of the press to catch up to what's been happening for several years with the headline, "In New Twist on Tuition Game, Popularity Rises With the Price."

Ursinus, Notre Dame, Rice and more...

Ursinus College, "a small liberal arts institution here in the eastern Pennsylvania countryside," is the featured institution. Trustees urged the president to raise a "too low" tuition "early in 2000" and applications and enrollments have increased since then.

Other schools listed as following the same strategy include University of Notre Dame, Bryn Mawr College, Rice University, University of Richmond, and Hendrix College. These are, the Times notes, "just a few that have sharply increased tuition to match colleges they consider their rivals, while also providing more financial assistance."

The Times article seems to confirm that many families equate price with quality of education. Some, we might speculate, equate price with bragging rights about where children enroll and how much scholarship money is received.

What happened to "tution discounting"?

What the article misses is any direct mention of tuition discounting to reach or maintan a descired academic profile that otherwise would not exist at many colleges no matter who high the price is raised. The article equates "scholarships" and "financaial aid" without any distinction between need-based aid and merit aid.

And thus the important question in determining just how high a college or university stands in the competitive marketplace. How high is the discount rate compared to the other schools in the same competitive set? That's the next step for the Times to explore. A high discount level to maintain a comparable academic profile indicates lower reputation and market place position than rival schools.

Read the New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/education/12tuition.html?em&ex=1166158800&en=cecc68e6045be404&ei=5087%0A

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If you are truly devoted to search marketing, you might already know that the 2006 Search Engine Strategies conference is underway right now in Chicago.

All of us who couldn't make the meeting can still learn quite a bit about what's going on from a team of bloggers who will report on most of the sessions.

Visit http://www.seroundtable.com/ to see what's already been posted as I write this, starting with Danny Sullivan's opening keynote presentation.

Don't expect web friendly posting style. You won't be able to scan much of anything posted, but the diligent who start reading and work through what's here will certainly become more informed about the latest (and sometimes greatest) opinions about search marketing from people active in the field.

I won't get to read much of this myself until sometime next week. After that, I might do some posting of points that seem especially relevant to college and university marketing efforts.

Posted by Bob at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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