Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing

Are people interested in Instant Messaging as part of their admissions office communications mix?

Monday's Link of the Week selection highlighting the way Gustavus Adolphus College presents IM to prospective students generated the highest number of page views at my website that I've ever had from a Link of the Week email. That just might mean more people are getting ready to add this feature or at least want to see how others are including it on their websites.

If you missed it, the Gustavus Adolphus IM page is at http://admission.gustavus.edu/admissions/connect/im.asp

In that email I also promised to send along this week several new additions to the IM list at my August 21 posting in 2006. I'll also add these soon to the master list so everything stays in one place. Here are the new entries, with links direct to where the IM feature is presented:

• Catawba College at http://www.catawba.edu/admissions/meet/im.htm 
• Clearwater Christian College at http://www.clearwater.edu/admissions/im.asp
• Hofstra University at http://www.hofstra.edu/Admission/adm_aim.html
• Northwestern Iowa Community College at http://www.nwicc.cc.ia.us/pages/admissions/admissions/im.html?&TYPE=M&PID=CORE-WBMAIN&TOKENIDX=8987400988
• University of South Carolina at http://www.sc.edu/admissions/imchat.htm

As with so much in higher education marketing, what strikes me again is the variety of institutions represented. You just can't predict the leaders based on type of institution. So often, innovation is a function of who "get's it" at a particular place more than any other factor. The five schools presented here certainly confirm that.

Posted by Bob at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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If you haven't yet discovered a new feature from Wordtracker, visit the "Free Keyword Suggestion Tool" at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Enter single keywords and you'll get back a plethora of results for your entry and a long list of similar combinations. When you can't quite decide how to label something at your website, go here and use the tool for an estimate of how many people are searching for your possibilities each day.

Yesterday, after lunch at the CCU Communication Officers Conference, three of us were discussing the relative popularity of "elementary education" and "teacher education" as possible labels for a website path at a particular college. None of us really had an especially educated guess about which one to use.

Wordtracker made it pretty clear which of those terms is in more common use:

• Elementary education... estimate of 800 searches per day
• Teacher education... estimate of 81 searches per day

That's obviously quite a difference and strongly suggests which term is best used in the title tag for a page and for the primary heading on the page.

We also learned that "Special education teacher" was a relatively popular term, with an estimate of 222 searches a day.

Your results might not always be quite so definitive, but this is a quick and easy way to do an initial test.

In July, I'll be offering two workshops on search engine marketing. The first is on the pre-conference Wednesday afternoon schedule at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference (http://www.act.org/epc/). The second is a post-conference Tuesday afternoon event at the eduWeb Conference (http://www.eduwebconference.com/).

Posted by Bob at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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The list of "Web editors, publishers, and more" at my August 8 blog entry grows today from 38 to 41 with the addition of three new entries:

• Director of Electronic Communications at Bethel University
• Web Editor at Oral Roberts University
• Web Content Manager at Malone College

The new additions were gleaned from the list of people attending the Communication Officers Conference of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan that's taking place right now. Later this morning, I'll be presenting a session on "Writing Right for the Web" and another this afternoon on "Communicating in Today's World: The Challenge of Integrating Print, Web, and Email."

Postions like these are still not common, but let's continue to hope for movement, however slowly, in this direction. Website content and how it is presented to web visitors is the single most important element in the marketing success of your website. If you can make one investment this year in website improvement, add a skilled web writer to your staff.

Increased web writing skills are important for everyone who prepares web content. My next Web Conference on Writing Right for the Web, hosted by Academic Impressions, is Monday, October 1. An outline and registration details are at https://www.academicimpressions.com/web_conferences/1007-web-writing.php

To arrange an extended half-day web writing workshop on your campus, contact me at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com

Posted by Bob at 07:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Reading through my email newsletters this morning and found a valuable entry from DM News reporting the successful use of email as part of an overall marketing campaign. The goal was increasing participation in fund raising events for breast cancer research sponsored by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.

The complete article is at http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/e-mail-marketing/41350.html

Note these highlights:

• Email was part of an integrated "multichannel" campaign that included direct response TV, radio, billboards, newspaper, direct mail, lead generation, and search.
• Email recipients were selected according to demographic and geographic criteria to build as accurate a target audience as possible of people who were likely to take part in fund-raising walks.
• A preliminary email was sent (that included an opt-out choice) announcing people would receive "a few marketing messages over the next few weeks."
• Emails were then sent every second week over an 8 week span.
• Results of the email component were tracked every two weeks by matching email registrations and requests for information against the master file of people receiving the email messages.

All of these steps can of course be used for email campaigns by colleges and universities, particularly that first step announcing the campaign and giving people a chance to opt-out right from the start.

Posted by Bob at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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The list of web editor and web writer positions under my August 8 blog entry grows to 38 as the "Web Editor" position at Dalhousie University is added.

Today, at the annual meeting of the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education, I did a presentation on how new online communication technologies are moving colleges and universities into an environment where they have less and less ability to control what is being said about them, for Wikipedia to YouTube to MySpace and beyond.

The heart of the presentation was the many advanced website features at Canadian universities. And part of the discussion was about the need to continue to shift resources from design to content preparation. And so this entry from Dalhousie reflects one small part of a continued expansion in that direction.

Visit the August 8 entry for the full list from Ball State University to Yale University.

Posted by Bob at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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