Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing

Tom Richmond, director of admissions marketing and communications at Bradley University, has shared some preliminary results after Bradley went live in September with an online Financial Aid Estimator service. You can try it at https://admissions.bradley.edu/ssl/estimator/?status=viewtab1

I selected that page as the October 19 Link of the Week featured website and asked Tom if he had any information to share about changes in yield results. It hasn't been working long enough for substantial results but the early information that Tom sent indicates that people indeed value the service.

Here are some points to consider:

• In previous years, a service was available online that allowed visitors to submit the information to a live person, who then calculated the results and returned an estimate in about a week. Last September about 650 estimates were completed.
• This September, the number of estimates completed online increased to about 1100. When you try the estimator for yourself, you'll see that after taking a few minutes to enter your information, you'll have a response back to you in just minutes more. I wasn't using a stop watch, but it was pretty fast.

And here's what I find especially important:

• Tom writes that "I am also seeing our first juniors and sophomores 'discovering' the feature. The numbers are countable in the dozens." I can just imagine how most colleges and universities would react to a request for a financial aid estimate from a junior, let alone a sophomore.

No longer do people who might be considering enrolling at Bradley have to wait until a predetermined point to find out what the net cost of an education at the university might be. From a marketing perspective, this is indeed a service-oriented change that is very likely to pay future enrollment dividends.

Congratulations to Bradley for getting out in front of nearly every other school with the estimator service. So far, I've only found two others available, both at public universities:

• University of Toledo at http://www.financialaid.utoledo.edu/estimator/
• The College of New Jersey at https://delphi.tcnj.edu:81/cgi-bin/tuitionestimator/estimate.cgi?step=1&selected=1

Both of these were also Link of the Week selections. You'll find more than 50 college and university web features at http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/linkoftheweek.html

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The master list of presidents who communicate with a personal blog reaches 25 today with the addition of a new entry from Seward County Community College in Kansas City.

You can read President Duane Dunn's blog at http://blog.sccc.edu/president.php

The president strives for bi-weekly postings and seems to be keeping up with that schedule, although I didn't find any dates on the postings.

This is one blog you can't miss from the front page of the college site. It was the first item listed at http://www.sccc.edu/ today.

New Project on Presidents Who Blog

As the number of presidents listed here grew past 20, a not-so-curious thing started to happen. People are asking questions about how presidents "do" these blogs with the expectation that I'll know the answer. Sometime I do, most of the time I don't. That's because until now I've been adding entries to the list without regularly reading many of them. That's will change, with a new schedule to rotate through several each week and begin to build information about what's happening in the world of college and university presidents who blog.

25 College & University Presidents Who Blog

Review the list of presidents who blog at http://bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/2007/07/15_presidents_who_blog_saint_v.html

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Carmella Manges, director of E-Marketing at St. Edward's, sends along a note that there's been an update to the posting on their website for the Web Editor position I wrote about earlier this month.

You'll find the updated description of responsibilities and qualifications for this position in Austin, TX, at http://www.stedwards.edu/hr/jobs/J07177.htm

The original listing is at http://bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/2007/10/web_editor_spot_at_st_edwards.html

Posted by Bob at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Did you by chance think the Washington Post was just the name of a newspaper?

Major newspapers don't survive today by selling papers, subscriptions to papers, and advertising in newspapers. The Washington Post Company has been diversifying for years and holdings now include the college test-prep business of Kaplan, Inc.

And so it isn't a surprise that the Post has now bought a search marketing firm used by a plethora of colleges and universities to find adult students for masters and bachelors programs. The announcement in the Washington Business Journal at http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2007/10/08/daily35.html reports that advertising in the education sector was a bright spot. Education-related advertising increased 23 percent in the 2nd quarter of this year.

The new acquisition was founded in 2004 and will continue to operate under its Course Advisor name at http://www.courseadvisor.com/

When you visit, be sure to notice the client mix that ranges from University of Phoenix and Capella University to University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Boston University, and numerous trade schools.

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The day after news of the web editor opening at St. Edward's University came the good news that the University of Toronto has created a new web editor position (titled: Manager, Interactive Communications) and is accepting applicants until near the end of October.

Brendan Dellandrea, manager of website implementation and training, notes that the position "has been styled on many of your suggestions (Academic Impressions: Writing Right for the Web) in the area of experience, and tailored to fit the unique needs of U of T." Always good to hear the details when something moves from a presentation to the real world.

Until October 26, the detailed job description is at https://utoronto.taleo.net/careersection/10000/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=36981

The new person will join a university that's developing advanced Web 2.0 communication capabilities. Brendan writes that:

• "The exciting thing about this brand new position is that we are currently developing an online community for alumni and friends. The new community framework provides us with enormous leverage in creating targeted, relevant, personalized content for our alumni, and will replace our existing alumni & friends web site. The community allows us to display personalized content to individual users upon log-in, based on their academic and extra-curricular experience at U of T, or self-identified interests. The Manager, Interactive Communications, will play an integral part in carrying out this personalized content strategy."

All of this and you get to work in downtown Toronto as well!

In between travels to South Dakota next week, I'll try to get specifics of both the U of T and St. Edward's positions added here for people planning to create similar spots. The more of these, the better.

 

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Carmella Manges, director of e-marketing at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas sent along word this morning that there is a search getting underway for the position of "Web Editor" with significant responsibility for the overall content of university websites and continued unfolding of a new CMS system.

To learn more go direct to the complete job posting at http://www.stedwards.edu/hr/jobs/J07170.htm 

St. Edward's is a leader in higher education marketing practices. This is a great opportunity for people with the right background who want to work with a team of talented marketers.

Posted by Bob at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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OK, it isn't yet an avalanche of new college and university presidents who blog but there's no doubt that the rate of increase is stronger this past month or so than at any time since I started the master list over a year ago.

Not long after my last entry for University of Calgary, Melissa at Academica Group replied with a comment that the president at Cambrian College in Ontario had started a blog. And a couple of days after that, the usual Google search turned up two more, another Canadian entry from Trinity Western University and the president at Vermont's Middlebury College.

You'll find those blogs here:

• Cambrian College's Sylvia Bernard at http://www.cambriancollege.ca/wordpress/
• Middlebury College's Ron Liebowitz at http://rononmiddlebury.wordpress.com/
• Trinity Western University's Jonathon Raymond at http://jonathanraymond.blogspot.com/

See the full list of 24 college and university presidents who blog at http://bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/2007/07/15_presidents_who_blog_saint_v.html

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With online video playing a more and more important marketing role, sometimes you might not want to sit back and wait for people to walk in your door or over the electronic highway with new video for your website. Sometimes you might want to spark things along. And that's what's happening now at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Andrew Welch, operations supervisior and graphic designer at IPFW, sent word this morning that Chancellor Michael Wartell launched the contest for "Your IPFW Story" on October 1. Any student who is at least 18 years old can compete. Contest rules note that "possible subjects include your classes, professors, student life, performing arts, athletics, your favorite place on campus, what’s changed on campus such as new buildings, student housing and so forth."

As usual in a contest like this, all the videos become the property of IPFW and can be used "for other projects the university deems worthwhile." That, we'll assume, includes online use from the university's website.

If you're thinking about a similar activity, you can review the 'Your IPFW Story' contest guidelines at http://www.ipfw.edu/publications/youripfwstory.html

The contest runs until November 30. The vacation trip takes place at the same time as an annual Alumni and Friends visit to Florida.

Can't wait for contest results? See video about IPFW on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=IPFW&search=Search where you'll find a long series of stories about campus events as well as a recent TV ad campaign. 

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Unexpected benefits often come along after events such as yesterday's web conference on web writing for Academic Impressions.

Adam Zakreski, eCommunications Specialist at the University of Calgary, was visiting this blog after the conference, noticed the master list of college and university presidents who blog, and sent along a note that his president, Harvey Weingarten, has just started a blog in early September.

In his first entry, the president offers three reasons for starting to blog. The second one, about the value of regular communication from the president's office, was especially strong:

• "Universities continue to go through times of change (or, more accurately, the U of C is going through a period of considerable change) and nothing is more important during such times as regular and effective communication about what changes are happening and why. One of the occupational hazards of senior administration at universities, especially large ones, is an almost obligatory distancing from the rank and file – students, staff and faculty, among others. I try to communicate regularly with the university community but it just seemed sensible to try blogging as a way of keeping in better touch. We talk a lot about being at the cutting edge of technology – I thought I might as well try to use some of this technology to help on the communication side."

Since that first post, two more have come along in September. That's a pretty good presidential pace. Follow new postings from President Harvey Wiengarten in "Notes from the President" at http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/blog/harvey

The full list of 21 college and university presidents who blog is at http://bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/2007/07/15_presidents_who_blog_saint_v.html

Posted by Bob at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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