Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing

A long flight yesterday from Detroit to Santa Barbara for today's "Writing Right for the Web" workshop at Fielding Graduate University was more than enough time to read Wall Street Journal and USA Today articles about the new iPhone coming in July.

No, the new iPhone by itself doesn't herald the much anticipated break out of mobile marketing on smartphones throughout the land. But it certainly moves things in the right direction, starting with a much lower entry price point of $199. That's a critical change.

Mobile Marketing Barriers

What's been holding back mobile marketing? The price of the phone, the price of the data plan needed to take advantage of the capabilities, and the learning curve for the new capabilities. And, of course, the limited ability of relatively small smartphone screens to display most types of online advertising. The iPhone doesn't remove all those barriers, but it keeps things moving in the right direction.

Change is coming. And the first step is just getting smartphones in the hands of more people. Today, something like 20 percent of people in the U.S. have them. That's not nearly enough for a significant advance in mobile marketing. But that market penetration percent will continue to climb.

Details about the new iPhone capabilities are at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2008-06-09-iphone_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

New Challenge for Google

And for an interesting article on the new challenges facing Google from smartphone expansion, see "Are Google, Yahoo the next dinosaurs" at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2008-06-09-mobile-search_N.htm 

One thing we can count on. Web marketing 5 years from now will be a much different game.

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A long flight yesterday from Detroit to Santa Barbara for today's "Writing Right for the Web" workshop at Fielding Graduate University was more than enough time to read Wall Street Journal and USA Today articles about the new iPhone coming in July.

No, the new iPhone by itself doesn't herald the much anticipated break out of mobile marketing on smartphones throughout the land. But it certainly moves things in the right direction, starting with a much lower entry price point of $199. That's a critical change.

Mobile Marketing Barriers

What's been holding back mobile marketing? The price of the phone, the price of the data plan needed to take advantage of the capabilities, and the learning curve for the new capabilities. And, of course, the limited ability of relatively small smartphone screens to display most types of online advertising. The iPhone doesn't remove all those barriers, but it keeps things moving in the right direction.

Change is coming. And the first step is just getting smartphones in the hands of more people. Today, something like 20 percent of people in the U.S. have them. That's not nearly enough for a significant advance in mobile marketing. But that market penetration percent will continue to climb.

Details about the new iPhone capabilities are at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2008-06-09-iphone_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

New Challenge for Google

And for an interesting article on the new challenges facing Google from smartphone expansion, see "Are Google, Yahoo the next dinosaurs" at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2008-06-09-mobile-search_N.htm 

One thing we can count on. Web marketing 5 years from now will be a much different game.

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Spent a marvelous morning yesterday with the Chicago metro REACh group, people from various colleges and universities who focus on "adult" marketing and recruitment. We met at a suburban campus of Illinois Institute of Technology.

REACh's Scott Pfeiffer and Tim Panfil asked for an ambitious program: cover 8 online communication topics in 2 back-to-back sessions of about 75 minutes each. The major challenge: compress some topics that I cover in 2 to 3 hour sessions into just a few key points to take back home. Since it is easier to let presentations grow than to shrink them, that was an interesting and useful exercise.

To start the day, I asked the people present to vote on which of the 8 topics we were covering were most important to them, the proverbial "if you could only pick one of these, which would it be?" question. These are topics (in the order covered) and the votes for each:

• Web Design... 3
• Search Optimization... 6
• Writing Right for the Web... 14
• Paid Search... 0
• Web Analytics... 2
• Video... 4
• Mobile Marketing... 2
• Blogs, Email, Chat Rooms... 7

I was a bit surprised and very pleased by the size of the Web Writing vote compared to the others. And just as pleased to see that the "old favorites" of Blogs, Email, Chat Rooms retain strong interest at a time when it is easy to be dazzled by new capabilities at the expense of "traditional" online communication that is still in favor with the people who use college and univesity websites.

3 New On-Campus Web Writing Seminars

"Writing Right for the Web" continues to be a popular presentation. Between now and early August I'll be doing on-campus sessions at Fielding Graduate University, Stonehill College, and Dominican University. And look for another web conference with Academic Impressions in October and a CASE V Annual Conference session in December in Chicago.

Whether you start on-campus or online, improving the quality of your web writing is often the most important thing you can do for stronger engagement with your visitors. Ask me about a session on your campus at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com

Subscribe to Website Magazine

On a related note, if you have never checked Website Magazine, do that soon. Each issue includes worthy articles on more than one of the topics listed above. The current issue is at www.websitemagazine.com where you can subscribe to either a print or an electronic version. Or both. 

That's it for now.

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Sitting in the Sacramento airport this morning on the way back from a web review report at UC Merced, I got online to check email. That takes me through a first Yahoo "news" page. This morning, the lead story is a tease to learn about "degrees to get you hired" to help you move forward in life at least until 2016.

Since I'm always in favor of moving forward, I visited followed the link to http://education.yahoo.net/degrees/articles/featured_8_sure_fire_hires.html and scanned the list of growing employment areas. Pretty standard stuff. Along with the story "reporting" the list comes a plethora of advertising opportunities for colleges and universities of every type. Hundreds of them.

You can sort by the level of degree or the area of study. But if you're interested in a "doctoral" program, don't expect to have only those advanced fields reported back to you. Whoever programmed this thing really does follow the mantra of "just keep throwing things at people until something sticks."

I tried sorting the alpha list for on-campus programs by zip code, using one from Michigan. That did sort things out to the point where the first programs reported were indeed in or near the zip code. But the list kept right on going, reporting non-degree occupational programs in locations as far as 2,000 miles away.

Does advertising like this work? It all depends on ROI. Cost of leads returned and percent who convert to enrollments. But it sure isn't a direct marketer's idea of how to do things.

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You can't miss it just about anywhere on the web these days: Advertising for adults to enroll in bachelor's and master's degree programs.

And much if not most of this is tightly targeted to people searching for the right career. After all, "career advancement" is one of the strongest terms that students of every age favor in our Customer Carewords research.

Consider this example. Yahoo runs a "news" story on the front page about the "10 stealth careers that are on the rise." That's a fly trap to lure people into a plethora of ads for adult degree programs. Visit http://education.yahoo.net/degrees/articles/featured_10_great_careers_you_never_heard.html and you'll find a story on "10 Great Careers You've Probably Never Heard Of" and the chance to browse for degrees in just about any area you can imagine.

• The advertising isn't just from for-profits like Phoenix and Capella. Search for online Ph.D. programs, for instance, and you'll find an ad for Boston University. Follow that ad and you'll eventually learn that the BU choices are for Doctor of Physical Therapy and a "Doctorate in Occupational Therapy."
• Things fall apart just a bit at this point as much of the information you find with a "Ph.D." level search isn't for Ph.D. degrees. In this case, the BU trip takes you to ads for Northeastern, George Washington, and Norwich universities. Each is offering an array of master's degrees but no Ph.D. level programs.

But why quibble? If you throw enough ads on the wall, some of them will stick and attract flys. At least that seems to be the theory at work right now for online advertising for adults.

To sharpen your skills in adult student recruiting, come to Carol Aslanian's conference May 29-30 in Chicago on "Adult Student Marketing: Electronic, Mass Media and Print Practices that Work."

• The meeting is at the University of Chicago's Gleacher Center and there's only room for about 100 people. Over 60 have already registered and this one has sold out for the past two years.
• Register soon at http://www.aslaniangroup.com/events/

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Yes, there are still people who think marketing is evil, or at least a misleading waste of time nad money. If that debate is still alive and well on your campus and impeding the adoption of effective marketing plans and activities, then a new book from two authors at the Harvard Business School might help.

The title and subtitle of an AdAge article on the book pretty much tell the tale: "Marketing, Much Like Democracy, is Good for You (Yes, Really)" leads the story, followed by "Think About It: Politicians Should Treat Citizens the Way Marketers Do."

The AdAge article is at http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=124885

You Don't have to agree with everything in "The Greater Good" by John Quelch and Katherine Jocz to use an essential part of the argument on your campus: marketing spreads knowledge about what's being marketed and engages and involves people to an extent that would not happen otherwise.

Can marketing be silly and ineffective and even dishonest? Of course. But at least in this era of "reality marketing" people are more alert to false claims and dubious evidence than in the past.

One point is especially relevent for online marketing. It is much easier today for word-of-mouth marketing to spread the tale of a bad experience with your college or university. That runs the gamut of a first experience on your website to a campus visit to your orientation week experience. And thus higher education marketers more than ever are under pressure to present accurate, realistic images of life at their schools. Be honest. You can't afford not to be.

And that, these authors say, is something politicians might do better at as well.

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The "Adcenter" at Viriginia Commonwealth University is dead.

The "Brandcenter" at VCU is alive and well.

That's the story reported this morning by AdAge at http://adage.com/article?article_id=123007

AdAge calls this "a telling nod to the radical changes afoot in the marketing world." The story recounts how faculty, students, and trustees deliberated and decided that the link to advertising in the old name was too narrow for today's marketing world and would likely impact the ability of future graduates to find top jobs.

The change includes a $9 million move to a new physical location and a new website.

While the name has changed, the 4 tracks that students can follow while spending two years as full-time students to earn a master's degree have not. The selections are:

• Art direction
• Copywriting
• Creative brand management
• Communications strategy

Alas, the movement on the new website hasn't happened as fast as the AdAge article appeared. A search for www.brandcenter.vcu.edu as reported by AdAge doesn't yet go to the new site. If you use that link without a search, it will take you to the current AdCenter page to see the old front page before it disappears. Or, go direct to http://www.adcenter.vcu.edu/ 

Whatever path you take, you'll find a website entry point that looks and acts as if it was created by ad agencies.

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A very nice article is just up from MarketingSherpa that tells you everything you wanted to know... and maybe a bit more... about how college and university marketers and public relations people might use the social networking site Digg to best advantage.

The article is at http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30279 and is open access until January 15.

Once you read this, you'll understand why Digg is a fickle place. But that doesn't mean that creative presentation of content likely to appeal to a large audience isn't worth posting. I'm thinking, for instance, of the handful of colleges and universities with online estimators for scholarships and financial aid. Special celebrations and traditions might work as well. Or faculty research results in areas of high public interest.

There's no way to know in advance exactly what might be popular in this viral marketing format. Pay special attention to the section on elements of the algorithm that Digg uses to decide what gets prominent placement and what does not. It isn't for instance, only the number of "diggs" that your article receives, but also the "diversity" of the people who like it.

So take one piece of advice in the MarketingSherpa article to heart: spend some time on the site before you post anything to it. Get a feel for what's popular in the 8 topic areas. And then decide how you might get some extra visibility for your college or university if CNN someday finds you listed at a top level.

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This Monday's Link of the Week email featured the 17 student and alumni blogs used as the destination point for a new fall branding campaign at the University of Manitoba. Pictures and introductions to those who blog are at http://www.itsmyfuture.ca/index.html

Yesterday Lori Yarchuk, marketing manager, public affairs at the University, wrote that images for the print, transit, and billboard advertising that supports the campaign are also online for your viewing pleasure. You'll find 3 transit ads, 3 billboard ads, and 4 print ads. Each one features a person who is also blogging on the website. See them at http://www.itsmyfuture.ca/campaign.html 

What amazes me most about this is how rare it is. University of Minnesota was featured in a Link of the Week back in November 2006 for the "We Are All Search Engines" campaign. The components of that extraordinary program are available at http://www.brand.umn.edu/discover/howItUnfolds/index.php

But more typical than what Manitoba and Minnesota are doing are the full-page ads that I see in The NY Times Magazine on many Sundays.

• Colleges and universities pay rather large sums for placement in addition to creative (and maybe even a touch of research?) and then leave behind a URL to the front page of the website.
• Assuming that the print ad indeed has impact, how much better it would be to enhance it with a link to special content on the website that expands upon and reinforces the theme of the ad. And in that way, begin to measure the ROI of the expense.

No, it isn't absolutely necessary to do this. The print advertising itself might have an impact. But in this age of mixed media, it truly seems a shame that more people don't take the time and make the extra investment to plan a more intergrated effort.

Congratulations to Manitoba. And to Minnesota. And to anyone else who is thinking about a similar integrated campaign. 

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It had to happen, didn't it?

Paid advertising is going big time on social networking sites. Wednesday news sources gave major play to news that Facebook would be dipping into personal information people put online so that advertisers can use this information to make sure that when Sally buys a new Sony TV or Tom enrolls in a University of Phoenix online course, that information is sent along to everyone else who is a friend of Sally or Tom.

The strategy, we are told, is to take advantage of word-of-mouth references on the assumption that if you like something, a significant number of your friends will also like it.

Marketers are going to pay major dollars to take advantage of this. And, despite the NY Times headline below, Facebook isn't falling over backwards to make it easy for individual people to keep this from happening. First, you'll have to opt out rather than give permission for this to happen. Second, according to the USA Today story, Facebook is waiting to see how many people are upset by this practice. If there are lots of them, the "We'll react quickly to that" according to the head of Facebook.

Each of the stories below is worth reading, in part to see the differents spins people are putting on the event. The AdvertisingAge story will give you the best peek at just how the new system will work.

And there's absolutely no reason, of course, why colleges and universities might not take advantage of this as well. You'll have to create your own brand space on Facebook and after that you'll be free to play if the ad rates and expected returns justify the investment. Let's watch and see if University of Phoenix, the largest online education advertiser by far, moves into the new arena.

MySpace, of course, is working on its own expanded advertising opportunities. The USA Today story notes that MySpace, at 110 million users, is still far larger than Facebook at 40 million people. In short, stay tuned for the Clash of the Social Networking Titans.

Visit these stories for more information:

• New York Times
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/technology/07adco.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin 
• "Facebook Is Marketing Your Brand Preferences (With Your Permission)"
• Advertising Age
• http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=121806 
• "Facebook's Big Ad Plan: If Users Like You, They'll Be Your Campaign"
• USA Today
• http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2007-08-26-facebook_N.htm
• "Facebook plans to offer targeted ads"

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From a late Friday afternoon review of today's email comes this article from the folks at Advertising Age comparing differences between print and online ads that make an impact.

The full story is at http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=121728

The article, "It's the Message, Not the Medium," reports on a summary of available research that shows (and is this a great surprise?) that magazine readers of print ads are most likely to read an ad if they already know the brand and if they are interested in the product. In that case, people will take the time to read copy in the ad.

Online, on the other hand, has to produce a much more immediate response. Here's the key for online ads:

• "The most important thing is to get their [visitors] attention quickly and to tell them the benefit immediately. There is no greater violation [on the part of] internet advertisers than to assume that the internet visitor has plenty of time on his or her hands,"

The conclusion of the reporters here is that for now "creative is king" over the medium since without the right message delivered the right way, people won't connect with the ads. That's certainly true but the additional message is that creativity for the sake of creativity isn't going to work either. Above all, the content, whether long or brief, has to be relevant to the person exposed to the ad.

If you're advertising online, be fast with the benefit. To harken back to old direct marketing maxims that still work today, you have a second or two to make an impact and create the online equivalent of an open envelope.

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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.

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Writing this morning from the Gleacher Center at the University of Chicago, where 90+ people are exploring marketing communications in the online world at a conference by The Aslanian Group.

One of the surprising nuggets of information has been the popularity of "distance learning" as a frequently used keyword search term. That's a relatively rare example of academic jargon moving out into common use.

You can check just how popular it is compared to terms like "online college degrees" by using the free Wordtracker tool at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

The results don't just tell us that this is a good keyword term. Given the high popularity, consider using the term in your regular advertising efforts.

The term isn't just popular as a key word. In a recent Customer Carewords survey of 5,000 people inquiring about online learning degree programs, "distance learning" received a much higher ranking than "online degrees." Keywords bring people to your website and Carewords keep them there. This is a fine example of words that do both. More on Carewords at http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/customercarewords.html

And so let's celebrate and take advantage of the break out opportunity. The popularity of the distance learning term surprised people here. If you also thought it was an academic term to avoid in your marketing efforts, its time to reconsider.

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AdAge today follows the print article highlighted in my last post with a interview with Matt Creamer, editor-at-large.

Matt continues the theme of the print piece... marketers are aware of the "clutter" impact, especially in TV, but nothing much yet is being done about it. And Matt doesn't think any serious changes in agencey practice will happen until clients become more aware of the problem and decide that TV ad spending isn't bringing the results it should.

Too many agencies still promise clients that their especially effective creative will break through the clutter for them. And too many clients want to believe that. Alas, the results are different.

How does clutter impact online advertising? Matt notes that this hasn't been studied very well yet, but points to a forthcoming report this summer that should shed light on questions like: "How many ads on a web page is too many ads on a web page?"

Ads on mobile devices, a still small and emerging area, will add to the consumer's sense of bombardment.

Take a few minutes and listen to the Matt Creamer interview, "The Money-Waster that Marketing Ignores" at http://adage.com/article?article_id=115932 Access should be open for a few days.

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One of the most popular AdAge articles so far this month (as measured by how many people have sent it by email to their friends) is a report on the impact of huge numbers of ad messages bombarding people every day... and how ad agencies are essentially ignoring the declining impact of their advertising and producing more ads to bombard people more frequently in both traditional and new places.

The article, "Caught in the Clutter Crossfire: Your Brand," is at http://adage.com/article?article_id=115873

The ad industry, from the creative to the media placement side, is in a tight spot these days. After all, profit is in no small part driven by frequency and duration of ad campaigns. But the companies who pay for these campaigns are getting more and more interested in measuring the "engagement" they produce. The old bit about knowing that only 50% of marketing efforts are effective but not know which 50 percent has less and less meaning these days.

What does this mean for colleges and universities working to recruit students?

The need for very careful targeting of usually scarce dollars is even more important now than ever before. The main tenet of direct marketing is alive and well: the better you can profile your audiences (defined as those most likely to enroll, not who you wish might enroll in a perfect world), the more successful your marketing efforts are likely to be.

This holds true for traditional students, for adults students, for any type of student you want to earn your degree.

That same direct marekting practice will help you build your brand where you most need to build it. Very few colleges and universities truly have the resources to launch and maintain a comprehensive brand building campaign to enlighten the general public about the mission and merits of the institution. For most schools, that means paying primary attention to audiences that are already key elements of your strength before diverting brand building efforts in new directions.

• Are you really sure that there is no more room to grow enrollment by building a stronger brand identity where you are already known?
• Are you really sure that your present conversion percent from inquiry to enrolled student can't get any better than it is now?

The "Crossfire Clutter" concept means that your marketing efforts are more likely to bring new benefits when they are directed at people who already know who you are and are open to learning more. Those folk are less likely to simply ignore you when something flits past their ears or eyeballs that they haven't ever heard of before.

Consider signing up at AdAge for regular email newsletter to follow along with the dilemma of the marketing industry. it just might help you guide your own internal marketing discussions in a more effective direction. You can do that at http://adage.com/register.php 

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Is MySpace the right space for college marketing efforts?

One of my smartest friends in this business says "No." He can't understand why organizations think that a website presence in a Web 2.0 environment designed for individuals is a good marketing move. And he reminds me frequently that the "cool" people are fleeing MySpace in search of a new frontier where everyone can still be free.

That might be true. I certainly would not bet any part of my retirement funds that it isn't. But despite my friend's thoughts, interest in MySpace for marketing is growing at colleges and universities. In my March issue of "Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter," I had two entries about marketing on MySpace. They were far and away the highest interest items measured by people who clicked on the relevant links, more than double the next most popular.

I haven't seen a response that strong since the first time I included something on Web writing about two years ago.

One college was featured, Drury University. If you go to http://www.myspace.com/druryuniversity you'll find an elaborate attempt to take advantage of Web 2.0 features by this "Female, 100 years old, Springfield, Missouri" resident.

Time for a prediction.

I'm just starting to work on a "Trends and Tribulations" keynote presentation at the eduWeb confernce in July about the future of online marketing communications. And I've got a strong feeling that what you see here for Drury will move over to regular college websites over the next few years as organizational formality crumbles. Expect more content decisions based on what web visitors want to find (and what they create) rather than what organizational decision-makers think is right and proper.

It won't happen overnight. But it will happen. And so part of my eduWeb presentation will focus on how Web 2.0 is already starting to spread into the world of higher education websites.

For a peek at the future, visit the Drury MySpace website.

For more on eduWeb, visit http://www.eduwebconference.com/

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Always hard to imagine ahead of time, but 3.5 hours sure does wiz on by. In this session we covered the basics of Writing Right for the Web, Search Engine Optimization, Persuasive Web Advertising and Continuing Engagement.

Web 2.0 and Audience Content Control

Lots of questions and comments right from the start. Hard to say which topic was of most interest, but there was much discussion on the advent of Web 2.0 and the possible clash between increased generation of content by students enrolled in educational programs and an apprehension that content not generated by the organization might not be the "right" content for the web.

The good news is that most of the 60 or so people in this session are actively involved in preparing content for their websites, either placing it directly on the web or sending it along elsewhere.

2 Basic Design Examples in Continuing Education

And of course there's always the question of time spent on design vs. time spent on content, with design continuing to most often win out.

• I used the example of Ryerson University on Wikipedia to point out that while design isn't unimportant, some of the most popular websites today clearly rely more on content that advanced design features.
• Another example was from the very well designed front page of the Indiana University Fort Wayne continuing education website.

Check the Ryerson example at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryerson_University

And the IUFW front page for continuing education at http://www.ipfw.edu/dcs/

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Late on a Friday afternoon is a good time to check on the week's marketing mail... both the print type and the email.

Always question your list broker

Right now I'm looking at a large postcard from Pinnacle Yachts that's reminding me to remind everyone thinking about buying student recruitment prospecting names from a third party other than ACT or College Board to ask some serious questions:

• How were the names acquired?
• How often is the database purged for old and non-responding names?
• How often is the list?
• To whom is it sold?

Yes, those are all legitimate questions that any regular list broker can answer. If your potential source balks at any of them, find another source.

Back to the Pinnacle postcard. This arrived earlier this week to "Roger Johnson." Roger is one of the many combinations of REJ that I use when secret shopping while doing competitive website reviews for clients. The reviews always include completion of the online inquiry form (except in the fortunately very rare cases when I can't find one!). Whoever I happen to be on that particular day ends up in many different databases.

Right now I'm assuming that Roger did not complete an inquiry form for an individual college or university. If he did, that school is making some extra cash by selling their inquiry lists. More likely, Roger's name was sold by a third-party firm that solicits interest in higher education opportunities and then was sold in the general market.

Of course, the Pinnacle Yacht people don't have a very good direct marketing plan. Trust me, Roger never told anyone he was interested in sailing or yachting or anything else that would take him off dry land. But here he is, getting an "All Season, All Inclusive" offer to spend "Just $5,250" for access to a "34 to 42 Foot Yacht" (is that really "yacht" size?) at a marina near him in Michigan. Picture looks like a mid-sized sail boat to me but hardly a yacht.

Recent names with interest in your offer are best

And so let's revisit the basics. If you are searching for names to contact, make sure they were acquired in the not too distant past (6 months is nice) and that they have expessed a particular interest in what you want to offer them. And that's not just a warning about yachts.

In the past 24 months I've acquired a huge file of email college offers from one third-party provider on just about anything you can imagine in higher education. The email contacts have been coming along now for about two years. Lots of colleges wasting lots of money.

Want to know more about Pinnacle Yachts? Check them out at http://wwwpinnacleyachts.com where "You're the Captain of Your Personal Yacht!"

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Can 125,733 people be wrong?

That's the number of people who responded to research by Dynaic Logic reported in Advertising Age at http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=114345

The goal was to find out what features of online video advertising drew positive viewer responses and what features caused ads to flop. If you're planning anything like this for your future marketing campaigns, then make sure your creative folk are aware of these results as they build your ads.

Three success elements were key to high performance:

• Brand identity was so prominent from the start of the ad that people remembered the brand along with the content of the ad.
• The ad linked viewers to additional information about the product.
• The online ads were part of a larger offline marketing campaign.

Two elements were most prominent in ads that failed to engage people:

• People couldn't tell what was being advertised (if you watch enough TV ads, this one won't seem strange!)
• The creative effort relied on sound and many people don't turn on their computer sound so there wasn't any impact from special tunes or punch lines.

108 ads were tested in categories that included entertainment, consumer goods, and automotive.

For a little more information, including a nice graph that shows the range between high and low performance in several categories, visit the Dynamic Locic website at http://www.dynamiclogic.com/na/research/btc/beyond_the_click_jan2007.html

Most successful online advertising still relies on simple, direct marketing style text in response to searches. University of Phoenix, Regis University, Capalla University and others have been doing this well for some time now. Still, the increasing spread of broadband is making online ads similar to TV ads more practical and therefor worth considering. The trick, of course, will be not to suffer the same pitfalls of so many TV commercials.

• One of those is excessive creativity that fails to tell viewers why what's being advertised is important to them (read: cars falling through the earth to China).
• Another is online ads that might engage but don't take advantage of the online environment by linking to more information about what's being advertised.

Join me in keeping eyes read for the first video ads from Phoenix. Or Capella. Or another college or university coming to a website near you.

Posted by Bob at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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The January 7 edition of the quarterly Education Life supplment to the NY Times seemed a good place to find out if colleges and universities are creating special landing pages to use with their advertising when they include URLs in the print ads.

Landing Pages Increase Conversion

Special landing pages can significantly increase conversion activities from people who come from an ad to your website. The landing page should repeat and reinforce the main theme of the ad. When you see a good landing page you should have a very good idea of what the original ad was all about.

The issue had 43 ads, including multiple ads by different units of several large NYC universities.

If you used an especially prominent word or phrase in your ad, what happens when somebody reading the ad comes to the front page of your website in search of more information and types the word or phrase into your search engine? Will that lead them to more information about the ad? In the "Google era" that we live in today, many people are likely to do just that.  

Can Your Search Engine Find the Content in Your Ads?

For instance, one university paid for a full page ad on the back cover of the supplement, not an inexpensive thing to do. The ad highlights high profile academic students as "shooting stars" at the school. The URL takes readers to the university's front page, where there is nothing about "shooting stars" is obvious. And typing those words into the search engine doesn't bring up any content related to the ad.

How about some good examples? I didn't check everyone of the 43 ads, but wandered from front to back and didn't find very many examples of real landing pages. The ones included ranged from good to great. All avoided the cardinal sin of abandoning visitors at a front page with no content related to the ad that brought them there.

New York University

www.nyu.edu/gsas/ma/winter07 (The best example found. The ad is what you see here, a list of available programs, with links to more information about each program and an inquiry form.)

Columbia University

www.emph.columbia.edu/t1

www.gs.columbia.edu/nyt

Metropolitan College of New York

www.mcny.edu/nyt

Iona College

www.iona.edu (Actually, the front page of the website but photos used in two ads flanking the centerfold are among those rotating on the page and the "Earn a degree that matters" is prominent on the page.)

St. John's University

www.stjohns.edu/learnmore/00683.sju

The overall impression is that there are miles to go before most people are paying careful attention to integrating advertising with website content. In other words, an element of marketing integration that isn't yet being well executed at most colleges.

Posted by Bob at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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