I just finished giving a speech at the western region meeting of the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations in Sedona, Arizona.
NCMPR is the association of community and technical college marketers. A really interesting group that needs to harness social media and work with prospective students on an individual, relevant, highly personal basis.
While this presentation was specifically for NCMPR, there is a lot of material that will be valuable to anyone looking to launch and maintain a social media and digital marketing program for a mid-sized business or organization.
Key points in this presentation:
- Media outlets have exploded, causing audience fragmentation
- You have to communicate to audiences individually, because they don’t herd together like the old days
- Using the power of audience segmentation
- Digital marketing is critical in this new hyper-targeted marketing world, because online users identify themselves through their search queries and site usage
- Ways to find prospective community college students (Twitter, Facebook, Blog search, Flickr)
- Web site is the key to translating awareness of your college (or any brand) to action
- Web content needs to be transparent, real, and multi-modal
- Lead acquisition is critical for colleges. Give users multiple call to action options.
- Secrets to good form design
- Web site testing and optimization basics
- Lead nurturing via personalized follow up and triggered communications
Comments are very much appreciated. Enjoy.
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Hi, Jason,
Our agency has been working with a small liberal arts college to comprehend their brand and then to segment and speak to prospective students. I second what you say and feel that you articulated it all very well.
What was the response from the marketers when you presented this material to them? Are they tracking cost per lead? Would be interesting to know. How do they integrate their digital presence with their recruiting visits?
Hi Cheryl. Thanks for the comment.
I believe most people in the small college segment are in a situation where they know they need to engage in digital and social media, but are struggling for the resources to do so properly. Quite a bit of discussion about using student workers to help maintain Facebook accounts, etc.
I would say most of the people I spoke with are not counting cost per lead directly, as there appears to be less than ideal synchronicity between marketing, enrollment, and IT.
- jason
Very informative article, which I found quite useful. Cheers ,Jay
Adding this to my bookmarks. Thank You