Stir up a great marketing mix

The right ingredients make all the difference

Vince GiambalvoRegional Vice President

PlattForm Higher Education

How to get from here…

TraditionalMedia

Interactive

…to here?

Advantages of Integrating Your Online and Offline Marketing

• More than 50% of Post University enrollments come from inquiries directly attributable to online sources

• Jupiter Research indicates that nearly 70% of consumers report searching for the company name, product or service, or advertising slogan that they saw in offline marketing

• Integrated marketing consumer behavior – Awareness– Search behavior– Goal Oriented / call-to-action– Content/ Information acquisition– Enrollment– Repeat visit (remarketing)– Word of mouth (social networking/referrals)

Start with the End in Mind• What are your enrollment goals? Do you have goals by program? Do you have goals by location? • What is your expected CPE?• What does that include? Do you have goals by program? Do you have goals by location?• What is your marketing budget?• How many admissions reps do you have?• How many inquiries are optimal for an admissions rep to work?• What is your competition doing?• How many competitors do you have in your market?• How much are they spending?• What is your unique selling point, message, and brand?

The Facts - Interactive

• Average cost-per-lead for CPL programs?

• Average cost-per-lead for PPC programs?

• Average conversion from L-E for CPL programs?

• Average conversion from L-E for PPC programs?

• Average conversion from L-E for website leads?

• Average cost-per-lead from banners?

Campus Online

$45 $60

$110 $125

3% 1.5%

7% 4%

12% 8%

*These are for undergraduate programs.

Let’s Do the Math• Enrollment goal of 100

• CPL leads 2000 x $60 = $120,000• PPC leads 600 x $125 = $75,000• Website leads 300 x $10 = $3,000

Total cost = $198,000

2000 CPL leads @ 1.5% conversion = 30 enrollments600 PPC leads @ 4% conversion = 24 enrollments300 Website leads @ 8% conversion = 12 enrollments

Total number of enrollments = 66Cost per enrollment = $3,000

$4000

$3125

$250

First Thoughts• These guys don’t know what they are talking about

…wait maybe they do?• My boss is going to fire me if I show them this!

What should you be thinking?

• Where do my other 34 enrollments come from?• What if I improved conversions by as little as 1%?

You over sit your starts because you just enrolled 107 new students. You lowered your CPE from $3,000 to $1,850.

You keep your job, get a promotion and a raise.*And you are so excited you buy Marcelo and Brad a new car

Funnel Management• The bulk of all inquiries will be

received electronically

• Depending on the marketing channel, there are a number of metrics that must be monitored

• For the purpose of measuring education inquiry conversion, the most critical metrics are:– Cost-per-lead– Cost-per-enrollment– Reach– Inquiry-to-start conversion

Visitors

Impressions

New enrolled students

Inquiries

conversion rate

Applications

Integrated Campaign

Predictable ROI – Marketing and Sales Must Be Integrated

Quality and Process… …critical for Success!

Inquiry Response Time is Key!

Interactive Marketing Options:Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Interactive Marketing Options:Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• The education landscape is highly crowded and competitive – in order to maximize the institution’s share-of-voice, SEO must be a component of an integrated interactive marketing strategy

• Keyword optimization continues to be incorrectly perceived as the main/key component of SEO

• Trust/authority of host domain, link popularity, and anchor text of external links are critical components of a well executed SEO campaign

• Other SEO components include:– Search-engine-friendly web design– Use of meta/title tags– Content relevancy (e.g., consumers search for

borrowing, refinance, not lending)– Social media metrics

Integrated Campaign

Interactive Marketing Options: Paid Search (PPC)

• PPC is an effective way to gain share-of-voice when organic rankings are not present• Effectiveness of campaign is dependant on targeted search phrases

– Broad search phrase results in high impressions, low number of clicks, and non-targeted click-throughs

• Targeted landing pages are critical to visitor-to-inquiry conversion– Ad copy sets the visitor’s expectations– Each targeted search phrase must be considered in terms of landing page content

Both SEO and PPC listings for the same search phrase increases overall click-through rates

Interactive Marketing Options:Affiliate Marketing (A.K.A. Aggregators)

• Aggregators are an effective way to maximize share-of-voice and an affordable source of targeted inquiries

• CPI ranges from $35 to $120, depending on factors such as how the inquiry is transferred to an admissions center, or the degree program being promoted (e.g. undergrad vs. grad)

• While CPI is, and should be an initial point of cost-to-market reference, overall conversion and cost-per-enrollment should be the key metrics used to measured ROI– For example, inquiries at a high CPI that convert

higher than average are more desirable than low CPL inquiries that hardly convert…more is not always better!

• Depending on a number of variables, aggregator inquiries convert anywhere from 1% to 4%

Industry Marketing Trends• Increasing marketing and sales costs

– Aggregator’s organic traffic is being affected by Google’s algorithm resulting in CPL increases and lower conversions

– Aggregators seeking to make up organic inquiry flow are aggressively pursuing increases in paid search traffic, resulting in CPC increases

• Ongoing shift to awareness-based advertising strategies– Challenge: Cannot generate large volume of inquiries, but significantly increases

conversion over time

• Schools adjust marketing funnels targeting higher-quality programs that have better graduation / placement rates

Tracking Media• Traditional media (e.g., broadcast & print) can be an important component of an

integrated interactive marketing plan

– Effective call-to-actions can drive highly targeted traffic to a specific, unique URL, or to call a unique 800 number

– Challenge: Are you reaching the right demographic?

• Awareness campaigns are effective at increasing both paid search and organic traffic– Brand awareness is likely to drive traffic away from the intended action– Challenge: It is not always possible to track all traffic to a specific buy

Adding in Traditional Media

Directly Attributable

Kind of Attributable

Not Attributable Facts

Television Television High CPL-Good Conversions

Radio Radio High CPL

Newspaper Newspaper High CPL-Declining source

Direct Mail Direct Mail High CPL-Good Conversions

Outdoor Outdoor

Cross Channel Tracking

• Tracking of media effect on online traffic

• Consistent creative messaging

• Assists campaign analysis

"Advertising on television changes what people search for. We use more branded keywords and fewer generic keywords," said Ken Wilbur, a marketing professor at Duke.

Integrated Approach73 inquiries interacted with a different source prior to becoming an

inquiry

"Right now, most marketers have one agency for TV, and a different agency for online searches. They should seriously consider integrating those two functions," said Wilbur. "In elasticity terms, the effect of TV advertising on consumers' choice of branded keywords is about as large as its effect on sales."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQaIa274DWU

Let’s Make it Confusing

The End in Mind

Students are enrolling students

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru8NqeKYABE&feature=fvst

It’s More Than Just Facebook

Conversational Marketing:Who’s Driving the Conversation?

• Marketing (both internet and traditional) has evolved from a transaction-based effort to a conversation

That conversation is often a 3-way discussion

• Peer-to-peer feedback is highly sought and perceived as unbiased by prospective students

It is not the selling proposition, it is what current/former students have to say about their experience with the university

• The fear factor – When researching online education options, most prospective students look for assurances

Highly crowded, democratic landscape confuses studentsStudents want to know:

“Are you a real university?”“Are you accredited?”; “What does it mean?”

MOST STUDENTS SEEK FOR ANSWERS FROM THEIR PEERS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Conversational Marketing:Who’s Driving the Conversation?

• Social media has become an important source of peer-to-peer feedback about products and services– Opens communications with both current and prospective students

• Challenge: negative postings! There is such thing as disgruntled students• Opportunity: address problems and concerns as they arise, resulting in an

improved brand image– Students looking for information are more likely to post a question on a social

network than to call the university directly• No room for big brother here! Student participation decreases when

monitoring is perceived, however, it is at times expected– To effectively integrate social media as part of a conversational marketing strategy,

institutions must:• Ignite and engage in conversations• Offer customer service via social media• Provide a platform for conversations? Blogs!

Conversational Marketing:Blogs – Drive the Discussion!

• The most important conversation is not between the university and the prospective students, but rather between the prospect and current students/alumni

• Conversational content – What are prospects looking for? Ignite the conversation!– Post relevant questions and see what happens

• Are online universities real? • What makes an online university “real”?• What’s a degree mill?

- Measurable ROI: generates inquiries, brand awareness/equity, and improves search engine rankings