Jay Kelly and Ann Oleson will gave this presentation on "inbound marketing" at the 2014 LASAC conference. View this presentation on powerful marketing techniques.

1. Stop Pushing and Start Pulling
The Evolution of Higher Education Marketing
Ann Oleson, Converge Consulting
Jay Kelly, Converge Consulting
May 29, 2014

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Audience is in Control

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Permission Marketing

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Definition of Inbound Marketing
 Earning the attention of prospects
 Making yourself easy to be found
 Drawing students/alumni to your website by producing
custom content that is valued

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Search Trends

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Search Trends
 About 85% of searchers never go beyond page 1 of the
results
 53% of all searchers click on the very first link on page
#1
 94% of search users choose organic over paid listing
when searching, particularly for purchases
Sources: "Search Engine Rankings: Why They Matter." PmbmediaWORKS. 2011. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. “Ten statistics that
demonstrate the value of SEO”. Intraspin 2012. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.

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Goal
To be found
wherever
prospective students,
parents, donors, and
alumni are
searching.

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These guys have changed the rules!

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History of SEO Tactics: Humming Bird and
Content as King

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Trends and Expectations for the Future
Value is future proof and
algorithm proof.”

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Modern SEO Tactics
• Everything works together to build AUTHORITY
– Not just one keyword, lots of keywords
• Develop high level strategic themes
Over 70% of the traffic you earn for any
given page will come from keywords you
didn’t try to optimize for.
15% of all Google searches, over half a
billion per day, have never been seen
before.

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More Than Just Webpages
Search engines index more than just Websites
 Images
 Maps
 Videos
 News
 Blogs
 Social Sharing

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Videos and SEO
 Think short: length, title, and
description
 Optimize titles, tags, and
descriptions for all content
 Tag ‘influencers’ in videos
 Encourage FB video ‘likes’ by
requesting them directly in the
description of the video
 Consider Promoted videos

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Keyword Research
 What are Branded and
Unbranded Keywords?
 Do you know your top
performing Unbranded
Keywords?

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SEO Keyword Report

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SEO Keyword Report

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Quality, Not Just Quantity
–Strength of the
linking domain
–Strength of the
pages the links
are on
–Strength of the
links themselves

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That Which is Measured Improves

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SEO Checklist
 Have you done a technical
crawl?
 Do you know your top
performing Unbranded
Keywords?
 Have you thought about 3
to 4 overall brand
messages for thematic
SEO?
 Do you have an SEO
evangelist on campus?
 Do you have a dashboard,
report on SEO monthly?

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Inbound Marketing – The Pillars
Get Found=SEO
Be Relevant=Content Strategy
Be Social=Social Media
Measure=Google Analytics

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Who has a content strategy plan?
Where does your school’s content exist?

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Content Strategy
Content Strategy refers to the planning,
development, and management of content—written or
in other media. The term is particularly common in
web development since the late 1990s.

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Why Should I bother with Content Strategy?
Your institution’s brand is connected to everything else…
Which means Brand Strategy really can’t exist without content
strategy to support it.

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Strategize
•What content should be created?
•How will it be structured
•How will I find it?
•How to measure effectiveness?
Create
•What is the purpose, audience, and
brand message?
•What do we want them to learn?
•What is the best format? (COPE)
Measure
•How are you doing with: SEO,
Google Analytics, goal
conversions, traffic sources, and
social insights?
Analyze
•What content do you have?
•Who is in charge?
•Who is your target audience?

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What content do you have?
 Webinars
 Infographics
 Blog posts
 Videos
 Printed materials (publications, magazines)
 Phone scripts, speeches
 Other?
Analyze

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 What content should be created?
 How will users find it?
 How will we measure it?
Strategize

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Working Across the Institution
Communications
IT
Admissions
Financial Aid
Faculty
Sr. Leadership
Marketing

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Content Process
Requested Created Approved Published
• Marketing
• Program
Stakeholder
• Marketing
• Subject Matter
Expert (SME)
• Marketing
• Program
Stakeholder
• Compliance
(as needed)
• Marketing
Email to
Marketing
Marketing
Initiative
Copy,
Design,
Interviews
Email to
Approve or
Edit
Entered
and
Published
edits
Estimate Timeline:
Varies

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• Who is Using Personas?

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1. What is the purpose of the content?
2. Who is the audience?
3. What brand messages are we communicating?
4. What do we want the user to learn?
5. What is the best format to deliver the content?
6. How will we measure the
success?
Create

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Content Calendar
Create

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• Optimize your On-Page elements for SEO.
SEO + Content Strategy

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COPE
 Create Once.
 Publish Everywhere
SEO + Content Strategy + Social

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 SEO report, keyword rankings
 Conversions from blog referral traffic
 Google Analytics custom dashboard
Measure

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Content Checklist
 Do you have a strategic
approach?
 Do you use templates to
determine priority?
 Do you use personas to
target specific audiences?
 How do you COPE?
 Do you have a process in
place for assessing
effectiveness of your
content?

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Inbound Marketing – The Pillars
Get Found=SEO
Be Relevant=Content Strategy
Be Social=Social Media
Measure=Google Analytics

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If Facebook were a country,
where would it rank in size?
3rd, After
China and India

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Facebook Advertising
Custom Audiences
- Upload your prospective student list and retarget your
ads to move students further down your recruiting pipeline

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What’s new in Higher Education
Facebook

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What’s new in Higher Education
LinkedIn

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Blogs
 Ties in with SEO
 Student and faculty voices
 Use a combination of content: news and
events, alumni stories, faculty publishing,
expertise and thought leadership

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Social Checklist
 Do you use social
monitoring?
 Do you blog?
 Do you have a social
media strategy?
 Do you have a shared
social media calendar?
 Do you have an identified
social media champion on
campus?
 Do you have a
measurement system in
place?

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Inbound Marketing – The Pillars
Get Found=SEO
Be Relevant=Content Strategy
Be Social=Social Media
Measure=Google Analytics

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Received
an
email
Went to a
landing page
Looked at
degree options

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Web analytics is a process,
not a tool.

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Web Analytics: A Continuous Process

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 Measure quantitative and qualitative data
 Continuously improve your website
 Align your measurement strategy with your
organizational strategy
Primary web analytics tasks

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Web analytics doesn’t start here

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http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-10-30/
Create a plan

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 2,000 page views
 70% returning visitors
 80% bounce rate
Numbers Rarely Speak for Themselves

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Web Analytics Framework
1 Business Objectives
2 Website Goals
3
Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs)
4 Targets
5 Segments

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•

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•
Goal: More than 3 minutes (180 seconds) on the site

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Universal Analytics is Here…

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Analytics Checklist
 Do you have GA installed?
 Do you have Goals set
up?
 Have you discussed a
transition to Universal
Analytics?
 Have you completed a GA
assessment?
 Do you report weekly or
monthly findings to
measure recruitemtn
success?
 Do you have an Evangelist

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Definition of Inbound Marketing
 Earning the attention of prospects
 Making yourself easy to be found
 Drawing students/alumni to your website by producing
custom content that is valued

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Ann Oleson
ann@convergeconsulting.org
@anncoleson
Jay Kelly
jay@convergeconsulting.org
@jckell3