“Thanks to mobile, micro-moments can happen anytime, anywhere. In those moments, consumers expect brands to address their needs with real-time relevance.” Google challenges digital marketers to identify these moments for their unique mobile visitors and ensure that these consumers can achieve both their goals and yours. In higher education, with more competition for our audiences’ attention than ever, we need to capture and engage the increasing 38% of visitors who visit from their phones. You’ve worked hard to optimize your website for mobile, but is your marketing strategy optimized to match the behaviors of these visitors? Can those who use their phones get to what they need - and can they complete your goals? From search to conversions to personalization tactics, we’ll review approaches to mobile-equal marketing, not only ensuring we don’t lose these visitors, but rather, win them over. This presentation was originally shared at eduweb 2018 in San Diego.

1. Living in the Moment
Developing a Marketing Strategy for
Mobile’s Micro-Moments
Gene Begin Vanessa Theoharis
Vice President, Marketing & Communications Director, Digital Marketing
Wheaton College (Massachusetts) OHO Interactive
@gbegin @vmtheoharis
#eduweb18

2. Before We Talk Mobile, What are Micro-Moments?

3. A Definition

4. A Definition
They’re the moments when we turn
to a device—often a
smartphone—to take action on
whatever we need or want right
now. These I-want-to-know,
I-want-to-go, I-want-to-buy, and
I-want-to-do moments are loaded
with intent, context, and immediacy.

6. A Definition
These micro-moments are critical
touchpoints within today’s
consumer journey, and when
added together, they ultimately
determine how that journey ends.

7. The Data Speaks
● 38% of higher ed website traffic is from
mobile → +14% in 3 years
● 4 in 5 students use a mobile device during
their college search
● 41% of seniors complete RFI forms on
mobile
● Dark social continues to increase as a
traffic source
● 75% of mobile users say their phones
makes them more productive
● 60% of mobile users say their phones help
them feel more confident and prepared
Google Analytics benchmarking data for colleges and universities from July 2017-July 2018 / eMarketer / Chegg / E-Expectations 2017 / Think with Google

8. Mobile
Expectations
1. Be there.
2. Be useful.
3. Be quick.

9. Group Exercise!

10. Group Exercise
1) Partner up with the person next to you and ask what
institution they work for or what institution they went to.
2) Pull out your phone.
3) Your mission is to complete a task on that institution’s
website (i.e. sign up for an event, look for contact info,
purchase a shirt at bookstore, etc.)
4) IN 90 SECONDS!
5) Ready? GO!

11. Higher Ed’s Micro-Moments

12. Examples of Higher Ed’s Micro-Moments
Current Students
- I’m starving. What is today’s dining hall menu?
- I can’t believe I haven’t studied yet. How late is the library open today?
- I can’t believe I’m graduating soon. How do I get my cap and gown?
Parents
- You’re home for the summer?!?! How does my student find an internship?
- I need to book a hotel for graduation!

13. Examples of Higher Ed’s Micro-Moments
Prospective Students
- That college sounds cool. How do I take a campus tour?
New Students
- I just got an email from my professor. How do I buy the class textbook?
- It’s my first day of class. Where is this building and room?!?!?!
Alumni
- I am going back for homecoming. How can I buy a hat to show my pride?

14. The Higher Ed Consumer Decision Journey
BECOME AWARE CONSIDER EVALUATE BUY
ENJOY
Loyalty Loop
ADVOCATE

15. The Higher Ed Consumer Decision Journey
BECOME
AWARE
CONSIDER EVALUATE BUY ENJOY ADVOCATE
Searches for
college rankings
on Google
Visits college
website to see
college majors
Looks up
directions to
campus on
Google maps
Checks
application status
Follows college
on Instagram
Shares Magazine
story on
Facebook
What are primary micro-moments along the journey?

16. Approaches

17. Use analytics to
establish your own
mobile persona.

18. Establish a Mobile Persona
Use a mix of Google Analytics and user testing to understand how your mobile
users engage with your website and complete tasks.

19. Establish a Mobile Persona
Using a mobile segment, research the following within Google Analytics:
● Time on site, bounce rate, pages per session, and location.
● Traffic sources, specifically AdWords, social, and email.
● Top landing pages from organic search.
● Internal search keywords.
● Event and goal completions.

20. Mobile Website Behavior
Example Analysis: Difference between Millennial and
Gen Z mobile visitors at a school in New England
offering both undergraduate and graduate programs.
Gen Z = 18-24 years old
• 63% visit on desktop, 34% on mobile.
• Visit the site often, from 8 to 14 times.
• Majority visit from organic search, but many from
referral sites → many relying on college search
sites and rankings.
• While they predominantly visited undergraduate
pages, they also frequented graduate pages →
indicating a forward-thinking approach to the
college search.
Millennials = 25-34 years old
• 69% visit on desktop, 28% on mobile.
• Visit more pages and spend more time on the
site, but don’t visit the site more than a few times.
• Majority visit from organic search, but many via
direct traffic → impacted by other marketing
channels, such as OOH or WOM.
• Twice as many visitors come from social than
Gen Z → this may be due to more use of
trackable platforms, such as LinkedIn.

21. Optimize your website
for mobile
conversions.

22. Optimize Your Website for Mobile
Conduct a mobile-friendly test: search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

23. Blythedale Children’s Hospital

24. Blythedale Children’s Hospital
● 60% of all traffic from mobile
● Time on site increased by
+1:16 min
● Bounce rate decreased by 10%
● Over 3,000 views (32%) of
videos since launch
● “Visit” viewed by 10% of users
● Stories now with top 10 pages

25. Dartmouth Capital Campaign

26. Dartmouth Capital Campaign
● 27% of all traffic from mobile
● Spend just under a full minute
on the site
● Stories make up the top 5
visited pages, but next? → Give
● 36% from direct traffic and 25%
from social

27. Establish a search
strategy that prioritizes
mobile visitors.

28. Mobile Search Strategy
Site speed is a factor in Google’s mobile search ranking. Conduct a site speed
test: developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights

29. Mobile Search Strategy
Audit your organic search rankings, digital footprint via Google properties, and
improve your results.
Google College
Search Feature

30. Mobile Search Strategy
To dominate the search engine result pages
(SERPs) for your priority branded and
non-branded keywords and queries, integrate a
paid search strategy into your brand awareness
and lead generation efforts.

31. Mobile Website
Personalization

32. Mobile Website Personalization
Use a website personalization engine to identify mobile users and customize their
experiences to help them find information and complete tasks faster through
relevance, consumer journey, or CRM-driven tactics.

33. Example Scenario: On-Campus Mobile Visitors
Identify device → mobile?
Identify location → near or on campus?
Identify network - not logged into
campus network?
Replace hero and main CTA with
campus information, directions, and
events.

34. Wheaton’s
Mobile
Approach

35. Who is Wheaton College?
● Founded in 1834 as a women’s seminary and received college charter in 1912 as a women’s college;
went co-ed in 1988
● Located in Norton, Massachusetts, centrally located between Boston and Providence
● 1730 students --- 99% live on campus
● 40 U.S. States --- 70+ countries represented
● 100+ majors and minors
● 10:1 Student/Faculty Ratio
● 220+ Fellowships (Rhodes, Fulbright, Watsons, etc.) won by students since 2000

36. Wheaton College Mobile Traffic
- 38% over past 10 months (26% just two years ago)
- International mobile traffic 40% (21% just two years ago)

37. More Wheaton Mobile Insights
- Mobile inquiries up 70% after responsive,
top task-oriented web redesign
- News section is more than 50% mobile
- Poem within French Studies was
most visited mobile page of the year
- Nearly 100K views over 2 days

38. Paid Search Strategy
Bidding on branded search queries can bring your users closer to conversion.

39. Apps and Mobile Messaging

40. Apps and Mobile Messaging
Wheaton College Mobile Wheaton Connect College Interactive
Gen Z uses messaging apps more than text to send messages

41. Takeaways

42. Takeaways
❏ Start small, but think long-term.
❏ Dive into your mobile-specific data to gather some insights.
❏ Prioritize and focus on improving one audience at a time.
❏ Mobile equal is a step in the right direction.

43. Questions?
Thank You!
Gene Begin Vanessa Theoharis
Vice President, Marketing & Communications Director, Digital Marketing
Wheaton College (Massachusetts) OHO Interactive
@gbegin @vmtheoharis
#eduweb18