Right now, one in three of your website visitors are visiting your website on their phones— and this number keeps growing year over year. You’ve likely already worked hard to make your website responsive and mobile-friendly, but is your marketing strategy structured to meet the unique needs of this mobile audience? From search strategy to mobile conversions to personalization tactics, this session will review specific approaches and tactics to mobile-equal marketing to ensure you don’t lose these visitors, but rather, win them over. This presentation was originally shared by Vanessa Theoharis and Gene Begin at the American Marketing Association's Higher Education conference in Orlando in November 2018. #AMAHigherEd

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
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3. Before We Talk Mobile, What are Micro-Moments?
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4. A Definition
of Micro-Moments
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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.

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

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89% of people are likely
to recommend a brand
after a positive brand
experience on mobile.
89%
67%
67% of smartphone
users are more likely to
purchase from
companies whose
mobile sites or apps
customize information
to their location.

8. The Data Speaks
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● 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
● 37% of seniors and 33% of juniors completed RFIs on mobile
devices.
● 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

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

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Group Exercise!

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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) Take out your phone.
3) Your mission is to complete a task on that institution’s website (i.e. sign up for
a visit or an event, look for contact info, purchase a shirt at bookstore, etc.)
4) IN TWO MINUTES!
5) Ready? GO!

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Higher Ed’s Micro-Moments

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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?

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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!

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

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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?
The Higher Ed Consumer Decision Journey

17. Approaches
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Use analytics to establish your own
mobile persona.

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

20. 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

21. 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.

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Optimize your website for
mobile conversions.

23. Optimize Your Website for Mobile
Conduct a mobile-friendly test: search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
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24. Blythedale Children’s Hospital
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25. 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

26. Dartmouth Capital Campaign
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27. 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

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Establish a search strategy that
prioritizes mobile visitors.

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

31. 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.

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Mobile website personalization

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. Wheaton’s
Mobile
Approach
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36. 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
● 1750 students --- 97% 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
● Focused on creating changemakers through social innovation

37. Wheaton College Mobile Traffic
● 38% over past year → up from 26% just two years ago
● Google Analytics Benchmark Reports
○ Under Audience
=
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● Wheaton News section is 50% mobile traffic
○ Most news items are shared on social and email
● 61% of Wheaton web traffic from social is mobile
● Remember, dark social is nearly 100% mobile traffic too
Content and Social

39. International Audiences
International news story on refugee scholarship (February 2017)
78% non-U.S. visits
63% mobile visits
80% of admission site visits were mobile
Poem within French Studies was 2nd
most visited mobile page
Nearly 100K views over 2 days
International mobile traffic 45% (21% just two years ago)
Typically equal to or more than desktop traffic
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40. Paid Search Strategy
Bidding on branded search queries can bring your users closer to conversion.
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61% of paid search visits in first few
months of Wheaton campaign were
from a mobile device.
Organic search was 37% mobile.
Paid search mobile visitors
spend 1 minute and 26
seconds on the site, and
visit almost 3 pages.

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Apps and Mobile Messaging

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

43. Takeaways
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44. Takeaways on setting mobile strategies
❏ Dive into your mobile-specific data to gather some insights.
❏ Prioritize and focus on improving one audience at a time, one
channel/platform at a time.
❏ Start small, but think long-term.
❏ Mobile friendly is a step in the right direction, but strive for mobile equal.

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