Slides for presentation I did on 6 April at Congreso CASE Latinoamérica 2011. Explores six significant themes that marketers, social media people, and other leaders in higher education need to focus on this year. I discuss how all communications & marketing channels are connected, how everyone needs to
This is a handout for the presentation on campaigns using social media, presented at the CASE Social Media & Community conference, Chicago, IL, 15 April 2010.
This presentation was given by Michael Stoner, president of mStoner, and Heather Sullivan, director of communications at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Gill, MA, at the CASE V conference in Chicago, IL, on 12 December 2010. The presentation focuses on campaigns that blend social media with other channels. It includes case studies of Northfield Mount Hermon School and Oregon State University's Powered By Orange campaigns.
Susan Evans, director of creative services at William & Mary, and Michael Stoner, president of mStoner, gave this presentation at the edUi conference in Charlottesville, CA, in November. It contains a case study of how the College of William & Mary conducted a search for a new mascot using primarily social media and offers insights into how to use multiple channels--online and offline, print and web, social and conventional--to conduct a successful campaign.
Now that Twitter and Facebook Aren't Enough (LONG version)Michael Stoner
This is the long version of my CASE VII presentation on awareness-building, fundraising, and other school, college, and university campaigns that incorporate social media as a significant channel along with other channels. It contains all the transition slides and the images from the presentation as given at CASE VII on 15 November 2009.
This is the handout from a session I did at the CASE V conference in December, 2009. It focuses on awareness building, fundraising, and other campaigns with a significant social media component--and strong integration with other channels, including print, environmental, face-to-face, email, etc.
Slides for presentation I did on 6 April at Congreso CASE Latinoamérica 2011. Explores six significant themes that marketers, social media people, and other leaders in higher education need to focus on this year. I discuss how all communications & marketing channels are connected, how everyone needs to
This is a handout for the presentation on campaigns using social media, presented at the CASE Social Media & Community conference, Chicago, IL, 15 April 2010.
This presentation was given by Michael Stoner, president of mStoner, and Heather Sullivan, director of communications at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Gill, MA, at the CASE V conference in Chicago, IL, on 12 December 2010. The presentation focuses on campaigns that blend social media with other channels. It includes case studies of Northfield Mount Hermon School and Oregon State University's Powered By Orange campaigns.
Susan Evans, director of creative services at William & Mary, and Michael Stoner, president of mStoner, gave this presentation at the edUi conference in Charlottesville, CA, in November. It contains a case study of how the College of William & Mary conducted a search for a new mascot using primarily social media and offers insights into how to use multiple channels--online and offline, print and web, social and conventional--to conduct a successful campaign.
Now that Twitter and Facebook Aren't Enough (LONG version)Michael Stoner
This is the long version of my CASE VII presentation on awareness-building, fundraising, and other school, college, and university campaigns that incorporate social media as a significant channel along with other channels. It contains all the transition slides and the images from the presentation as given at CASE VII on 15 November 2009.
This is the handout from a session I did at the CASE V conference in December, 2009. It focuses on awareness building, fundraising, and other campaigns with a significant social media component--and strong integration with other channels, including print, environmental, face-to-face, email, etc.
A Mile in Their Shoes: Building Empathy Through Experience Maps and PersonasmStoner, Inc.
The process is highly emotional, fraught with anxiety, and influenced by many sources of information. As marketing and enrollment professionals, we must understand the factors that drive this important choice — as well as the thoughts and emotions our target audiences experience — in order to develop empathy for the groups that we serve.
mStoner and TargetX designed a survey focusing on how prospective teen students use a range of digital tools — social media, websites, email, and digital ads — during their college search and selection process, and what information is most helpful at each stage of the journey.
mStoner's 2019 Digital Admissions research with TargetX offers rich insights into the nuanced behavior of prospective teen students as they begin their college search and selection process
A Mile in Their Shoes: Building Empathy Through Experience MapsmStoner, Inc.
The college choice process is highly emotional, fraught with anxiety, and influenced by many sources of information. As marketing and enrollment professionals, we must understand the factors that drive this important choice — as well as the thoughts and emotions our target audiences experience — in order to develop empathy for the groups that we serve.
Would you like a tool to help navigate these challenges?
Enter the experience map — a powerful tool that: represents your, audience’s story, draws key stakeholders together, uncovers major process gaps, and guides your priorities and activities.
During this webinar, you’ll understand the basics of experience mapping, learn the seven benefits of an experience map, and discover how it can impact your enrollment and marketing strategy.
We’ll showcase examples from institutions that uncovered major process and content gaps as a result of experience mapping, causing them to lose their top applicants. We promise — the results will shock you.
Download the on demand presentation: http://offers.mstoner.com/a-mile-in-their-shoes-building-empathy-through-experience-maps
Making Your Mark: Unforgettable BrandingmStoner, Inc.
You know what you stand for. You feel it in your heart. Now what?
What’s the secret to building a bold brand that connects with your key audiences? Tune into this free webinar co-hosted by mStoner, a digital agency focused on higher education marketing and communications, and Zehno, a strategic branding and marketing firm for educational organizations.
Voltaire Santos Miran, mStoner’s CEO and Head of Client Experience and Shane Shanks, Zehno’s Senior Strategist and Editorial Director, team up to show you how to bring your institution’s brand to life. From smart strategy and bold creative to a beautiful web presence — we’ll use best-practice examples that deliver meaningful results.
Learn how to transform your message platform into compelling and captivating creative and how to make your website an integral part of your branding.
You will learn how to:
Translate brand messages into brilliant communications
Capture the heart and soul of an institution
Define the look, feel, and voice of your brand
Communicate a school's strengths and distinctions through its website
Create an optimal website structure for your target audiences
Marketing and Advancement: Colleagues and Partners or Direct ReportsmStoner, Inc.
This was presented at the 2018 AMA Higher Education Conference by Michael Stoner, co-founder and co-owner at mStoner, Inc. and Rob Zinkan, associate vice president, marketing, at Indiana University.
In this presentation, based on insights from the 2018 Benchmarking Digital Advancement research by CASE and mStoner, Inc., and interviews with senior advancement and marketing professionals, we explore the current relationship between the CMO and chief advancement officer. Are they colleagues and partners? And, more importantly, what
lies ahead for the CMO/CAO relationship as institutions seek to implement more effective engagement strategies with the entire range of an institution’s stakeholders?
Five reasons why the universal homepage happensmStoner, Inc.
Navigation, a carousel, request information, visit, apply, three news items, three event items, three profiles, a social media aggregator, and a fat footer. We know what you're thinking: That sounds awfully familiar.
You might be wondering why this happens. A lot.
mStoner identifies five roadblocks to watch out for so you can ensure your next homepage refresh or website redesign goes beyond the universal homepage template.
Break Up With Your Homepage, 'Cause I'm Bored: Moving Beyond the Universal Un...mStoner, Inc.
Two rows of navigation, a carousel, three news items, three events, three alumni profiles, a social media aggregator, and a fat footer. Look familiar? Ever hear someone say that you could take the logo off your website and it would look like every other institution out there? If you’re cringing or laughing nervously, this webinar is for you. (Ariana Grande said it best.)
We'll arm you with the tools you need to make your next website redesign, starting with your homepage, distinct and compelling.
What You'll Learn:
Why the universal university homepage phenomenon happens.
Five strategies for avoiding the “regression to the mean”.
The most important research and data to leverage in defending your decisions, educating your stakeholders, and dispelling popular myths about user experience (three-click rule, anyone?).
Key steps to take in between redesigns to set yourself up for longterm success.
The University of North Dakota has always been ahead of its time. But like many schools, UND initially built and grew its website piece by piece, without a unified vision. Without centralized management, the site eventually ballooned to more than 30,000 pages that varied in accuracy, timeliness, and presentation.
When it hired mStoner, UND’s needs were clear: create a cohesive site that could serve at least 13,000 students in more than 250 academic programs. Most important, UND wanted to reach an audience it hadn’t expressly prioritized before: prospective students. A major upgrade for UND’s new site was moving to a powerful search technology, powered by Funnelback.
Improving the Search Experience in Higher Ed: What's Next?mStoner, Inc.
Recent changes to website search are disrupting the way colleges and universities provide a fundamental website feature that impacts every key audience.
In this webinar, we will:
Review how the website search landscape has changed.
Discuss opportunities institutions have to use search to improve visitor experiences.
Examine how a major University tackled replacement of their former search solution, Google Search Appliance.
Look to the future at how search may unfold for colleges and universities.
In this five minute lightening talk, you'll get a crash course on the five step IMC (integrated marketing communications) process and learn ways education can leverage the model to integrate internal and external communications and accurately measure results.
Content Planning and Delivery for higher edmStoner, Inc.
Planning, organizing, and maintaining college and university web content is challenging. Competing priorities, resource limitations and siloed departments all have the potential to derail content projects.
Whether you’re preparing for a large-scale website redesign, a capital campaign microsite, or just refreshing a few key pages, you want to get the right content to the right audience on time and on budget.
During the webinar, we'll share practical examples and techniques that you can use to avoid common pitfalls of content delivery for your next project. You'll learn:
Which content questions to ask early in your project
What roles you need to consistently produce quality content
The pros and cons of centralized and decentralized content creation
How to prioritize when you have large amounts of content to create or review
How to plan for a workflow that incorporates faculty review
Storytelling and Integrated Marketing CommunicationsmStoner, Inc.
Storytelling is imperative if you want to build an enduring brand for your college or university.
The truth is, we could all be better at articulating who we are, what we’ve experienced, and why it matters. In order to tell better stories, institutions must first develop a true understanding of and empathy for target audiences, clarify brand messaging, and then develop staffing and skill sets to infuse storytelling into robust integrated marketing campaigns.
The digital space allows storytellers to immerse audiences even more fully in our stories with the opportunity to integrate and weave video, photography, user-generated content, and other rich media throughout the marketing campaign.
Are your readers at the heart of your institution’s story? Join mStoner and our branding partner BVK for the third webinar in our summer series. We’ll arm you with the knowledge you need — storytelling principles, concrete planning steps, and best-practice examples — to ensure storytelling is at the heart of your integrated marketing communication.
What You Will Learn:
How to develop an on-brand storytelling strategy
How to structure your stories
Traits of successful stories and how to measure impact
Ways to weave storytelling in your next integrated marketing campaign
Brand Architecture: Building an Enduring BrandmStoner, Inc.
Most brand efforts start with a bang, then soon fade away. Why? Because too many institutions continue to focus on features and benefits to tell their story. In today’s hypercompetitive environment, colleges and universities need to do more.
Institutions need to discover — or, for many, rediscover — their core values. Once that happens, there is an enormous opportunity for elevating your message beyond the statistics, beyond the rankings, and beyond the athletic accomplishments.
In part two of the Summer Webinar Series, we’ll provide you with important insights that can help transform your institution from enrollment to endowment.
What You’ll Learn:
What values-based marketing is.
How this approach (based on 10 years and 50,000 brands studied) has created incredible success both inside and outside of the higher education category.
The neuroscience of infusing emotion into your university’s brand messaging, leading to differentiation and increased engagement.
Insights into the Masterbrand approach and the necessary steps required to create brand consistency across the entire university.
How to discover, unite, inspire and unleash the power of your brand at each of your university’s touch points.
Higher Education Brand and Website Case StudiesmStoner, Inc.
What is one way you can help get senior leaders at your institution to understand and buy into the time and resources necessary for a branding initiative and website redesign done right?
Invoke the success of others.
Download six micro case studies from mStoner and BVK, our branding partner, to showcase successful higher education brand and web projects.
Pitch Perfect: How to Gain Internal Buy-InmStoner, Inc.
You know that what your institution calls a brand is actually a logo and a worn tagline. It’s time to get serious about your brand positioning. You need research, critical thinking, creative brilliance, and a digital-first strategy. And you need a website that serves as the flagship for your newly articulated brand.
How do you get your senior leadership to understand and buy into the time and resources necessary for a branding initiative and website redesign done right?
In this webinar, mStoner and our branding partner BVK arm you with the tools — the data, the stories, presentation approach and techniques — you’ll need to build and deliver a persuasive pitch to your decision-makers.
What You'll Learn:
The process, timeline, and potential costs involved in a brand-to-website project.
Options and alternatives for sequencing work, particularly in the face of institutional milestones or strategic planning process.
Ways to justify a large investment using data and information that will resonate with your institution’s decision-makers.
Map It Out: The Path to Better Digital Engagement with ProspectsmStoner, Inc.
No matter the size of your institution, digital enrollment marketing and communications comes with challenges: competing priorities, schedule and budget limitations, an abundance of (good and bad) ideas for digital next steps, and a variety of stakeholders and subject-matter experts who all want a say in what ends up on the website.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was one tool that could help you navigate all of these challenges? One living artifact you could point to and say: That’s why we’re doing it this way!
Enter the experience map.
Experience maps are graphical representations of the interactions individuals have with a product or service. They’re effective tools for developing empathy and understanding for your target audience by highlighting their thoughts, feelings, and actions as they seek to accomplish a task, such as applying to your institution.
The path to better digital engagement with your prospective student audience starts with an experience map. When you understand what information your target audience is looking for, when they’re looking for it, how they’re searching, and why, you’re able to identify areas needing improvement in engagement, content creation, and so much more.
Your website is your institution’s No. 1 recruiting tool and marketing channel. When it comes to planning a site redesign or implementing changes and enhancements to your site, an experience map will be your most valuable tool.
During the webinar, we’ll show you seven ways an experience map can improve engagement with prospective students. You’ll learn how to use an experience map to:
Create stakeholder alignment.
Develop user-centered content.
Capture institutional knowledge.
Prioritize your efforts.
MAKE 2018 THE YEAR YOU REALLY OWN YOUR SITE AND ENSURE THE CONTENT AND DESIGN REFLECT THE QUALITY OF YOUR INSTITUTION.
In this webinar, we cover the six things you need to know to set up your redesign project for success. You’ll learn how to:
1. Use insights from data to justify a website redesign, and what to do while you’re waiting for budgetary approval.
2. Set your priorities by determining goals and success metrics around engagement, conversion, brand building, and internal efficiency and collaboration.
3. Identify blind spots. (Spoiler alert: We have a list of top 10 mistakes that institutions usually make, and how to avoid them.)
4. Create a strong RFP that great firms will want to respond to, and choose the best-fit partner for your needs.
5. Create realistic expectations internally around cost, process, and community engagement.
6. Move your website from a capital project to an ongoing process.
Have you ever wondered what prospective teens are thinking when they receive and read — or ignore —your institution's recruitment marketing?
Prospective teen students are the prime audience for many higher education marketers. To reach them, we rely on a set of best practices targeted to teen needs and interests when building marketing and recruitment plans.
This third study in the Mythbusting series is the first to focus on the complete enrollment marketing mix.
In partnership with NRCCUA® (National Research Center for College & University Admissions), we designed a survey asking prospective teens to share their frank opinions of tactics institutions use to reach and engage them. We administered an identical survey to higher ed enrollment and marketing professionals to find out what they know (or think they know) about what teens want.
The resulting presentation explores where these perspectives converge — and differ — and how marketers can leverage this knowledge. We uncover the best channels for boosting visibility among prospective teen students and identify what encourages them to apply to your institution.
People are wired for stories.
Digital media allows us to bring life to those stories through words, images, sounds, and moving pictures. Exploring the guiding philosophy, lifecycle, and elements of a digital story, this webinar reviews pace-setting examples drawn from news media, colleges, and universities.
If you’re looking for ways to become a better storyteller and extend the reach and impact of communications that you already produce, don’t miss this webinar.
What You Will Learn
• Why storytelling matters
• How excellent digital stories are constructed
• What roles are necessary for a story team
• How to create a smart, sustainable solution for digital story content
A Mile in Their Shoes: Building Empathy Through Experience Maps and PersonasmStoner, Inc.
The process is highly emotional, fraught with anxiety, and influenced by many sources of information. As marketing and enrollment professionals, we must understand the factors that drive this important choice — as well as the thoughts and emotions our target audiences experience — in order to develop empathy for the groups that we serve.
mStoner and TargetX designed a survey focusing on how prospective teen students use a range of digital tools — social media, websites, email, and digital ads — during their college search and selection process, and what information is most helpful at each stage of the journey.
mStoner's 2019 Digital Admissions research with TargetX offers rich insights into the nuanced behavior of prospective teen students as they begin their college search and selection process
A Mile in Their Shoes: Building Empathy Through Experience MapsmStoner, Inc.
The college choice process is highly emotional, fraught with anxiety, and influenced by many sources of information. As marketing and enrollment professionals, we must understand the factors that drive this important choice — as well as the thoughts and emotions our target audiences experience — in order to develop empathy for the groups that we serve.
Would you like a tool to help navigate these challenges?
Enter the experience map — a powerful tool that: represents your, audience’s story, draws key stakeholders together, uncovers major process gaps, and guides your priorities and activities.
During this webinar, you’ll understand the basics of experience mapping, learn the seven benefits of an experience map, and discover how it can impact your enrollment and marketing strategy.
We’ll showcase examples from institutions that uncovered major process and content gaps as a result of experience mapping, causing them to lose their top applicants. We promise — the results will shock you.
Download the on demand presentation: http://offers.mstoner.com/a-mile-in-their-shoes-building-empathy-through-experience-maps
Making Your Mark: Unforgettable BrandingmStoner, Inc.
You know what you stand for. You feel it in your heart. Now what?
What’s the secret to building a bold brand that connects with your key audiences? Tune into this free webinar co-hosted by mStoner, a digital agency focused on higher education marketing and communications, and Zehno, a strategic branding and marketing firm for educational organizations.
Voltaire Santos Miran, mStoner’s CEO and Head of Client Experience and Shane Shanks, Zehno’s Senior Strategist and Editorial Director, team up to show you how to bring your institution’s brand to life. From smart strategy and bold creative to a beautiful web presence — we’ll use best-practice examples that deliver meaningful results.
Learn how to transform your message platform into compelling and captivating creative and how to make your website an integral part of your branding.
You will learn how to:
Translate brand messages into brilliant communications
Capture the heart and soul of an institution
Define the look, feel, and voice of your brand
Communicate a school's strengths and distinctions through its website
Create an optimal website structure for your target audiences
Marketing and Advancement: Colleagues and Partners or Direct ReportsmStoner, Inc.
This was presented at the 2018 AMA Higher Education Conference by Michael Stoner, co-founder and co-owner at mStoner, Inc. and Rob Zinkan, associate vice president, marketing, at Indiana University.
In this presentation, based on insights from the 2018 Benchmarking Digital Advancement research by CASE and mStoner, Inc., and interviews with senior advancement and marketing professionals, we explore the current relationship between the CMO and chief advancement officer. Are they colleagues and partners? And, more importantly, what
lies ahead for the CMO/CAO relationship as institutions seek to implement more effective engagement strategies with the entire range of an institution’s stakeholders?
Five reasons why the universal homepage happensmStoner, Inc.
Navigation, a carousel, request information, visit, apply, three news items, three event items, three profiles, a social media aggregator, and a fat footer. We know what you're thinking: That sounds awfully familiar.
You might be wondering why this happens. A lot.
mStoner identifies five roadblocks to watch out for so you can ensure your next homepage refresh or website redesign goes beyond the universal homepage template.
Break Up With Your Homepage, 'Cause I'm Bored: Moving Beyond the Universal Un...mStoner, Inc.
Two rows of navigation, a carousel, three news items, three events, three alumni profiles, a social media aggregator, and a fat footer. Look familiar? Ever hear someone say that you could take the logo off your website and it would look like every other institution out there? If you’re cringing or laughing nervously, this webinar is for you. (Ariana Grande said it best.)
We'll arm you with the tools you need to make your next website redesign, starting with your homepage, distinct and compelling.
What You'll Learn:
Why the universal university homepage phenomenon happens.
Five strategies for avoiding the “regression to the mean”.
The most important research and data to leverage in defending your decisions, educating your stakeholders, and dispelling popular myths about user experience (three-click rule, anyone?).
Key steps to take in between redesigns to set yourself up for longterm success.
The University of North Dakota has always been ahead of its time. But like many schools, UND initially built and grew its website piece by piece, without a unified vision. Without centralized management, the site eventually ballooned to more than 30,000 pages that varied in accuracy, timeliness, and presentation.
When it hired mStoner, UND’s needs were clear: create a cohesive site that could serve at least 13,000 students in more than 250 academic programs. Most important, UND wanted to reach an audience it hadn’t expressly prioritized before: prospective students. A major upgrade for UND’s new site was moving to a powerful search technology, powered by Funnelback.
Improving the Search Experience in Higher Ed: What's Next?mStoner, Inc.
Recent changes to website search are disrupting the way colleges and universities provide a fundamental website feature that impacts every key audience.
In this webinar, we will:
Review how the website search landscape has changed.
Discuss opportunities institutions have to use search to improve visitor experiences.
Examine how a major University tackled replacement of their former search solution, Google Search Appliance.
Look to the future at how search may unfold for colleges and universities.
In this five minute lightening talk, you'll get a crash course on the five step IMC (integrated marketing communications) process and learn ways education can leverage the model to integrate internal and external communications and accurately measure results.
Content Planning and Delivery for higher edmStoner, Inc.
Planning, organizing, and maintaining college and university web content is challenging. Competing priorities, resource limitations and siloed departments all have the potential to derail content projects.
Whether you’re preparing for a large-scale website redesign, a capital campaign microsite, or just refreshing a few key pages, you want to get the right content to the right audience on time and on budget.
During the webinar, we'll share practical examples and techniques that you can use to avoid common pitfalls of content delivery for your next project. You'll learn:
Which content questions to ask early in your project
What roles you need to consistently produce quality content
The pros and cons of centralized and decentralized content creation
How to prioritize when you have large amounts of content to create or review
How to plan for a workflow that incorporates faculty review
Storytelling and Integrated Marketing CommunicationsmStoner, Inc.
Storytelling is imperative if you want to build an enduring brand for your college or university.
The truth is, we could all be better at articulating who we are, what we’ve experienced, and why it matters. In order to tell better stories, institutions must first develop a true understanding of and empathy for target audiences, clarify brand messaging, and then develop staffing and skill sets to infuse storytelling into robust integrated marketing campaigns.
The digital space allows storytellers to immerse audiences even more fully in our stories with the opportunity to integrate and weave video, photography, user-generated content, and other rich media throughout the marketing campaign.
Are your readers at the heart of your institution’s story? Join mStoner and our branding partner BVK for the third webinar in our summer series. We’ll arm you with the knowledge you need — storytelling principles, concrete planning steps, and best-practice examples — to ensure storytelling is at the heart of your integrated marketing communication.
What You Will Learn:
How to develop an on-brand storytelling strategy
How to structure your stories
Traits of successful stories and how to measure impact
Ways to weave storytelling in your next integrated marketing campaign
Brand Architecture: Building an Enduring BrandmStoner, Inc.
Most brand efforts start with a bang, then soon fade away. Why? Because too many institutions continue to focus on features and benefits to tell their story. In today’s hypercompetitive environment, colleges and universities need to do more.
Institutions need to discover — or, for many, rediscover — their core values. Once that happens, there is an enormous opportunity for elevating your message beyond the statistics, beyond the rankings, and beyond the athletic accomplishments.
In part two of the Summer Webinar Series, we’ll provide you with important insights that can help transform your institution from enrollment to endowment.
What You’ll Learn:
What values-based marketing is.
How this approach (based on 10 years and 50,000 brands studied) has created incredible success both inside and outside of the higher education category.
The neuroscience of infusing emotion into your university’s brand messaging, leading to differentiation and increased engagement.
Insights into the Masterbrand approach and the necessary steps required to create brand consistency across the entire university.
How to discover, unite, inspire and unleash the power of your brand at each of your university’s touch points.
Higher Education Brand and Website Case StudiesmStoner, Inc.
What is one way you can help get senior leaders at your institution to understand and buy into the time and resources necessary for a branding initiative and website redesign done right?
Invoke the success of others.
Download six micro case studies from mStoner and BVK, our branding partner, to showcase successful higher education brand and web projects.
Pitch Perfect: How to Gain Internal Buy-InmStoner, Inc.
You know that what your institution calls a brand is actually a logo and a worn tagline. It’s time to get serious about your brand positioning. You need research, critical thinking, creative brilliance, and a digital-first strategy. And you need a website that serves as the flagship for your newly articulated brand.
How do you get your senior leadership to understand and buy into the time and resources necessary for a branding initiative and website redesign done right?
In this webinar, mStoner and our branding partner BVK arm you with the tools — the data, the stories, presentation approach and techniques — you’ll need to build and deliver a persuasive pitch to your decision-makers.
What You'll Learn:
The process, timeline, and potential costs involved in a brand-to-website project.
Options and alternatives for sequencing work, particularly in the face of institutional milestones or strategic planning process.
Ways to justify a large investment using data and information that will resonate with your institution’s decision-makers.
Map It Out: The Path to Better Digital Engagement with ProspectsmStoner, Inc.
No matter the size of your institution, digital enrollment marketing and communications comes with challenges: competing priorities, schedule and budget limitations, an abundance of (good and bad) ideas for digital next steps, and a variety of stakeholders and subject-matter experts who all want a say in what ends up on the website.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was one tool that could help you navigate all of these challenges? One living artifact you could point to and say: That’s why we’re doing it this way!
Enter the experience map.
Experience maps are graphical representations of the interactions individuals have with a product or service. They’re effective tools for developing empathy and understanding for your target audience by highlighting their thoughts, feelings, and actions as they seek to accomplish a task, such as applying to your institution.
The path to better digital engagement with your prospective student audience starts with an experience map. When you understand what information your target audience is looking for, when they’re looking for it, how they’re searching, and why, you’re able to identify areas needing improvement in engagement, content creation, and so much more.
Your website is your institution’s No. 1 recruiting tool and marketing channel. When it comes to planning a site redesign or implementing changes and enhancements to your site, an experience map will be your most valuable tool.
During the webinar, we’ll show you seven ways an experience map can improve engagement with prospective students. You’ll learn how to use an experience map to:
Create stakeholder alignment.
Develop user-centered content.
Capture institutional knowledge.
Prioritize your efforts.
MAKE 2018 THE YEAR YOU REALLY OWN YOUR SITE AND ENSURE THE CONTENT AND DESIGN REFLECT THE QUALITY OF YOUR INSTITUTION.
In this webinar, we cover the six things you need to know to set up your redesign project for success. You’ll learn how to:
1. Use insights from data to justify a website redesign, and what to do while you’re waiting for budgetary approval.
2. Set your priorities by determining goals and success metrics around engagement, conversion, brand building, and internal efficiency and collaboration.
3. Identify blind spots. (Spoiler alert: We have a list of top 10 mistakes that institutions usually make, and how to avoid them.)
4. Create a strong RFP that great firms will want to respond to, and choose the best-fit partner for your needs.
5. Create realistic expectations internally around cost, process, and community engagement.
6. Move your website from a capital project to an ongoing process.
Have you ever wondered what prospective teens are thinking when they receive and read — or ignore —your institution's recruitment marketing?
Prospective teen students are the prime audience for many higher education marketers. To reach them, we rely on a set of best practices targeted to teen needs and interests when building marketing and recruitment plans.
This third study in the Mythbusting series is the first to focus on the complete enrollment marketing mix.
In partnership with NRCCUA® (National Research Center for College & University Admissions), we designed a survey asking prospective teens to share their frank opinions of tactics institutions use to reach and engage them. We administered an identical survey to higher ed enrollment and marketing professionals to find out what they know (or think they know) about what teens want.
The resulting presentation explores where these perspectives converge — and differ — and how marketers can leverage this knowledge. We uncover the best channels for boosting visibility among prospective teen students and identify what encourages them to apply to your institution.
People are wired for stories.
Digital media allows us to bring life to those stories through words, images, sounds, and moving pictures. Exploring the guiding philosophy, lifecycle, and elements of a digital story, this webinar reviews pace-setting examples drawn from news media, colleges, and universities.
If you’re looking for ways to become a better storyteller and extend the reach and impact of communications that you already produce, don’t miss this webinar.
What You Will Learn
• Why storytelling matters
• How excellent digital stories are constructed
• What roles are necessary for a story team
• How to create a smart, sustainable solution for digital story content