Trends: Results of the 2015 Inbound Marketing for Higher Education Survey
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Wondering what inbound marketing strategies other colleges and universities are using? Interested in new and next topics like content amplification? Topics include: - Results from the Inbound Marketing in Higher Education Survey conducted in collaboration with OmniUpdate - 2015 trends in digital advertising, content strategy and analytics - Case study examples and tools for implementation - Our predictions for 2016
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Trends: Results of the 2015 Inbound Marketing for Higher Education Survey
- 1. PRESENTERS: Ann Oleson, CEO Jay Kelly, President Megan Bys, VP Content TRENDS: RESULTS OF THE 2015 INBOUND MARKETING FOR HIGHER EDUCATION SURVEY CONVERGE CONSULTING | 1.21.16
- 2. WELCOME 2
- 4. OMNIUPDATE 4
- 5. AGENDA 5 Inbound Marketing in 2015 Inbound Marketing in Higher Education Survey • Methodology • Results • Trends 2016 Predictions in Four Key Areas: • SEO • Digital Advertising • Content Marketing • Measurement
- 6. AGENDA 6 2015 Inbound Marketing in Higher Education Survey • Methodology • Results • Trends 2016 Predictions in Three Key Areas: • Digital Advertising • Content Marketing • Measurement INBOUND MARKETING IN 2015
- 7. CONVERT DELIGHT Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategic Content Creation Social Media Paid Advertising ATTRACT VISITORS STUDENTS PROMOTERS Calls-to-Action (CTAs) Landing Pages Forms Segmented Content Ongoing Engagement User Experience STRANGERS 7 INBOUND MARKETING
- 8. INBOUND EVERYDAY 8 It’s tropical vacation planning time! >
- 11. ATTRACT 11
- 12. CONVERT 12
- 13. DELIGHT 13
- 14. AGENDA 14 2015 Inbound Marketing in Higher Education Survey • Methodology • Results • Trends 2016 Predictions in Three Key Areas: • Digital Advertising • Content Marketing • Measurement 2015 INBOUND MARKETING IN HIGHER EDUCATION SURVEY: METHODOLOGY
- 15. October, 2015 • Web Based Survey, October 2015 • N=502 responded to the survey STUDY INFORMATION
- 16. October, 2015 N=502 UNITED STATES RESPONDENTS
- 17. October, 2015 10.8% 3.0% 47.2% 33.9% 5.2% Community or Technical college For profit institution Private 4-year institution Public 4-year institution Other N=502 HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR INSTITUTION?
- 18. October, 2015 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% Web/IT Marketing & Communications Executive Development Alumni Admissions 3% 44% 21% 4% 2% 26% N=486 YOUR PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY?
- 19. October, 2015 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% International Students Transfer Students Adult Students Undergraduate Students Graduate Students 46.0% 47.6% 50.8% 54.0% 64.5% N=124 ADMISSIONS: PRIMARY STUDENTS TARGETED?
- 20. October, 2015 Number of inquiries Number of campus visits Number of applicants Number of enrolled students Academic Profile Diversity Ability to pay Student retention Ranking of institution 1st 59 18 77 240 30 8 7 28 9 2nd 36 30 138 59 33 26 13 72 8 3rd 90 32 58 57 34 30 22 72 26 N=437 RANK: TOP THREE RECRUITMENT PRIORITIES
- 21. AGENDA 21 2015 Inbound Marketing in Higher Education Survey • Methodology • Results • Trends 2016 Predictions in Three Key Areas: • Digital Advertising • Content Marketing • Measurement 2015 INBOUND MARKETING IN HIGHER EDUCATION SURVEY: RESULTS & TRENDS
- 22. October, 2015 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Keyword research On-page SEO/Content optimization Off-page SEO/Link building Technical SEO/Semantic markup 27% 19% 19% 16% 35% 38% 17% 18% 16% 18% 28% 24% 4% 3% 5% 4% 17% 22% 31% 38% Yes, Freelance/Outsource Yes, Currently on Staff No, Would like To No, Do not Need Do Not Know N=390 SEO EFFORTS?
- 23. 2016 TRENDS: SEO 23 Moz Search Engine Ranking Factor Survey 2015 #1 – More Focus on User-Intent in Rankings
- 24. 2016 TRENDS: SEO 24 #2 – Increase in Thematic Approach
- 25. 2016 TRENDS: SEO 25 #3 – Increase in Semantic SEO
- 26. 2016 TRENDS: SEO 26 #3 – Increase in Semantic SEO
- 27. TIPS: SEO In order to get the most out of your SEO: • Stay up-to-date with industry thought leaders like Moz • Look at your content calendar for link-building opportunities • Track and measure the success of on-page efforts • Benchmark through peer reviews 27
- 28. October, 2015 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Pay-per-click (PPC) Display Retargeting Ad network Direct buy 37% 34% 37% 32% 20% 27% 29% 18% 19% 29% 8% 8% 15% 11% 9% 14% 9% 10% 12% 16% 15% 20% 20% 27% 25% Yes, Freelance/Outsource Yes, Currently on Staff No, Would like To No, Do not Need Do Not Know N=371 DIGITAL ADVERTISING EFFORTS?
- 29. October, 2015 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram YouTube Pinterest 18% 8% 11% 3% 10% 2% 64% 42% 36% 23% 35% 11% 10% 19% 22% 30% 23% 22% 5% 21% 19% 30% 20% 45% 3% 9% 13% 15% 12% 20% Yes, Freelance/Outsource Yes, Currently on Staff No, Would like To No, Do not Need Do Not Know N=362 ADVERTISING ON WHICH SOCIAL CHANNELS?
- 30. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 30 #1 – Increase in Video Ads
- 31. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 31 #1 – Increase in Video Ads
- 32. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 32 #2 – Expansion of Retargeting LinkedIn Lead Accelerator
- 33. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 33 #2 – Expansion of Retargeting
- 34. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 34 #3 – Increased Data Layering
- 35. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 35 #3 – Increased Data Layering
- 36. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 36 #4 – Persona Targeted Advertising & Messaging
- 37. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 37 Military Corp. Executive Ad Landing Page
- 38. 2016 TRENDS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING 38 #5 – A to Z Strategy
- 39. TIPS: DIGITAL ADVERTISING In order to get the most out of your Digital Advertising: • Use target audience personas • Use data layering • Change creative frequently • Understand points in recruitment funnel to target • Review reports with KPI’s at least monthly • TEST everything but not at the same time 39
- 40. October, 2015 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% User Personas Messaging Matrix Editorial Calendar Content offers (ebooks, infographics, kits) Marketing automation software Videos Communication mapping (workflows, funnels) 10% 7% 5% 6% 8% 16% 8% 31% 28% 41% 24% 25% 62% 43% 21% 27% 21% 32% 33% 13% 24% 10% 5% 7% 13% 10% 1% 3% 28% 32% 26% 25% 24% 8% 21% Yes, Freelance/Outsource Yes, Currently on Staff No, Would like To No, Do not Need Do Not Know N=335 CONTENT MARKETING EFFORTS?
- 41. 2016 TRENDS: CONTENT MARKETING 41 #1 – Shifting Goals and Priorities
- 42. 2016 TRENDS: CONTENT MARKETING 42 #1 – Shifting Goals and Priorities
- 43. 2016 TRENDS: CONTENT MARKETING 43 #2 – Content Calendars = Your New Best Friend
- 44. 2016 TRENDS: CONTENT MARKETING 44 #2 – Content Calendars = Your New Best Friend
- 45. 2016 TRENDS: CONTENT MARKETING 45 #2 – Content Calendars = Your New Best Friend • 4 pilot programs • 8 monthly blog posts • 4 monthly content offers • 2,500+ new sessions in 60 days • Over 75% new traffic generated through social media
- 46. 2016 TRENDS: CONTENT MARKETING 46 #3 – Focus on Measurement and Performance
- 47. 2016 TRENDS: CONTENT MARKETING 47 #4 – New & Next: Content Amplification is Coming
- 48. TIPS: CONTENT MARKETING In order to get the most out of your Content Marketing: • Streamline planning with a content calendar • Simplify management with tools and apps like Trello • Create with a goal in mind • Focus on sharing, promotion and amplification • Measure and evaluate the impact • Use analytics to view real-time performance data 48
- 49. October, 2015 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Google Analytics goal setup Google Analytics dashboards Social media analytics Social media monitoring CRM metrics Marketing automation analytics 13% 13% 10% 10% 6% 6% 49% 61% 66% 65% 42% 27% 24% 15% 13% 14% 31% 36% 1% 2% 1% 2% 5% 6% 13% 10% 9% 9% 17% 25% Yes, Freelance/Outsource Yes, Currently on Staff No, Would like To N=327 MEASUREMENT EFFORTS?
- 50. 2016 TRENDS: MEASUREMENT 50 #1 - Moving From Data Dumps to Actual Insight
- 51. 2016 TRENDS: MEASUREMENT 51 #2 - Inspecting Big Picture Goals on a Micro Level
- 52. 2016 TRENDS: MEASUREMENT 52 #3 - Measuring Students Throughout the Funnel
- 54. TIPS: MEASUREMENT In order to get the most out of your metrics: • Identify a champion for measurement • Write the role of measurement into someone’s job description • Identify what you are measuring first and why it is important • Identify experts who understand Higher Education for training and resources on measurement 54
- 55. INBOUND MARKETING IN 2016 55 Where would you spend extra resources? Response Number of Responses Staff 50 Advertising 26 Content 25 CRM 20 SEO 17 Marketing Automation 10
- 56. NEXT WEBINAR 56
- 57. 57
Editor's Notes
- Thank you for choosing to attend Trends: Results of the 2015 Inbound Marketing for Higher Education Survey. Today is an exciting opportunity for us to share key benchmark data in relation to what your peers had to say as well as trends that are new and next in the market. Just a few housekeeping items before we jump into the presentation – this webinar is being recorded and will be shared with all attendees via email.
- My name is Ann Oleson. I have worked in Higher Education for the past 15 years. 5 years ago I started Converge because I believed then and do now that marketing is changing and that digital must be on the forefront of everyone’s mind. I am joined today by Jay Kelly, President of Converge and Partner. Megan Bys VP of Content Strategy who has worked with clients across the nation on content strategy and inbound marketing projects.
- As I mentioned Converge is a digital agency for higher education We specialize in website redesign, inbound marketing and digital advertising.
- We would like to thank Omni Update for their collaboration on this survey. Omni Update is a leading CMS provider in the Higher Education space. Carol Clements the Director of Marketing and her team have been incredibly generous with their time and input in relation to the survey.
- In the next hour we will be covering: The results of Higher Education’s first inbound marketing survey Predictions in 4 key areas The full version of the survey will be shared at the Omni Update User Conference in February. An e-book with the results will also be available in February.
- The goal of inbound marketing is simple…to get the right message to the right person at the right time. This happens through three key phases: Attract, Convert and Delight. The goal is to attract strangers to our storefront our website, the place where the magic always begins through: organic search, strategic content such as blogs, social media and paid advertising, Once we have that right person on our sight we need compelling calls to action, landing pages and forms to direct that prospect where to go. Once they are engaged our job is to keep them delighted through our admissions teams discussions, segmented and relevant emails and content and an amazing user experience.
- A colossal snow storm is on it’s way this week and planning to unload a foot of snow from DC to Philadelphia and NYC. Along with that snow comes the deepfreeze that the majority of the midwest has been experiencing over the past week. Hmmm… One degree Fahrenheit. That’s the kind of weather that makes you Google “can it be too cold to snow?”. (It can, sort of.) It’s also the kind of weather that inspires you to head south and you’re not alone. When a polar vortex hits, “warm weather vacation” is searched more than two times as often and industry experts know this it’s a peak time for bookings.
- So let’s say you’re planning a tropical trip to escape the freeze. You start by doing some “research” into where you’d like to go. Perhaps you search “best Caribbean islands” or “Mexican resorts for families”. You might ask you friends on social media, or email a coworker.
- As you’re putting your feelers out there, you probably also notice that the universe seems to be helping you in your query. You start to see more swimming pools and palm trees in your Facebook feed. Your Google result just offered you a discount on a Disney cruise. And the resort that your friend suggested just sent you an email with activities, photos, testimonials and partner discounts. What is going on here!? You have just experienced the Attract phase of Inbound Marketing.
- Attract In Attract, marketers work hard to line up the right messages for the right prospect. It is a waste of time and money for marketers to approach people who are not eager and able to take a tropical trip. Not to mention, too much unwanted messaging can be damaging to their brand relationship. Fortunately, for marketers and consumers, there are some fantastic digital advertising technologies out there that allow us to target the right prospect, at the right time, with the right message. That is what you’ve experienced when you started your getaway search. These digital advertising tools are all available to higher education marketers as well. In 2015, we saw more digital advertising investment in social media and mobile platforms. Ads were degree program focused with high conversion landing pages. Native advertising tools and technology improved in 2015 as well.
- CONVERT You clicked into the resort’s email because you noticed that they have a partner deal with an airline and rental car company. That’s actually a pretty good rate. You check Kayak.com to confirm. Yep, that’s a great rate. You forward to your spouse. While you wait for their “of course we should do this” response, you start to read the testimonials and look at the pictures. The resort does free yoga every morning? But that might be hard to make because of the live music they offer every evening. Your credit card is out. Why is it taking so long for your spouse to respond?
- Delight That other decision maker finally emails you back to tell you what a great idea this is, so you pull the trigger. You fill out your information on their website and mark your calendar. The trip is amazing. They greet you by name and your room is just as you requested. You snap a ton of pictures and brag to your friends on social media. (They’ll forgive you when you give them this great recommendation next year!) When you check out you get an email asking you to complete a survey and when you do, you receive a discount for your next visit. It’s all very delightful. This third phase of Inbound Marketing, Delight, is in some ways the most important. Do you remember how you heard of this resort in the first place? From a friend that was so delighted with their experience that they recommended it to you. In 2015, Google Analytics, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and social monitoring were critical for higher education institutions to understand how they delighted students and where they can make improvements – from first marketing touch all the way through graduation. Measurement is instrumental in all three phases of Inbound Marketing – Attract, Convert, Delight – to understand which tactics are working for your specific audience.
- This fall we partnered with Omni Update to conduct a very focused 10 question survey. Over 500 individuals responded to the survey from across the world.
- The majority of those respondents were in the US and representative of most states.
- Almost half of the respondents work at a private 4 year college. 33.9% of respondents work at a public 4 year institution The other representative worked at Community Colleges, For profit institutions and several others
- Many of the individuals who responded to this survey served in roles similar to those on your campus. 44% of our responsdents were marketing and communications team members. Followed by Admissions and Executives.
- The primary audiences these professionals were working to recruit were: graduate, followed by undergraduate, adult, transfer and international
- Their priorities weren’t surprise. #1 Number of Enrolled Students #2Number of Applicants #3 Number of Inquiries
- Now that we’ve covered inbound methodology and survey distribution, we’re excited to share results from the 2015 survey and predictions for marketing efforts in 2016. As Ann prefaced, there have never been more ways to attract prospective students to your website, however, the digital landscape has never been more competitive. Let’s start with SEO and what we learned from our survey respondents.
- Most of us know that SEO means search engine optimization. It’s a way to attract users to our website by leveraging what we know about search metrics and trends. The inbound survey asked respondents about their SEO usage and methodology. Data shows that 66% of respondents did not know who was responsible for technical SEO and Semantic Markup or were not doing work in this area. Huge opportunity here. Technical SEO is critical to Google reviewing /indexing/reading your site. By fixing technical errors you can automatically see a lift in your Google search rankings. Another key takeaway to note: 64% of respondents aren’t or did not know if they were doing off-page seo and/or link building. Off-page SEO is a giant opportunity for a college/university. Someone on campus needs to own this and a strategy has to be put in place for how you will do this. Off page SEO and link building is imperative to your site being found. The inbound survey results showed us how the test group is or in some cases isn’t leveraging SEO. From this data and our work with colleges and universities in 2015, we’ve developed predictions for priorities in 2016 efforts.
- Over 57% of respondents have staff members or freelancers working on on-page SEO and content optimization efforts. This is great news. At the end of the day, a well-structured page with well-thought-out and valuable content that’s structured in an easily digestible way will win out in the search rankings. Resource to check out: Moz’s 2015 Search Engine Ranking Factor Survey provides more analysis on how this will impact on-page SEO.
- 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. As search becomes increasingly competitive, more and more colleges and universities are adopting a thematic approach to keyword rankings. With this strategy, everything works together to build AUTHORITY. In 2016, we’ll continue to see less of a focus on optimization for one keyword and turn towards a thematic approach with lots of keywords. There’s really no denying the need for a new strategic approach when it comes to optimizing content as themes rather than singular keywords.
- It’s the new kid on the block for SEO and survey data shows that there’s a huge opportunity here for higher ed. 66% of respondents did not know who was responsible for technical SEO and Semantic Markup or were not doing work in this area. In 2016, we’ll see more schools leveraging the opportunity to reach search traffic through semantic SEO. Semantic markup language basically allows us to implement code that search engines can read and translate onto the search engine results pages. Take this example of a simple query for Kenny Chesney concert. The semantic markup coded onto the webpage allows the actual dates and events of kenny chesney concerts to translate directly onto the SERP.
- Think about all of the opportunities to leverage semantic SEO in higher ed. Our clients at Our Lady of the Lake University in Texas are using this structured data markup through Google markup helper / Google Tag Manager. OLLU is putting all of the data that Google and their users want to know in a pretty little package directly on the results page. In 2016, there’s a huge opportunity for colleges and universities to take the lead and define what semantic SEO means for the industry. Less than 35% of Inbound Survey respondents (your competitors) are using technical SEO and semantic markup to their advantage. You have a great opportunity to showcase recruitment fairs and other upcoming events and bring programmatic content directly into the SERPs through semantic SEO in 2016!
- We’ve covered trends from the survey and predictions for 2016. Here are some key takeaways: Tip #1- Got to Moz.com and sit through a white board Friday session and learn about Technical SEO 64% of respondents aren’t or did not know if they were doing off page seo and/or link building. Off page SEO is a giant opportunity for a college/university. Someone on campus needs to own this and a strategy has to be put in place for how you will do this. Off page SEO and link building is imperative to your site being found. Campuses are full of faculty members being published and quoted in major authoritative sources. Media sources and government sites are two of the most authoritative sites that can impact your results ina huge way. Tip #2- Think about your strategy for the month of February. Look at what link building you might be able to do if you devoted an hour or two of time to the specific content that you know you will be communicating whether it is a speaker on campus or a homepage story. Use this as your case study for ongoing link building work. Tip #3- If you have staff members or freelancers working on your on-page seo make sure that you are using a tool to track and measure the success. Keyword research is happening and more institutions are adding this skill set to their staffs capabilities. Tip #4- ON a monthly basis review your keywords in relation to your competitors. Evaluate which keywords are performing the best and also add in negative keywords to the mix to continue with optimization.
- Paid media is another key component in the attract phase of inbound marketing. Trends: Direct Buy, Display and PPC are the largest digital advertising categories that are currently on staff ranging from 18-29% of respondents having these capabilities on staff. The largest freelance/outsourced digital advertising efforts are PPC and Retargeting followed by Display advertising. Whether you outsource or add staff capabilities more schools daily are adding this as a core of their marketing mix 55% of the respondents are freelancing or have a member on staff who are engaging in retargeting. It takes the average person at least 3 interactions with your brand in order to take an action. Retargeting is an effective way to follow your prospect through the funnel and spend your marketing dollars wisely. Very few schools less than 16% of respondents by type of digital channel said that they don’t need digital advertising. Tip #1- if you freelance or outsource or do your digital advertising in house ensure that you are changing the creative, that optimization is happening on a frequent basis communicating new activities, events and deadlines. Ensure that reports are shared at least monthly and that meetings to review results are happening, not just a report stuffed into your overflowing email box. Tip #2- Try and test so that you have data to make decisions. If possible track these inquiries all the way through the funnel so you really know what is working.
- 82% of respondents are advertising on Facebook Followed by Twitter at 50% Followed by 47% on LinkedIn 30% of those who responded would like to try advertising on Instagram
- #1 – Increase in Video Ads Facebook video viewership has seen tremendous growth. As of November 2015, they are now reporting 8 billion average daily video views from 500 million users (That’s up from just 4 billion video views per day in April 2015). Facebook also has a lot on the horizon when it comes to video. It is testing out a dedicated video feed where users can browse different channels, videos shared by friend, videos that are trending on Facebook and other themes. They are also testing out a ‘Save a video to watch later’ option as well as a ‘picture-in-picture viewing’ so users can continue watching a video while they browse their News Feed. Don’t forget about Twitter. Their video advertising is now out of beta and is now available through Twitter reps, making it another channel to engage with users via video. We expect to see these advancements shift emphasis to the video format in 2016.
- Example – adding a video ad for Winterline - Just implemented December 21st 10,000+ views from various video ads Also added video to landing page – increase in time on page and increase in conversion rate
- #2 – Expansion of Retargeting Retargeting users was the new thing that everyone wanted to do in 2013 and 2014. In 2015, many institutions mastered site retargeting but what’s next? More targeting strategies and segmented messaging. Instead of just retargeting users who visit your website or landing page and don’t convert, many third party companies are offering behavioral targeting strategies to reach a larger audience. These strategies include targeting users based on their search and browsing history. Say a user searches a top competitor of yours; you can now retarget that user with behavioral targeting strategies. Facebook, Twitter and now Google AdWords (!) offer custom audience targeting that allow you to target users by their email address, phone number and/or user ID. You can now customize messaging to your prospects with admissions related content. LinkedIn Lead Accelerator (LLA) is a lead generation solution which helps you engage with more know prospects, convert more anonymous website visitors and ultimately increase lead velocity into your pipeline. With LinkedIn Accelerator you can now sequence ads, delivering a series of ads to user based on where they are in the recruitment funnel.
- Example from Mizzou, Erikson Uploaded lists of prospective students and targeted them with admissions related ads: application deadline, events, etc. Important to understand where the user is at in the decision making process and message them accordingly
- #3 – Increased Data Layering The more you know about your target audience, the more granular you should be with your digital advertising audience targeting. In 2016, we anticipate more school’s analyzing data of their current students to determine and develop detailed target audience personas. Data such as age, previous education, job industry, income level and interests are all demographic targeting options that can be layered on top of each other on digital advertising channels to help reach an extremely segmented audience.
- #3 – Increased Data Layering Example: Loyola Quinlan School of Business Executive Education – Mini-MBA Knew a lot about target audience: Roles and job seniority they had at companies Age Previous education
- #4 – Persona Targeted Advertising & Messaging Personas were huge in 2015 but what do you actually do once with the personas you have developed? Many schools due utilize their different personas by targeting all the different demographics but they aren’t giving each persona a unique journey. This next year, we will see more schools customize the enrollment journey by person. We will use different messaging, different ad creative, a unique landing page and a customized enrollment follow-up process based on the factors that are the most important to that persona.
- #5 – A to Z Strategy Continuing on from persona targeted advertising and messaging, we will begin to see more school’s think more about the whole recruitment process in relation to digital advertising. Digital advertising leads take longer to convert into enrolled students compared to leads from your website. Leads from your website most likely are already familiar with your brand or have done previous research regarding your school. Whereas, your ads will be the first interaction with your brand for digital advertising leads. Hence, they will require a longer and different recruitment process. Schools that haven’t implemented Customer Relation Management (CRM) systems will make that a priority in 2016. Schools that already have implemented a CRM will now take more advantage of customizing the recruitment process by persona and by lead source. They will also look to use more automation tools to create workflows that incorporate more emails and engaging content.
- #5 – A to Z Strategy Continuing on from persona targeted advertising and messaging, we will begin to see more school’s think more about the whole recruitment process in relation to digital advertising. Digital advertising leads take longer to convert into enrolled students compared to leads from your website. Leads from your website most likely are already familiar with your brand or have done previous research regarding your school. Whereas, your ads will be the first interaction with your brand for digital advertising leads. Hence, they will require a longer and different recruitment process. Schools that haven’t implemented Customer Relation Management (CRM) systems will make that a priority in 2016. Schools that already have implemented a CRM will now take more advantage of customizing the recruitment process by persona and by lead source. They will also look to use more automation tools to create workflows that incorporate more emails and engaging content.
- Content is the best way to create an emotional connection and share what really sets your institution apart. Everyone can make a blog, but we asked respondents about the specific strategic marketing tools they are using. When it comes to strategic content tools, videos were most popular in 2015. The responses indicate that most of the content planning and creation is happening in house, compared to other categories. Also, approximately 20-30 percent of institutions would like to be doing more of each of these items. These data points support the claim we hear frequently: we don’t have the staff to produce good content.
- #1 – Making Content a Priority: Higher Ed is All In Smart Insights research showed that top industry goals for content marketing in 2015 focused less on lead generation and selling and more on engagement. Content marketing is being leveraged throughout the inbound marketing funnel to generate customer loyalty, engagement, brand awareness and, ultimately, sales. Data from the Trends in Inbound Marketing Survey echoes these trends moving into 2016. Over 500 participants – marketers, leaders and creators from colleges and universities from across the country – commented on their content marketing activity in the survey. The responses showed a consensus that content marketing is actively being used to generate inquiries and build relationships with prospective students and other key digital stakeholders. Results show that approximately 75% of higher education marketers are creating, freelancing or would like to implement content marketing efforts.
- #1 – Making Content a Priority: Higher Ed is All In Smart Insights research showed that top industry goals for content marketing in 2015 focused less on lead generation and selling and more on engagement. Content marketing is being leveraged throughout the inbound marketing funnel to generate customer loyalty, engagement, brand awareness and, ultimately, sales. Data from the Trends in Inbound Marketing Survey echoes these trends moving into 2016. Over 500 participants – marketers, leaders and creators from colleges and universities from across the country – commented on their content marketing activity in the survey. The responses showed a consensus that content marketing is actively being used to generate inquiries and build relationships with prospective students and other key digital stakeholders. Results show that approximately 75% of higher education marketers are creating, freelancing or would like to implement content marketing efforts. We saw an initial push for content marketing across the funnel in 2015. With clients like McGraw-Hill education focusing on new inquiries and creating digital touch-points throughout the user’s journey with their brand. With a focus on content marketing goals throughout the inbound funnel, they’ve set goals and measured activity in all three stages of inbound – attract, convert and delight.
- #2 – Get Organized: Content Calendars = Your New Best Friend Tools like content calendars and blog plans are a necessary evil that all content creators must manage. If we want to track, measure and evaluate the impact of the content we produce, we’ve got to put a system in place for editorial management. “Good content always has an objective, it is created with intent.” Ann Handley, Author and Content Marketing Expert According to the Inbound Survey results, 65 percent of respondents are leveraging content tools like editorial calendars in their management process. A spreadsheet outlining your plan for 2016 may seem like a simple solution for a big problem, but an organized content calendar has many benefits that colleges and universities are seeing once implemented on campus.
- #2 – Get Organized: Content Calendars = Your New Best Friend With a content calendar in place, our clients at American University College of Arts and Sciences have been able to establish review processes and optimize time and efforts to bring the content calendar to life. We’ve been using Trello – an digital project management tool to help streamline communication across their university wide and college specific marketing teams. This tool has helped open gateways for communication in a complex governance structure, and best of all – it’s free!
- #2 – Get Organized: Content Calendars = Your New Best Friend PERKS OF MAINTAINING A CONTENT CALENDAR: Defines content author / owner Ensures consistency in brand narrative Simplifies daily execution to optimize time and resources It’s a record of all content marketing efforts Encourages measurement and performance evaluation Streamlines sharing and amplification Not having a clearly defined author or owner of content With AU as an example, we’ve taken that shared Google Sheet that provides a record of ideas for future evaluation, strategically managed and streamlined the planning process through our free tool, Trello, and ultimately brought those ideas to life with their new CAS blog. The AU teams have been able to take their goal of launching content marketing for 4 pilot programs and execute on the plan in a strategic way. And it all started with a content calendar!
- #3 – Measurement Matters: Optimizing + Producing Quality Content Matt Brown of Moz shared insights on the Content Glut during his session at Converge 2015. The sheer quantity of content – blogs, infographics, eBooks, etc. – that are being produced is huge. 2.5 million blog posts are created everyday. An important factor in scaling an enterprise-level content strategy is measurement through analytics. Many of our clients, including American University, have begun monthly reporting on content performance the measure the impact of their content marketing efforts. Allowing them to monitor traffic and how users interact with your website and blog and understand paths to content and how messages are disseminated across multiple digital channels leading back to your site. Viewing content with a focus on measurement and analytics empowers your team to better communicate goals and show ROI of the day-to-day efforts. We predict that measurement will become even more important to content marketing efforts in 2016 as the content landscape becomes increasingly cluttered and competitive.
- #4 – New & Next: Content Amplification is Coming Now that we’re actively seeing stories told and communicated online through content marketing efforts in #highered, we’re seeing industry thought leaders like Bentley University, Temple University and others moving toward amplification. Content amplification marries valuable content – earned and owned media – with paid tactics. A content amplification strategy is key for colleges and universities moving forward. How do we optimize in an increasingly competitive landscape? And what’s the right balance between content creation, curation and strategy? Content amplification is the next step in taking your content marketing efforts to the next level.
- The majority of measurement is happening in house 66% of respondents have a current staff member who spends some time on social media analytics 65% on social media analytics 61% on Google Analytics dashboards More colleges and universities are using their CRM systems not just as a filing cabinet for names but as a true conversion tool Over 1/3 of respondents said that they would like to measure with marketing automation analytics and CRM metrics The majority of these responsibilities are happening in house. Tip #1- write this into someone’s job description Tip #2- attend trainings, workshops and conferences to learn more about the power of these tools Tip #3- The data you report on is only as effective as the KPI or goal that are you setting up to measure
- #1 - Moving From Data Dumps to Actual Insight: One of the most common issues we see, even in institutions with a strong analytics culture, is the tendency to use analytics as nothing more than a collection of quantitative results measured against a less than solid baseline. These “data dumps” can feel significant as it turns a large number of heads when you announce that traffic to the website increased 210% from the previous month. What does that mean though? Did you see an increase in the number of enrolled students as a result or were people just curious because your team just took the NCAA playoffs by storm? Analytics for the sake of providing a large amount of data is unusable and some institutions have started to catch on to that fact. In 2016, we will see an increase in the number of institutions defining their goals and visualizing how each of their marketing efforts are contributing to the ultimate goals.
- #2 - Inspecting Big Picture Goals on a Micro Level: With the usage of Google Tag Manager more than doubling in the last year, more sites have the opportunity to begin inspecting website activity at a micro level. With how easy Tag Manager makes it to dynamically track events based off of all clicks, links, or even scrolls on your site there is no reason to not begin measuring the impacts of very specific activities on the bottom line. This tool, combined with resources such as Google Analytics Content Experiments, will allow marketers the ability to measure the impact of button placement, page length, or even content type on goal conversions.
- #3 - Measuring Students Throughout the Funnel: This has already begun to happen through the use of campaign tracking as well as other efforts to bring offline marketing into the world of analytics, however, 2016 is the time to take the next step. Very often the use of analytics will only go to the point of inquiry or login application process. If you’re lucky you have a CRM in place to track users beyond that barrier, but what good does it provide if the two systems are disjoined. We have begun to see institutions attempting to break down the walls between their CRM systems and their analytics data to measure users from the point they first search all the way through enrollment. Each implementation is custom, but marketing automation tools help in this effort. It is this data that will allow marketers to identify not only where they are receiving the most inquiries from but also where they are sourcing quality inquiries.
- We were lucky enough to touch on all three of these measurement trends in our recent work with the University of Arizona. With two main pages that are driving prospective student traffic the University Marketing team wanted to know how the components on each of these pages drove towards the ultimate goals of completed applications. After analyzing the data we were able to determine that, while the future students page had, in theory, more engaging content it was being used more frequently by admitted students to log into a student portal whereas the apply page has been driving a significantly larger percentage of users to application completions.
- 2016, HERE WE COME We asked one final question on the 2015 Inbound Marketing for Higher Education Survey. If the respondents could have more of one thing in 2016, it would be staff members. We have been fortunate enough to work with some amazing teams in higher education marketing. From two person jacks-of-all trades teams to agency style groups with enough staff to fill a football team. But what they have in common is they are ready to learn, experiment and advance their brands with new technologies and tools. There are amazing advances coming in digital advertising, SEO, social media, content marketing, measurement and likely some other categories we aren’t even talking about yet! We’re excited to see how higher education institutions are embracing the new and looking for opportunities to grow. That’s what makes us so excited to be in this industry. That’s what inspires our blogs, webinars and conferences. That’s what motivates us to conduct surveys like this. We hope you use this information to benchmark your efforts, earmark dollars and make the case for improvements. From Converge to you, have a wonderful 2016 and keep exploring!
- Questions?