Analytics - Ask Questions

By: Brittany Christiansen

As you can see here is a picture of our analytic information. Now I know it is not very impressive, but that is something I want to try and fix. This is not only to help us but to teach you another tip. When you don't feel that your marketing is performing its best, ask questions! Our question is: 

What can we do to get more visitors to our blog? What do YOU (the visitors) want to see on our sights that we aren't doing right now? What can we do to grab your attention more? Give us your answers! Sometimes you need outside help to better yourself. Check out your analytics! Although our area of expertise is Internet Marketing we seem to have fallen short of what we had hoped. Help us be better for YOU! We are asking questions right now, so you shouldn't be afraid to ask questions either. Get out there with posts to social media to ask what you can do to build onto your knowledge, etc.! Thanks M - 4 - U Folks! 

Marketing to Your Students

By: Chelsea DeMott

The first step to marketing to your students is to focus on the quality and value they will expect and the economy we are currently in. Quality education is one of the most important aspects of your marketing. The value of your university is important as well. The students need to perceive their potential university as the “best” place they could possibly go. Market your quality through social media and the university webpage. Social media sites keep potential or current students up to date with what is going on with their university whether it is upcoming sport events or current news. The university webpage is vital when it comes to information. A solid appearance, sharp color scheme, user friendly navigation and rich content are the key objectives to an impression that will be captivating. When a university connects with the student and the student connects with the university, success will be attained!

Winter break

By: Erica Alarid-Heidel 

It’s that time of year the fall semester is ending and winter break is around the corner. Most college students are celebrating that finals are over (or almost over) and all they have on their mind is getting home. This is a key time for you as a college, how do you keep kids interested in school? The spring semester is the last thing on most peoples mind so why not engage them in different ways. Check out this video blog on a fall and winter break survival guide. This kind of blog is a great way to interact with your market, it helps keep students on your website and social media sites. Most importantly it keeps students evolved in the school. It’s also a great way to show how your school is not only a great education but also a fun place to be. Time to get creative!

Five Factors To Consider For Students Searching Your University

By: Chelsea DeMott

Do you know your audience? It is important to understand what motivates and drives potential students to enroll in a university. Here are five factors to remember about your audience and what they look for while searching for a university:

1. Financial Aid – Two important factors for why a student will select a college is based on financial aid and program reputation. As a university, remember to communicate the information about financial aid programs.

2. Wonderful Website – Having valuable information on your website is undeniable. Students will search for very specific information as they try and narrow their college decision down to one.

3. Paper Is Still Alive – Although students are all about digital usage, there is still a need for print media. Students still believe print sources are a major factor in their decision process.

4. Students Are Smart – Universities have the goal of attracting the best students possible. Students have the goal of attending the best university possible, so they understand how and why you are marketing to them. Make sure your information is accurate, students are looking!

5. Orientations Are Needed – Students use orientations to support their college decision. And after all, orientation sessions are meant to be the time for students to become enhanced with the college they may be attending.

Marketing on a budget

By: Erica Alarid-Heidel

So what if you are not a huge University with a large budget to spend on marketing. How are you able to maximum your efforts on a minimal budget? Here are a few helpful hits to get you started.

1) Endorsements:
We all know celebrity endorsements are a great form of marketing. People mimic what celebrities do and typically want to be like them. Use this to your advantage. Take a look at your alumni and current student rosters; is there anyone that is a local celebrity? Ask that person if they would be willing to do an add campaign promoting the school. If they are a local celebrity it should not cost you any money to get their help, usually the fact of being on TV or in the newspaper is exciting enough. Look for local hero’s, someone well know or that has recently done something news worthy.

2) Get published on a blog:
We have all ready talked about how important it is to be on social media. Getting published on someone else’s blog takes your social media presence one step further. Word of mouth is one of the best forms of marketing because it’s free and it spreads like wild fire. This also relates to our first tip, if you can convenience a popular blogger that writes about things related to your target market it’s a form of an endorsement.

3) Tracking:
You need to make sure that the money you are spending is being used in the right places. The best way to do this is tracking what you are doing and seeing if it’s working. There are tons of tools out there you can use to track the analytics of your marketing efforts and most of them are free. Google analytics is one of the best and most widely used but there are other sites out there like Cliky and Pikiw if you prefer to try something else. If you see that one of your marketing channels is not delivering any results maybe its not best to be spending your money there. Instead look at the channels that are attracting the most business and focus your money and attention there.



These are just a few ides to get you started and get you thinking about how to market on a budget. Takes these ideas and run with them, but don’t forget you get what you put in. No marketing plan is free don’t cut to many corners, it might result in a loss of students.

Marketing into the Holidays

By: Brittany Christiansen 

Hello M - 4- U Folks,

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and I am here to share some holiday tips to keep your internet marketing on the nice list. I thought it would be a good idea to discuss marketing in the holidays. How do you do it? Well for Universities or Colleges the first thing you want to do is let your students know of the holiday breaks, finals and anything else they can be expecting. Then post some fun information to social media. When I say fun, I mean, are there any holiday events you will be hosting (like a "Fun After Finals Party")? Are there any holiday quotes or pictures you would like to share? Get this out to your students! The video above is something fun and entertaining for your students to watch. Have your students join into a "Holiday Short". What is a Holiday Short? A short film/commercial involving the holidays and involved somehow into the University (student life, finals, curriculum, etc.). The student/group to make the best short holiday film/commercial will get a prize. That prize can be like the ones I have stated before: free meals for a week, free $50.00 bookstore gift card, etc. Get your students involved in the holiday spirit! Don't let them fear the finals but instead look forward to the fun to be had during the holiday season, at your university. 

Going Mobile

By:Erica Alarid-Heidel

In todays market it’s not good enough to just be on line you also have to be “mobile” friendly. Gone are the days of dial up Internet from your desktop computer at home, now with smart phones and tablets you can access the Internet from just about anywhere. You can use your smart phone to shop on line, as a GPS when you need directions, to find a restaurant close to you and much much more. According to PewResearch 83% of Americans age 18-29 own a smart phone and 34% of smartphone owners use their cell phone more often then their computers to go on-line. With this said you can see how important it is to make sure your website is “mobile friendly”

Mobile devices are not set up the same as a laptop or desktop computer. The way a website is viewed or even run can be very different on a computer compared to a mobile device. Because of this business are designing special sites just for mobile devices, they have most all the same information but the design and layout is different. Many sites will have a link at the bottom that reads, “go to full site” if you prefer to view the site in its entirety, but for most this is the preferred method. Some businesses even take it a step further and have created mobile apps for their companies. This makes it that much easier for their business to be accessed from a mobile device.

Wither you decide to design a app for your university or simply design a mobile version of your website it is a necessary tool in todays market. Trending social behaviors change the way we reach out to our customers. Generation Z is the most widely versed in technology, they have grown up with it and don’t even know a world with out computers and the Internet. As a university this will be your primary target market and we need to keep up with the trends to make sure we stay on top.

Make it Personal

By: Brittany Christiansen

After watching television one night I came across this "Share A Coke" commercial. I loved the commercial of course! Right after I saw it, I had gone to the store to by a coke with my name on it, I felt a personal connection with this can of soda! Weird right? But extremely effective marketing!  

Coke is of course a "Marketing Genius" as we all knew but this marketing plan is great! 

They made this personal for its consumers, they made their consumers feel special. 

Now with Universities or Colleges it is hard to make everything personal, but there are still options!

You could do a hashtag follow on Twitter. Example: Name it #NMHUiswhereIlearn 

Students who attend NMHU will feel a personal connection and do the hashtag follow. 

Remember this isn't for just certain Universities do this for any University or College!

Once this is created, get it out to your students, have your students follow and post pictures of campus life, curriculum, etc. Maybe put out a prize for whoever has the best picture or post!

Get your students involved in this way, make them feel a personal connection! 

Just like "Share A Coke" get your students/consumers to get involved! 

Email Marketing

By: Amber Harding

Email is a smart, easy and cost-effective way to tell existing and potential students about what you have to offer. Email messages can be used to briefly tell people about what you offer and it can highlight special events. By using email you can help drive traffic to your website. Email marketing has the benefit of lowers costs and higher response rates than traditional marketing ways. it is also easy to track responses so that you can easily see what works. Email marketing offers opportunities to target messages to the right people at the right time and help people get information fast. If you want people to respond positively, you must send messages that they want to know about. To avoid getting put into the scam category you should always make sure to have permission by the recipient to send the emails. One way you can receive their permission is by creating a "receive emails" link on your main website. You must also always include an "unsubscribe" option so your recipients can stop receiving your emails at any given time. 

Adapting to Modern Technology

By: Amber Harding

Smart phones, tablets, iPads and computers are basically every person's lifeline in today's world. You cannot go anywhere without seeing someone on some sort of technological device. Modern technology can either be a positive in your marketing or a negative. When marketing your website, you want to always make sure that your website is compatible with every different device. Allowing people easy and fast access at all times to your website. When your subjects of interest want to look at your website on their phone, tablet or iPad you want to make sure that there is no complication. 85% of smartphone users believe that your mobile website should be the same, if not better, then the desktop website. Make sure that every link on your website is big enough for a "thumb" to tap on to connect to. Your Universities phone numbers for each department should also be easy to find and click on, to get people to call the University for information as well. Being compatible with modern technology will have an increase in website visitation. Technology will be taking over the way of life as we know it, make sure you are part of it!

Increase Your Brand Through Social Media

By: Chelsea DeMott

Every chance you have to organize your content and increase your visibility is very important. Your networks are new channels for your brand's voice and content. This is important because it simultaneously makes you easier and more accessible for new customers, as well as makes you more familiar and recognizable for existing customers. Every post, share or tweet you make on your social media site is an opportunity for customers to convert to your brand. As you begin to build a following, you will have access to new customers, recent and old customers. Through your following you will be able to interact with all of them! Every blog post, image, video or comment you share is a chance for someone to react and every reaction could lead to a site visit and then possibly a conversion. It is still important to realize that not every interaction with your brand results in a change, but every positive interaction on your social media site does increase the likelihood of an eventual conversion.

Virtual College Tours

By: Brittany Christiansen

Everything is done through technology in this day and age, including tours of different places!

Wouldn't you love to save time and money by doing virtual college tours? Now you can! 

After doing some research I have found that my preferred virtual tour site is: Campus Tours. 

On Campus Tours you can do virtual tours, view websites of Universities & Colleges, & even apply! 

This is a website that does it all! All you have to do is enter your information! 

Students & Parents from all around the world can view this site, make sure adequate information is available if you go through Campus Tours! This is a great form of Internet Marketing! 

Not only can your students or parents save time & money, they are gaining great information!

Once you create a Campus Tour account and feel that is at the quality you expect, share it! 

Get the information onto Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and your Youtube Chanel! 

Make this an exciting step in each students life and a comforting step for each parent! 

What Not To Do

By:Erica Alarid-Heidel

Everyone makes mistake that’s part of life, we learn with trial and error. The key is to take those mistakes and learn from them, let them be teaching tools that help bring you to bigger and better things. Here are a few mistakes you might be making right now with your online marketing that you don’t even know your making.  

Not keeping up with your keyword research: Most companies come up with a few sets of keywords when they are initially setting up their website. Words that would be most used when someone is doing a search relevant to their company. What they don’t do is update that list every few months or research if the words they currently have are working. Key words are what drive people to your website, they are one of the most important parts of generating traffic.

No Call to Action or Well Optimized Landing Pages on Your Site: Its not good enough to just get people to your website you need to keep them there and keep them engaged. Your Landing page need to grab their attention and have offers relevant to what you are offering. As a college or university highlight why your school is the right one for them. Offer virtual tours as well as live tours, make your school available to perspective students and show them how helpful you will be in starting their academic journey.

Not Accurately Measuring Where Your Leads are Coming From: A key to any marketing tactic is making sure what you are doing is working for you. You don’t want to waist all your time and energy on something that you are not getting a benefit out of. Don’t dwell on the bad instead focus on the good. Concentrate on what is working and expand on that, don’t spend all your time trying to make something that isn’t working work.

If you aren’t making any of these mistakes good for you! But if you are take these tips and run with them. Learn from your mistakes and watch your enrollment skyrocket!

Small Details Matter

By: Amber Harding

When marketing on the internet you want to make sure to all the little things. The little could be the most important. You should always keep things "short and sweet". Basically, get straight to the point. You never want your audience to get bored with you website. You want uniqueness. Instead of having an email address with the typical "yahoo.com" or "gmail.com" try to make an email more original like: ebc@mktg411.com. Search engine optimization is something you should also focus on. Use sites such as:

Google

Google +

Youtube

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Be sure to use modern techniques like "#" (hashtag) on Twitter. Using "#" will get people to create content and advertisement for you or you for them. You should also have all the information that is needed for your University on these websites. Make this information easy to find. Your website should be simple to navigate through. People are not very patient these days and you don't want your customers searching and searching for simple answers. 

Your University’s Name on the first page of a Google Search

By:Erica Alarid-Heidel

So just how important is it to be on the first page of someone’s Google search? Statics show that 92 out of 100 people don’t get past the first page of their search. If someone doesn’t find what there looking for on that first page they tend to do another search and change up the wording. So how do you achieve that coveted first page, or even better, the first listing on someone’s search? Here are a few tips to help you. 

          1) First and for most keep your website creditable. You want to keep a high level of quality material on your site; this includes all the little details like spelling and grammar. Remember, it’s your Universities good name on the line; make sure you are proud of what you publish.
         2) People want to see exactly what they are looking for when they read the preview. Google uses a rating system. If you bait and switch people when they click on your page and then immediately leave, it will lower your ratings.
         3) Create original content; Google will doc you for duplicating content over multiple pages. Make it so that when going from page to page on your site people will find new and interesting information on each page.
         4) Use keywords; Make sure you are using the words people would use when they are searching. Location, names, degrees/programs offered are all good keywords and terms to use.
         5) Pick the right Domain name; the best names will have your schools name or acronym in it. There should be no confusion about if you are being direct to the right page or not.
         6) Use descriptions and headers: You can add invisible descriptions with your website code, use this to your advantage by adding keywords to make your page easier to find. Headers are the first things people see when they look at a website. In a Google search, having your keywords in your headers will increase the chances of people clicking on your pages.

        With 32% of clicks on the first website listed in a Google search and only 17% of clicks on the second website listed after, you can see how truly important it is to be on the top. If what you are doing is not working let us help you to achieve that coveted 1st spot.