Archive for 'Websites'

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Are you paying attention?

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Before parents and students set foot on your campus for a tour, you can bet they’re searching for reviews of your college online. You may have an archive of wonderful case studies, interviews or testimonials from recent grads and current students on your website, but do you know what the sad truth is? Parents and students don’t always trust them!

After surfing admissions site after admissions site and flipping through countless viewbooks, most of the marketing messages from each college begin to sound the same. So what are students and parents doing? They’re hitting up Google to find college reviews from each school on their list.

What can you do as a higher ed marketing professional? ...

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10
FEB
0

Categories: Best Practice Documents, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Website, Websites

How to redesign a website

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When Marketing VP Adrienne Hamson decided to redesign the TargetX website, she immediately thought about making it faster and simpler to navigate.  She knew it had to be more interactive.  And she vowed to make all the product information easily digestible.

But the real challenge, she realized, was to build upon all the best-practice advice that TargetX has become known for — and make the site a place where admissions professionals can go for content that will make them better recruiters and marketersShe succeeded, and TargetX just launched a new website that offers:

  • A video library consisting of the company’s popular “Free on Friday” webcasts aimed at admissions officers.

  • The iThink Blog, a compendium of posts about student recruiting from a variety of ...
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20
JAN
0

Categories: Campus Visit, College Recruiting, Websites

Your website – mobilized

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Businesses can’t afford to ignore mobilizing their websites. And neither can colleges or universities.

This was stressed to marketers during the OMMA Mobile conference in New York last week. Karl Greenberg of MediaPost News reports on the presenters, Kari Wilson and Sebastien Chalmeton, who identified five important tips to creating mobile sites for organizations. Because ignoring those consumers (or prospective students and parents) who are “on-the-go” is not an option.

Keep these sites simple. “That’s the most critical thing you need to do when you design a mobile site,” Chalmeton says. Prospective students and parents will appreciate simple design with ease of use. Considering these two elements in mobile design is a must.

Make search easy and prominent. Search is a large piece ...

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17
JUN
1

Categories: Mobile, Mobile Marketing, Website, Websites

Millennial myths

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You know all those social media-obsessed students you’re chasing on Facebook? You might want to hold off for awhile and consider a new study by a company that researches online experiences.

The Nielsen Norman Group suggests that you reconsider the recruiting efforts you’re putting into social networking sites, including the ubiquitous Facebook.

“While it’s no surprise that organizations targeting students try to reach them on the web, they’re mistaken if they think the best path is through social networking sites,” according to the firm’s Jakob Nielsen. Students are enraptured by social media, he added, but they reserve them for private conversations. When Millennials want information about an organization, they turn to search engines rather than company-built fan pages.

The study addressed several other ...

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7
JAN
0

Categories: College Recruiting, Facebook, Millennials, Social Networking, Websites

Practicing good mobile habits

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Is your website content ready for mobile devices? Forecasters predict that by 2013 there will be 1.7 billion mobile internet users. You can be sure that many of those users will be prospective students (and their parents) doing college research through their mobile devices.

“Many folks spend a lot of time working on the design of their site for modern browsers, but fail to realize the ever-increasing percentage of site visitors that come by way of mobile devices,” says Brian Gardner of Studio Press. You know that you only have seconds with a prospective student on your website. How much time do you think you will have with a visitor to your site via a mobile device?

“How to Make Your Website ...

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3
DEC
0

Categories: Best Practice Documents, Mobile, Mobile Marketing, Websites, Your Website

Dashing toward mobility

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As the world continues its mad dash toward Mobility, colleges and universities once again find themselves challenged to stay ahead of the curve. With the mobile web just a tap away, today’s students expect instant access to you and information about your institution.

Like the proverbial town crier, recruiting expert Bob Johnson, of Bob Johnson Consulting, is spearheading the conversation. He points out, “The number of people using a mobile device (mostly smartphones with small screens) to access the web will grow constantly over the next few years and is projected to pass the number of people using desk top computers by 2015. People will expect to have a mobile-friendly experience or they will not think kindly of your ...

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5
NOV
6

Categories: College Recruiting, Free on Friday Webcasts, Mobile, Websites

College website is still #1

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Online recruitment tools have become a critical aspect of the enrollment efforts at colleges and universities.

What are the student’s needs? What areas should we focus on? Which tools are highly valued by college-bound students? These are all questions an admissions office asks themselves. Insights into what students are looking for are always useful to understand what you can do as a recruiter.

Noel-Levitz E-Expectations research group surveyed 1,000 prospective students on their online behaviors, needs and expectations in the college search process. There were some surprising (and not so surprising) results from this year’s survey.

One primary finding that dominated the study was the importance of an institution’s webpage. According to the Noel-Levitz results, the college website is still a student’s main ...

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20
AUG
4

Categories: College Recruiting, Websites, Your Website

Increase your digital influence

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In admissions, you often cannot attend every conference you would like to, especially when there are so many throughout the year. So, why not attend the shortest conference ever? 60 speakers in 60 minutes.

ThoughtLead held their first 60 in 60 event on July 6. The Influencer Project: The shortest marketing conference ever, discussed how to increase a business’s digital influence in the competitive world of online media. Sixty speakers provided their personal advice on how you can do this today. After listening to the conference, there were several points that were extremely relevant to recruitment and admissions efforts on the web. Here are just a few:

“Make connections online and then go and meet them in person in the ...

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23
JUL
3

Categories: Authenticity, Branding/Marketing/Recruiting, Communication, Social Media, Websites, Your Website

XpertTip No. 161: High fashion, higher ed

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Over breakfast this morning I took a rare opportunity to enjoy a cup of coffee while reading The New York Times (the actual ink-on-paper version).

As expected, an article jumped out at me that made me think about higher ed — specifically the evolution of college websites.  Clearly I need a vacation;)

It was called High Fashion Relents to Web’s Pull and details how fashion’s most established brands are reluctantly (and finally) being forced to change their websites.

These historically passive, flash-based sites are typically very visually stunning but offer little-to-no opportunity to actually do anything except read and look at photos (including make a purchase).

The article cites the pressure of market demands and the need for additional revenue streams in ...

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12
JUL
1

Categories: Web Traffic, Website, Websites, Your Website

Take control of Facebook Events

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While colleges continue to look for ways to use the power of Facebook to attract students, one UCLA junior shakes his head in wonder at a lost opportunity.

Schools spend enormous amounts of money and effort on campus events that appeal to prospective students, writes Nate Villegas, so why do they overlook the Facebook tool that so many young people use to help plan their activities?

“When it comes to finding something to do at a school,” writes Villegas, “I’m going to check my Facebook Events page.” The problem, he says, is that most of the college event listings are created by students and not by the staff responsible for organizing the events. And this means that the information is often incorrect. ...

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4
JUN
4

Categories: College Recruiting, Facebook, Invitations and Reminders, Websites

Be more social, be more…corporate?

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Corporate websites need to make an effort to be more social — does yours?

A recent blog entry from Hubspot.com says corporate websites are guilty of producing boring content. “These sites end up being a time and financial drain without delivering the appropriate value to current and potential customers.” Sound familiar?

If you have heard comments like this around your campus or by prospective students, then you should sit down with others and reevaluate your site’s priorities. Hubspot’s suggestion: “Four Ways to Make Your Corporate Website More Social.”

Focused on engaging customers and empowering them to share with others, Hubspot suggests a level of interaction between the customers and the organization that does not exist when the website spews one-way messages.

While the article ...

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21
MAY
5

Categories: College Recruiting, Communication, Communication Plans, Online Experiences, Social Media, Social Networking, Summer Projects, Web Traffic, Websites, Your Website

Changes that work

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Butler University’s deposits are up, and it appears to have less to do with the basketball team’s exhilarating run through March Madness and more to do with an impressive overhaul of the school’s recruiting communications.

Kristen Raves responded to last week’s Recruitment Minute about the common refrain on America’s campuses this year: “Apps are up, deposits are down.” Not at Butler, she said. “We have integrated new ideas into our marketing plan throughout this year and we are up in deposits!”

Here’s a small sampling of some of the things they did:

  • Deciding that fresh content was essential, Kristen told her student bloggers that they must post at least 3 times a week and include 2 links and a photo or video each ...
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7
MAY
1

Categories: Authenticity, Blogs, Change, College Recruiting, Student Yield, Twitter, Websites

Fixing floundering websites

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Marketers get so excited by flashy website tools that they often forget about the fundamentals, says interactive expert Linda Eskin. And that can be disastrous since a good user experience on your website can be as important as good customer service.

Dramatic changes may be fun, but it’s more critical that you step back now and then to look at the little things that make such a big difference for visitors to your site, says the user experience analyst for Red Door Interactive. Here are six guidelines for uncovering potential problems:

- Understand your audience. “One simple-yet-effective way to discover issues with your site is to occasionally take a fresh look at it from the point of view of your target audience. ...

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23
OCT
1

Categories: Websites

Meet the parents

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As if tooling your website to appeal to savvy Millennials isn’t hard enough, now you have to accommodate their demanding X-er parents as well. And, needless to say, both groups are not looking for the same things.

Joe Dysart, writing for Today’s Campus magazine, took a look at the latest in a series of “E-Expectations” studies and offered some warnings — if not solutions:

- Eight in 10 parents say they are playing a pivotal role in helping their children decide which college to attend.

- Ninety percent of those respondents say they are using the web as a primary source of information on schools.

- The topics that parents are seeking include campus safety, admissions requirements, tuition and fees, academic programs and scholarships ...

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18
SEP
1

Categories: Generations, Websites

Graduate Admissions: The Poor Step-Child

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Memories were triggered by a recent post by a woman who works at a “public Ohio university” on her Old College Try blog about the priorities given (or not) to graduate admissions in higher education.

I say memories because back around 1993 when I moved from undergraduate to graduate admissions and marketing I found this was the case for all but the business school (which fortunately was where I worked). But a few years later while working for an extremely talented VP for Enrollment, we set out to determine the net tuition revenue margins between traditional undergraduate, continuing studies and graduate programs at the institution. Not surprisingly the continuing studies programs were actually ...

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13
MAY
1

Categories: General, Websites

Bring the Love Back

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First, happy valentine’s day! Guys, don’t forget the flowers on the way home. Gals, when you get the present we picked out for you, don’t forget to consider the fact that men are from mars and women are from venus (but that assumes we’re both in the same galaxy).

Today I bring you a video – embracing the YouTube generation here, so stay with me for a moment. The video highlights a concept we talk with colleges often about – stop speaking AT your audience (students, parents, etc.) and start embracing the conversation. I’m sure everyone reading this blog has involved themselves in the social networking revolution themselves, but have you made the leap from personal involvement ...

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14
FEB
0

Categories: Experience, General, Websites

Simplicity ain't so easy, is it?

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If you read my blog regularly, you already know I’m a big fan of simplicity. College websites are too difficulty to manage, email messages are cluttered with unnecessary content, program offerings are anything you can imagine. It’s difficult for higher education to focus and simplify their marketing efforts.

Recently, TargetX began the process of a complete website redesign effort. In doing so, we heard from clients that while our website has always been clean, the product offerings have expanded to become vast and cumbersome to absorb. Bob Johnson, a close friend of TargetX, wondered why we would change what he calls “the best agency website I’ve ever seen” (thank you Bob, I’m very flattered).

We’re ...

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13
DEC
0

Categories: Websites

A website for your visitors

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I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face. Your website is not supposed to be designed for you, your faculty or your administration. If you’re a tuition driven institution, then it must be designed for your future students – enough said.

But this guy says it better than anyone has so far:

Website Design for your Customers – It’s not what you want

Read it and pass it on. Please!

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4
DEC
0

Categories: Websites

The College Website Dilemma

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Today I was asked to visit one of our client’s websites to see if I could find a doctoral program in Opera. So, I went searching. After a few minutes struggling to figure out their illogical navigation and pathetic interface, I stumbled upon the graduate area where I found a list of programs – all masters-level programs but no doctoral programs.

I went back to the person who asked me to do this and told them that I didn’t find anything – so what was their point? They wanted to know why college websites are so hard to find anything – it wasn’t clean, logical, organized, up-to-date or professional. You would never experience this on the Honda, ...

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2
NOV
2

Categories: Websites