Inbound School MarketingIs Your Website Helping the Bottom Line?

Kyle James@KyleJames

CEO @nuCloudFounder @eduGuru

Who Am I?

What is the purpose of our

website?

Marketing Has Changed1950 - 2000 2000 - 2050

Outbound Marketing

Outbound Marketing is Broken

800-555-1234AnnoyingSalesperson

Traditional Marketing Not Enough

http://bit.ly/SHJ2Px

Inbound MarketingBlog SEO Social Media

Inbound MarketingBlog SEO Social Media

Analytics

What is Important?

What are our goals?

Who has a Degree/Background

in Marketing?

Marketing Process

STRATEGIZEDevise a strategy or strategies

At most schools 50%+ of annual revenue comes

through tuition

Follow The Money!

IMPORTANT• Give Us Money!• But How?

• Applicants• Schedule a Visit• Download

Catalog

• Get on Mailing List

• Alumni Donations

Marketing Funnel Sales Funnel

Marketing Process

Recruitment Funnel

AwarenessVisit Website

Learn about School

Convert/Engage Request InfoVisit Campus

CommitApplyAttend

Let’s give a specific exampleThe Virtual Tour

Physical Campus Tour Is Critical

Data from Noel-Levitz – www.noellevitz.com

Vital to Recruitment

ROI AnalysisBuild a Business Case

Establishing ROI

If we can work backwards from the value of a student we can establish the value of an Interactive Campus Map.

*All numbers are created as examples

Let’s Do Some Math

What is the value of a Student?

• Average Years = 3• Cost Per Year = $20,000• Average Yearly Discount = $10,000

• Student Value = 3 * ($20,000 - $10,000)• So a Student is worth

$30,000!

What is the value of an Applicant?

• Student Value = $30,000• Conversion Rate in Applicant = 20%

• App Value = $30,000 * .2• So an Applicant is worth

$6,000!

Value Of Campus Tour?

What is a Campus Visit Worth?

• Application Value = $6,000• Conversion Rate of Visits to Applicant = 20%

• Value of Visit = $6,000 * .2• So Each Student Visit is Worth

$1,200!

What is a Virtual Tour Visit Worth?

• Visit Value = $1,200• Conversion of Map to Visit = 5%

• Value of a Map View = $1,200 * .05• So Each Map View is Worth

$60!

Do You Think 1,000 People Would View Your

Map In A Month?

Then Having A Map Is Worth $60,000!

Per Month!

You can now justify this project

ROI Spreadsheet

http://bit.ly/map-roi

Let’s take a step back

You can use this same process to decide the value

of doing any web project

38

Possible Important Items

Admission Specific• Apply to College• Schedule a Campus Visit• Request Info• Download the

Viewbook• Take a Virtual Tour

General Goals• Sign up for eConnect

updates• Watch Videos• Subscribe to RSS• Become Facebook Fan,

Member of a Group• Join Linked In• Read Blogs

Why Does 70% Not Do This?

http://bit.ly/SHJ2Px

EXECUTETo carry out; accomplish

Site ArchitectureAbility to Edit Site

Measurement

Analytics Installed

Calls to Action Landing Pages

On-Page SEO

Keyword Research

Content StrategyBlogging

Article Writing

Be Social

Inbound MarketingSuccess Pyramid

Site ArchitectureAbility to Edit Site

Measurement

Analytics Installed

Calls to Action Landing Pages

On-Page SEO

Keyword Research

Content StrategyBlogging

Article Writing

Be Social

Inbound MarketingSuccess Pyramid

The Foundation

Site ArchitectureAbility to Edit Site

Measurement

Analytics Installed

Calls to Action Landing Pages

On-Page SEO

Keyword Research

Content StrategyBlogging

Article Writing

Be Social

Inbound MarketingSuccess Pyramid

45

The Conversion Process

• If we aren’t getting people to convert on our traffic then what does a thousand or a million visitors to our site matter?

How Do You Convert?

• Conversions require Landing Pages

• A Landing Page is a Page with a Form on it.

Three Steps of a Conversion Process

1. The Call to Action

2. The Landing Page

3. The Follow-Up

The Call to Action

• Are your offers compelling?• Call to action best practices

– Create urgency– Include an image– Contrasting colors– Be specific/inspirational

The Landing Page

The Landing Page

• Keep it simple– Little to no navigation or other links

• People scan, don’t read– Bullet points– Pictures– Bold copy– Five second rule

• Make it instantly obvious what they will get• Shorter the form the higher the conversion rate• Possible alternative call to actions

The Follow-Up

• Thank you page• Auto response email• Additional channels to connect• Opportunities for further engagement

– Lead Nurturing– Email Marketing– Phone Calls

Thank You Page Examples

Site ArchitectureAbility to Edit Site

Measurement

Analytics Installed

Calls to Action Landing Pages

On-Page SEO

Keyword Research

Content StrategyBlogging

Article Writing

Be Social

Inbound MarketingSuccess Pyramid

If people can’t find it, does it matter?

Search Engine Optimization

Over 3 billion searches per day• Publish more content• Optimize your content• Promote your content

What SEO is NOT

SEO is Usability and Accessibility

Search Engine Crawlers are Blind

GoogleYahoo Microsoft

By the Numbers (on one site)• 30% of traffic is delivered by Search

Engines

• 82% of that traffic is delivered by Google

• On a large college website w/ 1,000,000 visits per month that is 300,000 visitors

It All Starts With Keywords

• “It’s NOT about what you want or what you call it, it is about what people are actually looking for.”

• “Nobody cares about your products (except you)” – David Meerman Scott

Long Tail Keywords

• Computer Science• Computer Science Major• Computer Science Degree• Computer Science Program South Carolina• Computer Science Degree South Carolina

Two Parts of SEO

On-Page Off-Page

On-Page Optimization

Headers

PageTitle

MetaDescription

MetaKeywords

URL

Off-Page Optimization

We’ve all heard Content is King, so Links must be the Queen?

Your Site Is Trusted!

Remember it’s Not About Us

What are those buildings called?

What are people looking for?

Getting Ranked

Search Call To Actions

Page Title

Meta Description

Page Title and Meta Description are all you get in search results. Make sure that they count.

Site ArchitectureAbility to Edit Site

Measurement

Analytics Installed

Calls to Action Landing Pages

On-Page SEO

Keyword Research

Content StrategyBlogging

Article Writing

Be Social

Inbound MarketingSuccess Pyramid

Publish Content Worth Sharing

Blogging Best Practices

• Tell your story• Educational and informative not sales focused• Personal and stories from people in the field• So much more than just text (videos, pictures,

etc)

Student Blogs

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/campus_life/studentblogs

Faculty Blogs

http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/

Staff Blogs

http://fuse.ithaca.edu/staffblogs/

Alumni Blogs

http://alumni.blogs.wvu.edu/

President’s Blogs

http://www.usm.edu/president/blog/

Don’t Forget To Convert

Site ArchitectureAbility to Edit Site

Measurement

Analytics Installed

Calls to Action Landing Pages

On-Page SEO

Keyword Research

Content StrategyBlogging

Article Writing

Be Social

Inbound MarketingSuccess Pyramid

Always Share Your Content

Always Be Ready To Give

Make Your Content Easy To Share

Don’t Forget Your PurposeTie Social Media To ROI

ANALYZEDiscover or reveal (something)

through examination

If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?

Avoid Paralysis by Analysis

• Are we accomplishing our goals?

• Don’t try and measure everything

• Focus on a few (3-5) metrics instead of everything

Does More Visitors Matter?

Does More Time On Site Matter?

Is More Pages/Visit A Good Thing?

Traffic Increase Without Increasing Conversions Is Wasted Work

Conversions Matter!

It doesn’t matter if you get a thousand visitors a month or a million if none of them are actually converting into applicants/students or donors!

Site ArchitectureAbility to Edit Site

Measurement

Analytics Installed

Calls to Action Landing Pages

On-Page SEO

Keyword Research

Content StrategyBlogging

Article Writing

Be Social

Inbound MarketingSuccess Pyramid

The One Takeaway

This Only Works If You Convert

Questions?

Kyle James@KyleJames

kyle@nucloud.com