Web Strategy for Higher Education

The other day I was listening to some marketing expert who said and I quote, “There is nothing like online marketing strategy, now-a-days marketing strategy has to have an online aspect, it is the new era marketing”. The advent of web 2.0 has made organizations rethink their marketing strategy…or…if we may call it…their web strategy.

Higher Ed institutions ought to have a very well defined web strategy as they are dealing with the first internet generation, the generation of Facebooks, Twitters, and Googles. It’s the time Higher Ed institutions realize the untapped potential of the web or be ready to miss the boat. In here, I try to identify few key factors that can help a Higher Ed institution to decide upon its web strategy;

1. Use the power of Social Media:- It is established through various online surveys that a large number of new and transfer student prospects use web as their primary resource for researching an institution of their requirements. The students are smarter than what we think. They probably will take opinions from their pals over social networks like Facebook or MySpace or read through some Higher Ed Blogs.

Higher Ed marketing & communications departments can consider making their institution’s official page over social networks like Facebook to penetrate into these student groups with targeted information. Doing something like Wofford College will make you realize the opportunity you had been missing.

With micro blogging tools like Twitter, students are already doing things like setting up reminders for their homework, schedules, trips and getting updates right into their mobile phones. Institutions can make their admission counselors initiate discussions over twitter, create targeted twibes keeping students and their objectives in mind while their search for the right institution.

2. Get the right CMS for your website:- For Higher Ed institutions it is very important that investment is made in the right website content management system. Good CMS systems would allow you to create content which is ADA compliant. Through workflows, it will allow different departments from within your institution to represent their department on the web and yet allow marketing and communications to control the publishing & make sure that market-able material goes out.

With a good CMS, Academics as a department can have its own News, Announcements and Events published at the Academics page on the website. Some good CMS tools even allow you to optimize your website for search engines, checking for meta-tags, ALT tags, Headings etc. Any good CMS system facilitates you with multi lingual & multi channel (mobile, web, desktop) capabilities which further allow any Higher Ed institution to broaden its’ reach.

3. Have useful tools on your website:- When new students or prospects come to your website they are particularly looking for self service web apps which can give them quality information without really delving deep into it. Some of these web apps can include;

• Calculators/Web Apps for Scholarships & Financial Aid
• Effective Search Utility
• Orientation & Testing Apps
• Transfer Students Apps
• Student Portals
• User Friendly App for Program & Majors

4. Have content & messaging strategy in place: - The web world is all about the right content. Whatever I mentioned above would be useless if the content is not targeted, if the messaging is not sticky. It’s just few seconds in which your messaging has to make an impact on the audience; another click and you might lose the lead altogether. The best approach is to engage a content strategist who will study your audience together with you, make use cases around that and help you develop an approach for generating content. Remember, for a prospect coming to your website, it's just the quality and value of the content that matters.

5. Tracking User Behavior: – The web today has become quite mature as a business platform. Web provides you mechanisms which further allow you to monitor and track the user behavior and interest on your website. Tools like Google Analytics & Optimizer not only allow you to evaluate the keyword based traffic coming to your website but also establish which content blocks are converting more leads to students.

Many standard CMS products also provide integrated components for user behavior tracking and relative content based user targeting.

Overall, the essence is that your website should engage its’ visitors, it should talk to the students, and your web strategy should involve students, their perspective. In this dipping economy, even more than getting new students, it is important to retain the existing students. The new web gives you the ways to know the direction and thought flow of your students and prospects.

Make your website a living piece; keep generating more relevant content on different online channels for your college; Give up that conventional college brochure website mindset…make it interactive..Develop a user experience……and see the difference.

by Muktesh Kandpal (muktesh.kandpal@edynamic.net)

How can you derive an optimum distribution mix for your B2B marketing dollars? - Part 3

Optimum Mix - Almost there!

Here’s a quick rationale for my choice of content & channel mapping in my previous piece. For instance, C/V level decision makers in larger businesses would rarely, if ever start researching stuff on Google. They will ask somebody with more time to do it. They wouldn’t mind attending a webinar & if they miss out, they could be found though looking up social media – blogs, video & audio networks – in spare/research time just to catch up on what’s going on. This explains choices for 1 & 2.

Now about 3. Analyst white papers are typically, red hot lead generators for you. Picture this – a Veep asks his managers to look up some strategic content around data rationalization so that they can review what’s out there, what they can do, next steps, etc. in a team meeting next week. If I am targeting this scenario 50% of my time as a B2B marketer, my white paper will potentially get me almost every single lead there is to milk in my area.

The catch is, I have to get ‘found’ at any cost. Here’s where my paid search needs to be ultra aggressive & my organic search guy needs to think between his ears. If you notice too – I have kept just a month aside for my paid search & that’s because any piece of content has just about 30-40 days of shelf life on paid search for a particular region/geography. Beyond this, you will notice a sharp drop in both the quality & number of inbound leads from that particular content.

Finally 4. Press Releases are great tools to tell all who matter or care that ‘we have done something exceptional! Come visit us’. In the age of feeds & widgets, online PRs have just gone up several notches in importance. If nothing gets to your target audience, a well written & distributed PR always will. In many ways, PRs also drive people to 1, 2 & 3 & ensure your planning doesn’t go bust.

So what does an optimum mix look like from quarters 1 to 3?

• Analyst White Paper: 15%
• Content Syndication through social media: 10%
• Press Releases: 10%
• Pay-per-click: 15%
• Search Engine Optimization: 20%
• Webinars: 30%

What I have tried to achieve is a ready-to-go, B2B demand generation mix which will work on more days than not. If you notice, I have not spoken about things like Mobile, behavioral/contextual targeting, etc. That is because those are more elaborate, relatively risky options. They hold undeniable value, but we will think about them in Q4 or year 2!

by Abhiraj Banerjee (abhiraj.banerjee@edynamic.net)

Best Practices for building Insurance Websites - Part 4

Step 4 – Define “Measures of Success” against each Goal

Most often we get caught up in defining objectives, strategies and tactics but forget to identify metrics that will provide an indication of what is or isn’t working. Analytics is one of the most critical components of any web projects. Implementing an analytic tool is simple and some are even available for free.

This becomes nearly impossible as your website grows to a point that it receives more than a thousand visitors daily—no one has the time to keep up with the constant inflow of new traffic. One of the main reasons to add the Analytics Tool is to track trends. You’ll want to know, in a snapshot view, the results of different “campaigns”, posts and social bookmarking/networking stumbles etc. Without these trends, you cannot grow your site, neither do you know if you are pleasing your visitors (resulting in a general increase in traffic) or targeting the right keywords.

Although you generally form your visitor base with the content you write, implementing a statistics program on your site will benefit you by allowing you to more accurately target a market, whether in a specific country, age group, or lifestyle (earnings, home value, etc.). Out of all factors, this may be the biggest reason to ensure tracking of your website.

by Subir Singh (subir.singh@edynamic.net)

Best Practices for building Insurance Websites - Part 3

Step 3 – Define Strategies that will lead to achieving these Goal

1. Enable Customer Education & Research
2. Simplify product offerings
3. Ensure the website is a source of Information & Knowledge for Prospects, Customers, Agents, Employees, Media personnel, etc.
4. Connect the offline branding & promotion activities with the online channel
5. Provide visitors on the website with adequate tools that enable then to conduct research
6. Provide customers with self servicing capabilities
7. Encourage Lead Generation

by Subir Singh (subir.singh@edynamic.net)

Best Practices for building Insurance Websites - Part 2

Step 2 – Understand your Target Audience

Before you get down to defining strategies that can enable your goals you need to understand your Target Audiences and their needs

1) Prospects – Looking to buy Insurance can be categorized as follows:

• Those who know exactly what they are looking for. They understand their need and know the product they are looking for.
  
• Those who have a specific need and want to identify products that fit their needs. E.g someone who needs to buy a Child Insurance Plan that would provide them a sum of money for their child’s graduate education.
  
• Those who know they need insurance but are not familiar with the various categories of insurance (Child, Health, Pension, Growth, etc.)

2) Customers – These are existing customers who can be categorized as follows:

• Those looking for specific information to do with their existing relationship
• Those looking at using the web as a channel to pay renewals
• Those looking for additional products. They could then fall into any one of the categories mentioned in 1 above

3) Agents – Existing & Prospective Agents

• Existing Agents
• Self Servicing Requirement – Looking for specific information for themselves – product related, access to the Agent Portal, etc.
• Client Servicing Requirement – looking for product related information, NAVs, etc.
• Prospective Agents – Looking at a Career with the Insurance company – this could be an agent with a competitor and wants to switch someone completely new to Insurance and is looking to make a career in the Insurance Industry

Based on the objectives, the needs of the target audience need to be prioritized and the website structure laid out accordingly.

by Subir Singh (subir.singh@edynamic.net)