Data and Marketing

In God we trust; all others must bring data. – W. Edwards Deming

Walt Disney On Leadership

Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.

What’s your goal for your department?

Marketing and ‘The Steve Jobs Methodology’

Steve Job’s is the most innovative CEO in the world. He’s also one of the best marketers, ever. In a recent article, John Sculley, the last person to manage Jobs, described what’s been referred to as, “The Steve Jobs Methodology:”

“What makes Steve’s methodology different from everyone else’s is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do.”

That last part deserves repeating: The most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do. As a marketer, you have many opportunities to elevate and expand your brand. Which one’s really make a difference? In higher ed, many marketers are fixated on promotions – social media, for example. But how many marketers are looking at, and helping to make, decisions on the other Ps? How about which academic programs not to run? Or, which academic programs need to be priced differently? These decisions relate to perhaps the two most important Ps in marketing – product and price.

Here’s the takeaway: Decisions about promotional strategies, like social media, are probably the least important decisions that will be made at the university this year. What you sell is far more important than how you sell it. And quite frankly, we’re selling too many things that people don’t want. Deciding what not to do helps elevate those programs that are at the core of your university’s mission and business goals. And it focuses your institution’s time and resources on the programs that matter to the marketplace. And the more your programs matter, the more your brand elevates and expands. As my friend Bob Sevier says, a curriculum that’s in tune with the marketplace and uniquely delivered by your institution is the best marketing asset of all. So ask yourself, are you helping your university decide which things not to do?

PPC Conversion Rates

A fellow colleague at another university e-mailed me about conversion rates for PPC campaigns. He said he had trouble finding anything online about higher ed PPC conversion rates, so I asked him if I could republish my e-mail response in case it might be of help to you. Also, if you have PPC conversion rate info of your own, please share it in the comments below. Thanks!

E-Mail:

Hi Rob –

I found you through BlogHighEd, and was wondering if you had any information to share on a topic that I am currently investigating – pay-per-click search engine marketing.

In addition to an imminent complete website overhaul, I’ve been tasked with developing a pilot PPC program, and I’ve not been able to find any data related to PPC in the Higher Ed vertical.

I posted to the educause mailing list asking if anyone had positive or negative experiences with the various companies that work in this space (Network Solutions, Clickable, Yodle, ReachLocal, etc.), but I did not get any responses. Have you had experience in this area?

Also, I’ve read that across all PPC marketing, the average conversion rate is 2% – but I’m guessing that is heavily weighted towards consumer product sales, and not Higher Ed inquiries/applications. Any thoughts on what might be reasonable in terms of performance expectations after the initial couple moths of keyword honing?

Any information you can provide would be very, very much appreciated. If you are aware of other fellow Higher Ed colleagues who might have expertise in this area, I would be very grateful if you could pass along this email.

My Response:

Yeah, 2% is on the low side. But, since PPC is based on competitive bidding and geo-targeting, conversion rates really depend on which programs are being marketed, where and when. It also depends on whether you are doing display and/or extended network ads. We’ve had campaigns that have had conversion rates as high at 13.75% and as low as 1.57%. Our overall campaign conversion rate since October 2008 is 4.03%. However, this last fiscal year, we increased the number PPC conversions even though we decreased our conversion rate, so it really depends on what you value more, the number of leads or the conversion rate.  But I would say with some confidence that you can do much better than 2%.

Hope that helps and good luck with the upcoming campaigns!

Rob

Determining Brand Credibility

Relevant brands exist in the overlap of what internal audiences value (product) and what external audiences value (market demand). Once a relevant brand is developed, decisions must be made regarding what its capabilities are and what opportunities exist for it in the marketplace (competition). Three factors determine whether a brand can be successfully established in a particular market space: market relevance, market capability and market opportunity.

Credibility Footprint Diagram

Market relevance is where your brand promise is formed. A brand must be continually evaluated to ensure that it is still relevant in a particular market space. Market opportunity is when student demand is present in an open market space (i.e. one that is not greatly contested). But the university must be capable (academically and financially) to meet the opportunity. Market capability is when you can offer a product that the competition can’t or won’t. However, the value of market capability is contingent on market demand. When all three of these factors come together, you have the credibility needed to establish your brand in a particular market space.

[From our university's brand portfolio]

Branding Questions: E-mail to Art Prof

Our university is getting ready to open a senior art studio and gallery downtown and my department was brought in to help with developing a sub-brand for it. At George Fox, we value student input and involvement, so the art professor who is heading up the studio – and who is also a member of the university’s marketing team – asked me to send some questions to help facilitate a discussion with his senior art students on developing the sub-brand. So, I thought, why not pass it on? Maybe it will be of some use to you!

E-mailed Questions:

Vision:
What does the future look like?

Mission:
What is the primary reason for your existence?

Values:
What matters to you?

Brand Promise:
A brand promise is a valued and differentiating promise that you make to your most important audiences to meet a need or fulfill an expectation. The purpose of a brand promise is to encapsulate the ideas expressed by your vision, mission and core values into one succinct statement.

What promise can you make that will matter to your most important audiences?

Brand Creative Objectives:
Brand creative communicates your brand promise in ways that are emotionally engaging. What objectives can you identify toward this end?

Brand Creative Strategy:
One sentence on what you’re attempting to do.

Brand Creative Tag Line:
What is the “phrase that pays” for your target audiences? Take your brand promise and narrow it down to an emotionally engaging phrase or word.

Brand Creative Rationale:
Why will this creative work? A brand creative rationale can be developed by answering the following questions:

• Is this brand creative based on widely shared core values?
• Is it broad enough to encompass your diversity, yet specific enough to show your distinction?
• Does it fulfill a need or expectation held by your most important audiences?
• Is it is realistic? Is it something you can deliver?
• Is it aspirational?
• Is it different?
• Is it measurable? Can it produce tangible results?
• Is it dynamic? Can it cover all the things included in your mission and vision?

Brand Attributes:
What are the three to five action words or phrases that can be used as talking points for describing your brand?

*Keep in mind that this sub-brand is working within the context of our fully-develop institutional brand – Be Known.

University Business Highlights George Fox’s Branding Efforts

Check out the September issue.  Bob Sevier interviewed six of us. The subtitle reads, “Ten years after higher ed became enamored with “branding,” a panel of university marketers talks about lessons learned.

Branding Is More About Clarifying What Is Than Creating Something New

It’s been a year since my last post. I decided to take my own advice and get focused.

Last fiscal was a great year. We developed a new brand and this fall welcomed our largest incoming class in school history. What I learned in the process is that developing a brand is more about clarifying what is than about creating something new. I’ll talk more about this is later posts, but I was struck by how quickly our campus embraced our brand promise. I think the reason they did was because the brand tapped into the essence of who we were, what made us special. Anyway, I’m going to be posting more frequently about what’s going on at our university in regard to marketing and branding and look forward to reconnecting with those of you I’ve interacted with over the years and those who are just discovering this blog.

It’s Time To Get Focused

As the school year begins, I’m reminding my staff of two fundamental truths about marketing. First, marketing is business. The four Ps of marketing (the basics) are product, price, place and promotion. Integrated marketing involves all four. Second, the primary function of a business is to sell. Therefore, marketing is about overcoming obstacles to the sell. And that means getting focused.

In higher ed, universities tend to focus more on what other universities are doing rather than the reasons why students aren’t choosing their school. Take Web design, for example. Colleges can spend an inordinate amount of time redesigning their Web sites. And although the university Web site is extremely important, as I’ve argued before, it can often become a detrimental distraction.

Differentiating your school based upon a tactic, like Web design, is a short-term strategy. And, as you can see on sites like EduStyle, sooner or later, institutions catch up and everyone starts looking the same, again. Even those with redesigned sites that are brilliant have experienced declines in enrollment. Why? Because they weren’t focused on the reasons why students weren’t choosing their school, which in many cases has nothing to do with their Web sites’ design.

This is why getting focused is so important. If marketing is about overcoming obstacles to the sell, then marketing success is dependent on knowing what the obstacles are before you begin your planning. And one way to begin is by getting back to basics and looking at the four Ps.  How’s your product? Are your programs differentiated in your marketplace? Product differentiation generally requires less marketing dollars to be spent. Pricing strategies are also becoming increasingly important in today’s market. Are you showing students that you’re worth the price of tuition? What about your place? Do students perceive your location as a positive or negative?  And when you develop your promotional strategy, do you have a clear target audience and target geography in mind, or are you spending money where you’ve always spent it regardless of who it impacts?

With fewer high school students graduating in the next several years and fewer funds available for college, competition for students will continue to increase. And the best way for marketing departments to serve their universities is to get focused.

Display Ads Work Better Than We Thought

A groundbreaking study released yesterday says display advertising is more effective than we think. “The Silent Click: Building Brands Online,” was published by Online Publishers Association in partnership with Comscore and features data published in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Advertising Research. Below are some highlights from the 59-page report.

How Consumers Spend Time Online Has Changed Greatly the Last 5 Years 

• Consumers now spend over 40% of their online time with Content, and only about one-fourth of their time with email and IM

• Community is a relatively new and growing segment

Display Impacts Search 4 Weeks After Exposure 

• This dynamic is important because of the synergy between display ads and search, and because a Trademark or a Brand search is a significant indicator of purchase intent.

Display Ads Also Drive Traffic to Advertisers Over Time

• Display advertising’s ability to drive traffic is persistent

• These significant liftswould be overlooked by only considering immediate actions (e.g., a click)

Read the full study here.