Happy New Year!
Some of you may be aware (and others may not be) that James Tower provides a weekly "Monday Marketing Minute" via email to all that subscribe. The Monday Marketing Minute is information on and suggestions for making your prospective student communications more effective, your web site more impactful and other tidbits of useful information. If you would like to subscribe to the MMM, please do so at this link. Otherwise, I thought I would try and share the information with you here.
Monday Marketing Minutes for January 14th.
It is that time of year, when many of us reflect on the past year pondering
how we can make the new year the best year ever. I’m hoping you will take this
opportunity to reflect on your Web site and resolve to put it on a strict diet
in 2008.
Eliminate the Junk. Like you would your own diet, look
over your Web site. Remove all the junk (dead links, out-dated pages, old campus
maps, past event registrations) and start monitoring what you put into it.
Reality: Not everything needs to be on your Web site at the same time. Be
judicious. Think about your audience. What is going to make a student apply?
What is going to make a student enroll? Make sure the information students and
parents need is up-to-date and presented in an interesting way that’s easy to
find.
Challenge: Take inventory of your Web site in a basic Excel document. You
need to know what is on the Web site, who put it there and who is responsible
for maintaining it. If it’s old, outdated or incorrect, update it or eliminate it.
Take Care of What’s There. Like your body, your Web site
needs exercise. It’s not good for your Web site to just hang out. Make sure
there is plan in place and time on the calendar for updates and enhancements.
Make a routine, just as you would for your own workout.
Reality: The more activity on your site, the better the results. To get
more activity, your content needs to change and be interactive. Visitors will
not come back if they cannot complete critical tasks and get answers to
questions.
Challenge: This year I challenge you to look at the content on your Web
site and think about delivering it in a
more interactive way using Web 2.0 tools. For example,
do you have pages of information on the financial aid process or hundreds of
FAQs? I am not recommending you get rid of these, rather get your site into
better shape by presenting the financial aid information or FAQs using short
videos.
Monitor your Progress. We all hate stepping on the scale,
but how else can you make sure your diet is working? The same goes for your Web
site. Make sure you monitor traffic, redirects and downloads to see what’s
working.
Reality: Data abounds. Tracking provides you an advantage over your competitors so you understand what is working and what is not within your web site. If you have important information on your site or new functionality that you have added, you can confirm whether people are finding what you have to offer. If they aren't, you can respond and plan accordingly as opposed to just "going with your gut."
Challenge: Think of how much time and energy is spent by committees to
determine color schemes, navigation and photography for your site. My challenge
to you this year is to take all this effort and get a Web site maintenance plan
in place. In addition, identify the key Web metrics that make a difference and
report on those each month.
Keep these resolutions all year and your Web site will be fit and in
tip-top shape.
Thanks for taking time to read the Monday Marketing Minute in 2007. If
there are questions you’d like answered or a topic you’d like to discuss,
please let us know or post it in the comments section of this blog and we will add it to our
editorial calendar.
For a full listing of past Monday Marketing Minute messages,
please visit our archive.
