Insights on Admissions Marketing

2008 James Tower Technology in Student Recruitment Conference

You are invited to attend the 2008 James Tower Technology in Student Recruitment Conference. Our conference will be held June 16-17 in Chicago at the Avenue Hotel Chicago (formerly the Radisson Hotel and Suites). If you are in admissions or enrollment management and are responsible for your marketing efforts, this conference will showcase the latest technologies in student recruitment and will provide insight on how to use them to reach your prospective student market.

The Conference

Gain the insight you need to give your campus an edge for recruitment practices.

Sessions include:

• Social Networking- Develop Your Online Community
• Using Online Video Effectively in Admissions Marketing
• Email Deliverability- Get Your Email Delivered to Prospective Students
• CMS- Strategies and Tips
• Implications from our Latest E-Expectations Research

Registration, Travel, and Hotel Information

Although there is no fee to attend the conference, please make your plans now and register early as space is limited. Once registered you will receive a confirmation email and email updates as more information becomes available.

I hope we will see you in Chicago!

 

2007 Wisconsin ACRAO Event in Egg Harbor

Hello again, remember me?

I would like to extend my appreciation to the Wisconsin ACRAO this year for allowing me to present at their fall 2007 meeting.  My presentation, "Engaging Technology Savvy Students:  What They Know That  We Don't and How to Reach Them on Their Turf!" was very well received.  It was an honor to have the opportunity and I appreciated the feedback and comments afterward.

As I promised during my presentation, if you would like a copy of the Powerpoint I shared during the meeting, you can download it by clicking on the link below.

Download Wisconsin_ACRAO_final_presentation

I also cited information regarding the 2007/'08 E-Expectations Research.  For those that didn't get a copy of the white paper or would like to see more, you can download the information on the James Tower web site.

The Pew Research I cited in the presentation can be viewed on their site as well.

While I have reduced the size of the Powerpoint somewhat, it is still over 8MB with all the images, so please be patient.  If you have any problems downloading the file, please email me at drwacker@jamestower.com and I will make arrangements to get it to you via other means, if necessary.

Also, I would appreciate any feedback or comments you have-both good and bad-regarding the presentation.  I mean, this is a blog after all, isn't it!  :-)

Enjoy the remainder of the conference and I hope to see you again soon.

Darren Wacker
Consultant/Business Development Executive
James Tower, Inc. 

 

So, you are thinking of diving into Search Engine Marketing.....

So, what do you know about Search Engine Marketing?

Recent surveys and polling would indicate many of us are not aware of what search engine marketing really is or where the opportunities are for our institutions. So, I thought maybe I would explore this in today's post.

First, for a definition Wikipedia provides a good, basic overview of search engine marketing here.   In addition to covering a basic definition, it also shares some ethical considerations/things to be wary of as it relates to SEM vendors and the promises they may make.

Second, the bigger question is, what benefit is search engine marketing to me and my institution?  The answer to this is completely dependent on what you are trying to do.  Allow me to explain.....

For instance, if you are trying to drive additional traffic to your primary .EDU web site you likely don't need significant help depending on your goals.  For the majority of institutions, simply having a web site will assure you are the top item returned if someone types in the name of your school.  Go ahead, try it.

For all the major search engines, your school will likely be the first or second listing returned.  There are very simple things you can do to assure this remains the case. Most of these are listed free on the Google web site here and can be completed by your campus web master.  If your campus has a small IT staff or needs assistance, you may want to consider a vendor partner to complete the work for you and to assist with ongoing maintenance.  This should NOT be an expensive proposition for you.

However, if you are trying to rank higher on common terms (such as university, college, higher education...) that process will be much more involved, time consuming and costly.  And, in all honesty....not worth it for the results you are likely to see.

Now, that being said...where the opportunities still lie in search engine marketing for you and where it really returns a benefit (and where a partner can earn their keep in assisting you) is in the promotion of specific academic programs, expanding marketings or driving distinctive qualities to smaller demographic groups that you target with your programs.

I will cover this in more detail in my next post.  Stay tuned......