Optimization
As we are early into the new decade, I hope the year and the decade find you doing well. The past decade saw tremendous growth, change, and innovation in the interactive space. From the predominance of brochureware sites in the early part of the decade, to the Web 2.0 changes in the mid ’00s, to today, on the cusp of Web2, it’s an exciting, albeit sometimes frustrating time for interactive marketers. Financially, it was a rough decade bookended by the “dot bomb” economy and the Great Recession. While the economic news was, and is not great, we’re seeing greater scrutiny on marketing budgets. The increased scrutiny and reduced budgets are forcing more accountability and creativity for marketers. As a result, we are seeing interactive initiatives becoming a greater part of the overall marketing mix, as institutions work to optimize their marketing expenditures and achieve measurable results. The optimization of marketing efforts should not be limited to ROI. In fact, I think optimization will be the critical focus for higher ed marketers throughout the decade. Efforts to optimize will need to improve your:
- marketing mix
- user experience
- recruitment funnel
Optimizing Your Marketing Mix
As Bob Sevier, our VP of strategy, says “Don’t fall in love with a channel, fall in love with results.” Measure the results you’re getting from each channel in the array of your recruitment channels. This is easier with channels designed to drive traffic to your Web site or microsite. Use measurement, data, and results to avoid being ruled by folklore (simply repeating efforts because it has always been done that way, rather than measuring results and assessing). Your marketing mix will need to optimize the array of channels, providing more choice for the prospective student to interact with your brand in a way they choose. Over the next decade, I expect to see more progress in the multichannel space—constituents will be able to engage in one channel and complete their transactions in another channel, without having to re-register or repeat who they are or what they are trying to accomplish. The improvements in a multichannel approach should improve the user experience and provide more insight on how to engage prospective students throughout the recruitment funnel.
Optimizing The User Experience
User experience (UX) can be used broadly to describe the sum experience of interactions that a person has with your brand through online and offline channels. For the purpose of this blog post, UX is simply referring to the experience and interactions a prospective student has with your digital assets and artifacts—mostly e-mail, Web site, and social media presence. By leveraging analytics programs, you have the opportunity to turn data into insight and continually work to optimize the user experience. With the help of analytics, you will be able to see which digital assets are performing well, what changes and enhancements are working, and what are the best sources for driving traffic to your site. Optimizing the UX requires a dedication to continuous improvement, a commitment to testing, and the ability to make changes based on results. Anchored in Demming’s quality work, some form of plan, do, check, act (and repeat) should be employed in maintaining your interactive presence. In turn, this will help eradicate a “build and abandon” mentality that has plagued many Web sites over the years. Combining usability testing with Web analytics will help focus your UX optimization efforts. Optimization of your marketing mix and UX should dovetail into improvements in managing the recruitment funnel.
Optimizing the Recruitment Funnel
How are you reaching, engaging, connecting, and converting prospects? Which elements are working well and which need to be improved or abandoned completely? From the audience perspective, how does one become aware of your institution or program? How do their interactions and experience influence their opinion of your institution? Will that opinion be strong enough to make them an advocate? Similar to your marketing mix, you need to understand which efforts are effectively moving prospective students through the funnel and which are not. A few years ago, I worked with a client that wanted to focus their funnel efforts on advocacy (primarily though community events and positive word of mouth). However, after analyzing their overall marketing mix, we realized they were spending 90% of their budget to drive awareness and name recognition. The problem: research showed that over 95% of their audience was already aware. In other words, they were spending most of their marketing budget and efforts on a part of the funnel where they were already succeeding, and continued spending could do very little to pick up that last 5%, which may have been statistical noise. The marketing mix needed to decrease spending and efforts on reach strategies and tactics, and move towards engagement, connection, and advocacy.
Optimizing the channels of your marketing mix, UX, and your recruitment funnel will require the time, tools, and institutional support to act.
As I continue to blog about interactive topics here at Stamats, I will explore more items related to optimization, most notably Web analytics and user experience. I’m interested in knowing what topics you would like explored on this blog. I’d like to hear from you regarding what’s working, or not working, when it comes to optimizing your marketing mix, UX, or the recruitment funnel.
Matt will be speaking at Stamats Integrated Marketing: Adult Student Marketing Conference in San Antonio later this month. For more conference information see www.stamats.com/simadultstudents.
Photo by Scott Ableman
