Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Alicia Lyons | March 29th, 2019

Awareness Ads vs. Remarketing Ads: What’s Missing from Your Online Campaigns?

At GPRS we employ a full funnel approach. You may be comfortable with search and display ads, but how experienced are you with awareness and remarketing campaigns? Without them, there’s a very good chance you’re missing out on critical leads.

Awareness Campaigns

An awareness campaign lives at the very top of the funnel. They are the simplest campaigns to deploy. A potential lead has never heard of your program. They may be considering going back to school to further their career but don’t know yet which college they’d like to attend. They may be researching through Google when they come across your awareness ad.

An awareness ad is directed at a large audience, often using broad keywords in order to cast a wide net for potential leads. These ads take a much softer approach to sales than remarketing ads, which many times encourage prospective students to “Apply Now!” or push them with an admissions deadline. In an awareness campaign, you might choose to highlight that you are a top-ranked university with the kind of program that would interest them. They may not be familiar with your school, or the options you provide, but a well-written awareness ad could entice them to explore further and request information – or a contact.

An awareness ad can be a search, display, or social media ad. A search ad should include general information about your school and the degree program. You can peak their interest with words like – “No GMAT” or “Fixed Tuition”. You could try highlighting degree length or overall ROI. Display ads should include welcoming or interesting images that will catch the browser’s eye. The Call to Action (CTA) is usually a term such as “Learn More” and will lead to the homepage of your degree program’s website. This way candidates are given the opportunity to educate themselves on your programs.

Things to remember when creating an awareness campaign:

Don’t overcrowd ads with information but use brief enticing headlines
To optimize your budget, work on your geo-targeting and audience demographics
Employ an omni-channel campaign incorporating all of the marketing platforms including Google Ads, social media, your website, and SEO

Most leads will not convert with an awareness campaign alone, but it is a critical step in filling the funnel for the long term. And a foundation for remarketing campaigns to activate.

Remarketing Campaigns

There may be times when you’re browsing Facebook and you suddenly start to see ads from a website that you have visited in the past. This is an example of a remarketing campaign. A remarketing campaign is aimed at a much narrower audience. These individuals have already visited your website but haven’t yet converted.

A remarketing campaign typically has a much stronger sell. You can encourage prospects to apply by stressing your admissions deadline, advertising an upcoming event, or encouraging them to contact an admissions counselor. Remarketing campaigns can have a CTA of “Apply Now!”, “Download our Brochure”, or “Contact Admissions”.

Things to remember about remarketing campaigns:

Start remarketing with your top performing ads
Back up your results by tracking your campaigns
Choose the optimal frequency cap to not over saturate your audience

Great marketing plans start with a solid awareness strategy to capture the top of the funnel audience, followed by a strong remarketing campaign strategy to nurture those leads into conversions. Remember the audience that is being retargeted has already been imprinted with your brand, and has shown a level of interest – now you have a foundation from which to build on.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Alicia Lyons | March 6th, 2019

SEM and SEO – Working Together to Boost Recruitment ROI

SEO and SEM are two very different animals, but they can be finessed into working harmoniously together. In order to create a complete and comprehensive graduate program marketing strategy, it’s best to apply them both holistically.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it’s how high your program appears in search results. It uses free, algorithm-driven methods to achieve a high placement in search engine results.

The Keys to SEO:

Strong keywords in your titles and content
Keyword rich and fresh original content
Building backlinks
Faster page loading times

The good thing about organic SEO is that it’s free. However, unless you have an extremely niche market, which an MBA program does not, then it’s difficult to compete on SEO alone. Organic SEO is always something to consider when developing a website. And you want to harness it when looking to raise awareness of your programs, but it is further up the sales funnel and it will take longer to convert leads. However, don’t dismiss it, as you are likely to have a stronger paid marketing campaign if leads also see your organic SEO results. Now, let’s look at SEM.

What is SEM?

SEM or Search Engine Marketing is the process of using paid methods to garner search engine conversions.

Some examples of SEM are:

Pay Per Click (PPC)
Google Ads
Google Display Ads

SEM is also conversion focused. Most of the paid advertising is targeted at landing pages or contact pages. This pushes students through the enrollment funnel faster than SEO. It urges them to take an action and convert.

SEO: earning traffic through unpaid means

SEM: acquiring traffic through paid means

How can SEO and SEM work together?

Backlinks

Your paid ads could also increase backlinks. Backlinks are links on external websites that lead back to your website and as a result give your website more credibility and a higher SEO score. The more visibility that your website has then the more options for backlinks. So, although your backlinks don’t affect your SEM they do affect your SEO score. Your paid efforts will increase your visibility and therefore increase your organic results.

Promoting Your Content

A website is a great way to share fresh content, but it can be hard to find an audience. Best practice is to write quality content that serves as an answer to the questions posed by users. Then you should promote the content using PPC ads and display ads. The paid ad will take the user directly to the content, but it will also improve your search results and your position on the page. This makes it more likely for a user to click on your organic link.

Keywords

When creating your PPC campaigns you will be asked to choose your relevant keywords. Keywords could be things like EMBA, EMBA program, best MBA degrees, and high ranking MBA degrees. These keywords are how a search engine will know what searches to serve your ads to. You can also use the same keywords on your website. This way search engines will pull your website for the same searches for free. Sprinkle a few keywords in the content of your website for the best results.

Using SEM and SEO together not only increases your search engine ranking, but in the long term it will also save you precious budget!

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Alicia Lyons | February 5th, 2019

4 Key Metrics to Track Your Graduate Program Marketing Efforts

The equation is simple:

Graduate Program Marketing = Solid Leads = Conversions and New Students!

It’s that easy right? Wrong. If you are relying solely on conversions to track the success of your marketing efforts, then your marketing plan is failing. The most proactive way to produce a string of leads and conversions is to measure their effectiveness and create quantifiable marketing analytics.

Where are my conversions?

Let’s give you an example. Your program executes a LinkedIn InMail campaign that aims to target a nice sized crowd. You send out a series of awareness InMails and then wait for conversions. After a week, you become frustrated when you don’t receive any conversions. You begin to question your advertising investment.

Just because you’re not seeing conversions from your marketing efforts doesn’t mean your efforts are wasted. Quality leads need to be nurtured into converting. You must track all of the metrics in a campaign to highlight quality leads and to nurture them into conversions.

Lead Generation

Find out how well your lead generation efforts are working by tracking the number of new leads generated by each campaign. For the most accurate measurement of lead generation, we use GP Insights™. Some of the metrics we track are Performance Metrics, such as Click-Through Rate (CTR), Cost per Click (CPC), and Cost per Lead (CPL). We track by channel, impressions, audience demographics and geotracking.

Most Effective Channels and Mediums

Find out which platforms and mediums are most effective in attracting new student inquiries, including those most likely to convert. Be sure to look at channels like social, paid social, search, and paid search for a complete picture.

Spending Efficiency

To understand how efficiently you are investing your marketing budget, take the average cost of lead generation versus your average spend on marketing efforts per lead. Measure the effectiveness of your investment month over month and year over year. By consistently aiming to outdo prior performance, you’ll continuously improve your marketing efforts. Always take into account outside factors, such as enrollment dates, events, and the academic calendar.

Return on Investment (ROI)

A graduate program’s tuition costs are typically set every year, making it easier to determine the ROI needed from marketing. It’s important to take this into account when determining your spend and investment in each lead. You are not looking for hundreds of customers, there is a limit to how many students can attend – therefore it’s the quality of the lead that matters. How much money do you dedicate to each lead?

GP Insights^™

We report on our metrics with a laser-focus on results. We prove it in great detail through our proprietary campaign measurement and graduate industry benchmarking platform. GP Insights^™ was custom built to not only track campaigns but also optimize results. Without that level of detail, we could not ensure campaign success.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | January 30th, 2019

How EMBA Prospects Choose Their Future Programs

The decision-making process for a prospect to enroll in an Executive MBA program is painfully long. Statistics show that this process can take up to two years. So what can you do to speed up the process? Develop — and implement — a pull-through digital enrollment marketing strategy.

Audience Targeting

Audience targeting is a key component of any successful marketing strategy, online or offline. Don’t throw a wide net; targeting will produce better results. Why? Because you will be delivering relevant content. If you bid on keywords that are too broad, you may be wasting your online advertising dollars. To promote a Healthcare EMBA program, for instance, both the keywords and the ad messaging must be specific. Otherwise, you may receive a great number of leads but not quality leads. Quality leads are more engaged in your EMBA program and, therefore, more likely to commit sooner.

Timing

Timing is everything. While you want your online ads to appear prior to your program deadlines, you also want prospects to see them at key stages in their decision-making process. Keep in mind that, although these two timelines may intersect at certain points, the overlap may be minimal. That’s why you should schedule ads throughout the calendar year, not just based on the academic calendar.

So what are some of the stages that prospects will go through on their path to enrolling? Here are a few common stages:

Considering an EMBA
Deciding what type of EMBA program
Seeking information
Applying
Enrolling

Reasons Why a Prospect Stalls

Just because you get a prospect into the funnel, that doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing. Bottlenecks can pop up anywhere:

Cost of the program
Concerns regarding work-life balance
Questioning ROI of EMBA degree

Offering Incentives

Your program positioning and digital marketing strategy must address and overcome these and other obstacles. You can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by offering incentives for early enrollment.

First, financial incentives will help to bring down the overall cost of an EMBA. Second, incentives can help shorten the decision-making process.

What kinds of incentives can you offer? That depends on your program’s pricing and operations budget. Some programs offer scholarships, waive application or GMAT fees (some programs waive the GMAT altogether), or pay for textbooks. Other programs offer incentives to specific groups, such as military veterans.

If you find that work-life balance is an issue for prospects, take a look at your program format. EMBA programs must be willing to rethink traditional models in order to appeal to professionals with limited bandwidth. Programs with flexible scheduling will have an advantage over those with rigid formats and may prompt commitments earlier in the decision-making process.

Your digital marketing strategy must demonstrate program ROI. How? Include testimonials on ROI from current students and alumni. If favorable, compare your tuition to that of other EMBA programs. Survey your alumni to find out how they moved up the career ladder (and how quickly) and how much their salaries increased post-graduation. Collect stats, and then use them to your advantage.

Digital enrollment marketing is more than just “setting and forgetting” a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign. Your strategy should be made up of many components: keyword optimization, banner and search ads, landing pages, search engine optimized (SEO) web content, social media advertising, retargeting campaigns and more. Your online campaign also should be consistent in visuals and messaging with offline marketing.

Don’t forget to monitor your campaigns. Tracking results will reveal which components worked best, and which fell flat. Then tweak your campaigns for optimal results.

A coordinated, consistent, ongoing marketing effort will produce the best results and, ultimately, shorten the prospect’s decision-making timeline.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Alicia Lyons | December 15th, 2018

3 Ways Consistent Marketing Can Save Your Graduate Program

Do you feel like you are constantly paying for digital marketing and garnering little results? Most programs are unsatisfied with their Return On Investment (ROI), but when they try to fix it, they don’t know where to start. What most programs don’t know is that it’s likely your marketing plan that’s to blame. But it isn’t the plan itself that’s the problem, it’s that you’re not following it consistently. The majority of marketing plans fail due to inconsistent posting, overextending platform use, and reactionary responses.

Stick to a Consistent Marketing Plan

At the beginning of each academic year (before the start of the semester) your team should create a marketing plan. The plan should be consistent and utilize a marketing and social media calendar. You should know what and when to post no later than a month in advance. Try to stay consistent. This is key. Marketing efforts consisting of events, networking, newsletters, speaking engagements, and deadlines are considered targeted marketing and create a sense of immediacy that attracts leads and creates conversions. This doesn’t mean you should wait until the last minute to market them. As soon as an event is scheduled you should include it in your marketing plan.

Don’t Overextend Your Platform Use

Another trap most graduate programs fall into is overextending their platform use. Efforts pay-off when you use a level of constraint. It’s easy to want to post on all of the social media platforms. This heightens awareness, right? More platforms, more leads! If your marketing department cannot handle this workload or if you don’t have the content to support the plan this may end up hurting your program. Try to stick to one platform at a time and work your way up. Consider your audience personas and choose the platforms that best suit your prospective students. Also, remember these widely accepted rules:

Facebook = Awareness

LinkedIn = Connections

Twitter = Spreads the Word

Instagram = Is Hardly Ever For Over 25-Year-Olds

Don’t Fall into the Trap of Knee-Jerk Posting

The three pitfalls that can lead to reactionary posting are:

There are so many new inquiries, you no longer feel the need to market. A few weeks or months later, there is not a single prospective student in sight.
You are not receiving the ROI that you expected, so you utilize a knee-jerk response by randomly posting everywhere. Here, you lose the consistency that we spoke about before, and this leaves your audience confused or bombarded.
You didn’t plan accordingly for an upcoming event or deadline. At the last minute you post anywhere and everywhere to increase exposure.

Reactionary posting leads to marketing plans that are never executed. At the beginning of the year, you spent a great deal of time and effort formulating the perfect marketing plan. Why abandon it now?

Inconsistent marketing can confuse and frustrate your audience. It may leave them feeling unsettled and as a result they may find your program untrustworthy. A thoroughly planned and consistently executed marketing plan will result in more leads, more conversions, and more students.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | December 12th, 2018

How to Make Your EMBA Program Stand Out

Many words come to mind when describing an Executive MBA program:

Transformational
Experiential
Leadership
Elite
Incomparable
Potential
Advancement

Do these words describe your Executive MBA program? It’s likely they do, and they can also be used to describe most EMBA programs. Herein lies the problem. Most EMBA programs look and sound the same. How is a prospective student expected to distinguish between your program and that of your competitors?

What is your unique selling proposition?

Let’s start with your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A USP is the reason why you are better than the competition. It can include things like price, values, and curriculum. Think of your EMBA program as a product. What is your unique selling proposition (USP)?

What is your USP?

Exceptional ROI. Is your EMBA program the least expensive in your city? region? state? the nation?
Fabulous faculty. Are your faculty members noted for their research or publications? Have they received awards? Do they have industry experience? Students want to learn from those who’ve “been in the trenches,” so to speak.
Innovative curriculum. Most EMBA programs cover business fundamentals. But what types of electives are available? Do you offer specializations in or tracks according to areas of interest?
Impressive cohort. Is the caliber of your cohorts head and shoulders above the rest? EMBA students learn from each other as well as from their professors. This could be a big selling point.
Brand equity. Is your program ranked? Does it have exclusive accreditation? Is it part of a business school that is ranked or widely acclaimed? Is it part of a prestigious college or university? It’s OK to piggyback on the brand of your parent organization.
Program format. Many schools tailor their program schedules to meet the needs of working professionals. Is there anything about your program that is especially flexible? Do you offer a hybrid of learning environments or formats?
Leadership development. Do you go above and beyond basic executive coaching? Do you go the extra mile when it comes to careers and placements? Do you take leadership development to the next level? What about executive education?
Global reach. Does your EMBA program have an international component? If so, how does it differ from all the rest?
Alumni network. This extends the value of your program beyond graduation. Where are your alumni now? We’re talking both geographically and in terms of positions at their respective companies. You might just find a trend to capitalize on, such as a track record of success in a particular industry.
Another way you can distinguish yourself is through your Think about foregoing the traditional students-in-classroom imagery and use an image totally unrelated to academia. This will make your ads eye-catching, which is the first goal of any ad. Your messaging, however, will still resonate with your audience.

If you’ve read the above bullet points and still are scratching your head over how your EMBA program stands out, this could be a wake-up call. Perhaps you need to revisit one or more elements and adjust them to make your program more enticing to prospective students.