Mayflies Live on the Internet

How long does a link last?

It turns out that new links published in social media have a similar life span to the Blue Wing Olive.  Links receive half the clicks they'll ever get within hours.

An adult mayfly lives for 30 minutes to a day depending on species; have non-working mouths and a digestive track filled with air.  They have one purpose..... but this is a marketing blog. 


Source.

NYT recently highlighted some Bit.ly research on the window of time during which clicks occur for a new link posted in various places.  Here's the chart....



For Twitter and Facebook half the clicks will happen in around 3 hours (left peaks) ; for YouTube it is 7 hours (middle bump).  

At a Social Commerce Exchange meeting yesterday @DrewConrad presented some figures of what he has found at Zagg.   The first five hour figures of their  12 Days of Christmas and iPad-a-Day promotions confirm this type of trend - 35-40% of the new fans came in the first week of the six weeks reported.  

So, what do I take the implications of this to be...it is like fly fishing. 

1. We need to be constantly coming up with ways to produce interest - meetings and approval should be kept to an absolute minimum.  If a fly isn't working, I change it - if a link doesn't produce in a day, put out a new one.    If does work, put it someplace else. 
2. The attention span impacts the lifespan - YouTubers are likely more captivated by the surrounding content and not the flow itself.   I need to make more of an impact in fast moving water so will use an attractor - the streaming nature of Twitter and Facebook suggest the same need for stimulating, high impact links.   In calm water, where there is more dwell time I'll use a more natural fly - something similar might work in YouTube.
3. Analysis time period of a link is daily; analysis of campaigns is longer, but done in the aggregate.  Looking at one link over a long period of time doesn't make sense.   Success at fishing is measured over the long term, not an individual cast.   

We've always known links work - we get the reports, but this suggests we have to think about constantly changing them up to create a continuous sense of interest.  This is very different than the traditional view of brand marketing which tries to get at the sustainable, long term essence.  

Social, Mobile, and Transaction Segmentation

What opportunities exist in an inter-connected world?

A few days ago a colleague asked around if anyone had an approach to segmentation in a world when social media is integrated with mobile and retail transaction data. So, here's the answer I came up with in an attempt to answer the questions: What did they do before buying? what content did they consume before trying?  


Customer transaction data is like a silent movie, we see the final action but don't understand the nuances of how they got there.  Just before the 'submit button' or landing page is a vast region of content and interactions that most likely influenced the choice a consumer made, we just can't see it and if we can, we can't make sense of the enormous quantities of granular data without some type of framework.

Our objective as marketers is to align solutions with customer's needs to the mutual satisfaction of both.  And to do that we need to not only understand the benefit provided by the product/service but also how the choice was ultimately made and the path to purchase.   So, the first opportunity is to segment people on what technologies, sources, devices etc. people use to consume information - are they mobile, social, or site users?

It is also generally accepted that various types of information are utilized when making a decision - we decide emotionally based on aspirations and needs, we defend the decision rationally based on facts and figures.   This content can be divided into several types that influence choice – emotional or brand, promotional or incentive, informational or reference and communal or recommendation.  If we could tag the content consumed according to such a framework then we have a new opportunity to segment based on content type.

Put the two together and we can build a picture of 'content consumption' based on type and channel.

By linking transactional data (customer value and product mix) where we understand the value of a customer based on LTV, visits or other metric we can create a series of product-specific Paths to Purchase that map content consumption to their value to the organization.   

So take for an example a segmentation scheme based on standard RFM (recency, frequency, and monetary) metrics that produces for groups:  Best, Frequent, Spenders and Uncertain.   Over lay that on the type of content consumed and you might find patterns that impact how you market.   A hypothetical view might look like the following chart.   

For each value-based segment there are two content consumption segments:

• Best customers, those with above average spend and visits, either use branded content, maybe the self-help site you created, or they use a lot of recommendations from social sites.
• Frequent customers who spend less than the average but shop often, are either deal shoppers or search driven.
• Spenders, those who spent a lot but on only one transaction, are either attached to brand as a 'badge' or use information and search to find you.
• Uncertains, those with low transaction value and count, rely on incentives or the recommendations of others.  

The possibilities are endless; there just might be something to this idea....

Loyalty: Goal or Objective

How do we treat the concept of loyalty?

Lately I've been reading a lot on customer experience, CRM maturity models, etc. in the context of analyzing the performance of customer marketing programs.   And while I read a lot about loyalty as part of the strategy I don't see the metric I can map to it.   Somewhere in the reams of stats, metrics, spreadsheets and data dumps there has to a number I can report as success or failure, doesn't there?

Without a quantifiable metric, the concept of loyalty remains a lofty goal- something we aspire to.  And without a link between the goal and the program we run the risk of getting off track and doing what we can measure and claiming it as a success.     Too many times I've heard "we can't measure loyalty so we'll report time on site, posts, opens as the collective measure of engagement." 

If we want loyal customers, then we have to define it in a way that we know we have one when we see one. 

Early in my career I did simulated test marketing where depth of repeat, or the odds of making additional purchases, drove the ultimate success or failure of product.  We could buy trial, but if the product didn't deliver sales eroded.   Is it that simple?

Loyalty, as an objective, is the probability of a consumer making the next purchase.   For a given brand, the odds of repeat increase as the number of transactions increases.   The more often I buy, the more likely I'll buy again.   This simple data can be plotted as a curve and when it starts to stabilize somewhere between 50% and 80% we put a stake in the ground and say 'there is loyalty' because the value of future transactions starts to increase.  

So, here's what I'm telling clients:  "a customer is loyal when the probability of repeat is greater than x%."   Now we simply need to focus on two questions.

1. How do we keep them?   Here reward strategies are more appropriate than encouragement ones; they've already decided to buy your brand.  Surprise, or intermittent reinforcement, is a very powerful motivator as is exclusivity and uniqueness.  
2. How do we get more of them?  It is not unusual to find less than 15% of a business where this condition is true.   The path to loyalty goes through "Thank You" - the acknowledgement of the first transaction based on the fact that first impressions are lasting.  

Now my presentations to the executive team align....

Marketing in the Age of Channel Blur

How should we approach planning when everything is interactive?

We used to talk about multiple channels when separate (and possibly not coordinated) campaigns were executed by the experts in their respective silos.  Then along came Integrated Marketing Communication (ICM) that taught us to think multi-channel and to use a coordinated approach often based on timing, theme and message.    An underlying premise of both these planning models was that we as marketers were trying to reach you as consumer via a predefined route.

But when the network effect of sharing takes over and interesting content jumps the boundaries of the delivery vehicle maybe our thinking needs to change.  

• First, since the relationship between marketer and consumer is by no means exclusive we need to think like we're simply a participant or conductor in the communication plan not its sole controller.  The focus should be on the needs first, not the channel.  This is an area where content marketing has made an impact with questions like "What would help consumers?" 
• Second, given the rapid change in technology and the fact that it is now highly personal and portable we need to think more about how content moves across devices and forms and less about it being designed and optimized for a specific channel.   Today, digital content can be shared across and accessed from nearly any platform creating a blur.  Use a QR code and we're asking ourselves "Where does print end, mobile start and the web sit?" 
• Third, consumers aren't likely to consciously sit down and ask themselves I wonder who placed or published the content in a given channel.  As a result, the planning of paid, owned and earned media seems somewhat out of sync with actual consumer thinking.   And when TV drives search or social activity we end up asking "How do we combine channels to measure the aggregate affect?"

Maybe, we should abandon the concept of 'channel' as the top-level way to devlop a plan.

7 Questions Raised by Situational Influence

Can understanding the situation improve our marketing?

Yes, but we've got work to do. 

The concept of 'Situational Influence' was recently shared by Jeff Wilson on the The Social CMO Blog. Using the analogy of solving the 'getting wet problem' caused by rain with either an umbrella, shelter or ark the article makes a good case for thinking about the decision making process based on the situation we find ourselves in.  

The basics keys on Situational Influence…

1. Situations directly affect action.
2. Situations rise in priority according to urgency.
3. Urgency drives immediacy of action
4. We are oblivious to all of it.

These raise some interesting questions for marketers that need more thinking than I'm incapable of doing today, but its a start of a new to do list.  

1. Should we be marketing to the situation and not the person?
2. Can influence be broken down into components that marketing can impact?
3. Are there dimensions of content that can be combined in various ways to help shape decisions?
4. Does the weight given one dimension of content differ across need states?
5. Are different channel, content combinations more effective at one time over another?
6. How does the fact that interactions occur unseen impact our media planning?
7. Should we think in terms of helping people choose rather than in specific responses?

What should we also be asking ourselves?

Revisiting the CRM to Social CRM Migration

Did CRM miss the point? 

CRM is (was) often described as 'delivering the right message, to right person, at the right time'.   But who decides on 'right'?   If the marketer is doing it, then it is probably wrong since we are clearly biased.   

Messages do not and can not stay on point in a world where we can all create, edit and publish our own versions. About the only type of content that is safe from being completely repurposed is promotional; incentives in terms of offers usually aren't changed by consumers (although they will try.) The aspirational or emotional content will clearly be used as a badge - positively or negatively - and forms the basis of personal expression. 

If consumers seek, stumble upon, actively receive and passively absorb messages the idea that 'we deliver' is also off the mark.  We're not the only delivery channel by a long-shot; nor do we have control once a message is out there.   The communal aspect of content suggests that sharing of recommendations etc. may be of equal or greater importance in consumer choice.   In fact, our customers are often more qualified to understand 'right person' than we are.

How do we rethink communicating in a world that is really "we don't know what is said, we don't know who got it, and we don't know when it was received?"

Digital is Obsolete

What will the digital world look like in 4 years?

An excellent piece on the growth of the digital life from Neo Labels shared by my colleague Ian Barkley. 

At some point we should probably just drop the adjective 'digital'.   We no longer talk about 'jet planes' or 'digital phones' - to us they're just planes or phones.   And when we drop the adjective we can think about bringing all content distribution vehicles together.   The fact that the smartphone makes everything interactive also helps.

I did see a magazine in that 'digital house' didn't I?

15 Sources on How and Why to "Thank Customers"

Should you tell your customers "thank you"?

As part of our planning about how we can better help our clients our strategy guy Jeff put together a list of thoughts on the topic of how should a company say thank you.   Here it is.

Sprouter:  Why a Thank You program? It can beat a loyalty program.

LinkedIn:  "Marketing and Sales" Group Q&A

Customersrock: Thanking makes an impact

AML: 18 Ways to Thank Customers PDF

Jim Novo's thoughts on loyalty

Bizjournals: Shocked at companies that don't thank customers

Prime Performance: The power of thanks at banks

Green Industry Pros: Five Inexpensive Ways to Say Thank You

Traffic Builders: Thanking customers with a personal approach

Management Help: Onboarding new customers

Banking My Way: Banks are pushing referral programs

Amadeus: Including referral program in thank you program

Idle Air: Example of new customer referral offer as part of 'Thank You'

stylistbuzz: Sample of a simple new customer thank you card

Scrbd: Sample new customer welcome letter

Fedex: Sample welcome landing page


I'm sure there are many other sources and examples, please add your favorites....

Social Media vs. Social Technology

Does it matter what we call it?

Earlier this week I sat on a panel at a Utah AMA event.  One of the questions we fielded was: What's the next big thing in 'social media'?   Now, if any of us on the panel knew the answer, we probably wouldn't have been on the panel - we'd be busy launching it.

The point I made was to first throw out the word 'media' and replace it with 'technology'.   The reason was that media is often associated with business, marketing and advertising and that clouds our thinking about the art of the possible.   Two of the biggest platforms - Facebook and YouTube - started as technical solutions to the real and personal problems of the founders, not as business tools for delivering messages.  Based on the feedback, this line of thinking resonated well with the audience.

So, if there is something that frustrates you and your insights allow you to imagine a solution that leverages or facilitates human interaction then it might be the next big thing in social technology.   Whether it is media, is a chapter to be written later.

Tetherless Brands

What to read on the plane?

Just finished Rick Mathieson's books "Branding Unbound" and "On Demand Brand".   Both books cover the world of marketing in a wireless, digital age.   They take the approach of presenting a set of 'rules' of guidelines and then follow them up with interviews with industry players to make the points more personal and interesting. 

Fascinated to see the change in the examples and maturity of marketers over the five-year time frame between publishing dates - 2005 and 2010. 

Shaping Decisions

What kind of information do we seek?

In order to make a decision we process information from a variety of sources.   Not a terribly earth shattering idea in that statement.  But can we create a framework that helps navigate a world where consumers process a wide variety of information feeds (and I'm being general as opposed to focusing on RSS and the like) in a decidedly non-linear fashion. 

Given that information is processed to come to a decision, opinion, or a better understanding then the question becomes what kinds of information do we leverage in each situation?  Are there situations where different types of information play a more important role?   If we can categorize information and map it to personal objectives then we have a better chance of developing successful marketing programs.   

As a thought starter, there might be four types of information that shape a decision.

1. Promotional: product, price and place.  The focus is on incentive.
2. Emotional: brand.  The focus is on aspirations.
3. Informational: rational and comparative.  The focus is on reference and supporting evidence.
4. Communal: shared, user generated, social.   The focus is on recommendations. 

The weight an individual gives to a particular type of information could vary depending on intent, need state and prior experience. 

• Intent: buy, seek, share, discover, discuss
• Need: latent, chronic or acute as driven by timing and intensity of problem resolution
• Experience: collective perception from use or exposure. 

If I need a new hot water heater then recommendations and incentives might make the most sense right now.   On the other hand, if I'm browsing for a new car then a combination of aspirations and factoids might be more appropriate to narrow down the options.  

As marketers, how do we ensure the experience is consistent across content types?   How do we orchestrate the process and exude some influence?

Rembering Is a Hard Thing to Do

Was that red A4 a six speed or an automatic?

There are several scenarios where choice is so complicated that we simply can't remember the facts of the options - real estate and buying cars come to mind.   In both scenarios we are usually looking at a collection of things over a period of time while we are out and about.  Since decisions are driven by emotions supported by facts, we need to combine research, tactile feel, and aspirational thoughts. 

• We can research cars on comparative sites like Kelley Blue Book or a dealer's site but we don't know how it feels or how we'll feel.
• We can test drive cars to get that guttural feel about a car's soul, but we're limited as to the research we can do on the lot and we're still missing the emotional connection that brand managers strive for.
• We can read brochures or watch aspirational ads like Cadilac's 2009 spot for CTS featuring Kate Walsh, but we lack research and the touch and feel of steel and leather.

So, what if we could combine all of them together in a unique experience for customers?  Imagine customers being able to research specific cars on-line, drive it while reading reviews, and getting a reminder package at the end of the day that mixes facts, opinions and imagination.

Actually, it is quite possible.  

QR codes are a popular way of linking a physical object (or location) to information and content.  So, what if we remember which cars or houses you looked at (there will be an app for that) and combined the facts with branded assets to create a Brochure for 1.   Imagine a brochure from Bill Sattree's Toyota that included information on the cars you drove today - the FJ, Tundra, and Sequoia - delivered shortly after your visit to the lot.  

Would you exchange your contact information for a tailored set of content? 

The Toothpaste Side of CRM

How fast do customers defect?

It is well known in consumer package goods that a repeat rate (or the percent of customers who buy a second time) needs to be in the 40-50% range for a successful product launch.   In other industries the retention rate may be significantly lower - recently saw one where only 1 in 4 customers came back.   The implication is that only a portion of customer acquisitions are 'net new', i.e. those that grow the business.

If customers, like teeth, tend to decay, then how do we engage them in preventing it or at least slowing it down?

P&G talks in terms of 'moments of truth' - critical decisions that affect the relationship of a brand with a consumer.  The first two below are theirs, I've added a third.  They are...

1. The decision to buy - here we need to make sure that we're in alignment with what customers want.  
2. The decision to buy again - now we have to have delivered, both in marketing and product, a positive experience that met customer expectations.  
3. The decision to make it a habit - now we're talking about engagement and supporting an ongoing and continuous stream of purchases.  

Communication and contact strategies should be aligned to focus on each of these three moments, each with their own strategies and metrics.   Ideas for campaigns might consider...

• Promotions, offers, contests and entrainment for trial
• Welcome Packs and Thank Yous for repeat
• Experiences and participation for long term repeat

Intent and Behavioral Targeting

Can I change the ads?

An interesting by-product of behavioral targeting (BT) is that I get a lot of ads from the same industry.   Over the last couple of years I've worked with clients in the education space - particularly around graduate degrees from for-profit institutions.    The side-effect: I see a tremendous disproportionate number of ads from the likes of GCU, Western Governors, etc. whenever I surf for interesting news stories. 

It seems that a weakness of BT is that just because I visited a site it doesn't mean I'm interested in buying the product.  There are numerous reasons to visit a site and only some relate to the purpose of display ads - driving traffic.  Since I rarely (never?) go to the "Apply Now" pages and only review course descriptions the systems should infer my intent as something other than a prospective student. 

I wonder what ads I've been missing. 

Branding, Content and Segmentation

Is there a single voice?

We often talk about using a single voice and message as a means of conveying a brand to an audience.  This recommendation is based on the argument that we do not want to create dissonance and confuse the market with various and conflicting messages.  But what happens when there are several potential segments, each with their own view of the world and needs?  As an example, education deals with a very diverse set of segments, even within the same degree program. 

So, let's revisit the question:  How do we portray ourselves to different segments?

Creating different brand promises is not the answer.  All great brands have a single point of view or essence; often defining the category.  They own one and only one idea, e.g. Red Bull is the "energy drink." There are few brands that mean radically different things to different groups - Yamaha being a successful example in pianos and motorcycles.  

Audience segments are often described in terms of demographics and lifestyles.  But there is another potential dimension to explore: need.   What underlying benefit does a degree provide?  Is it skills to do something or is it a sense of accomplishment or is it fulfilling a life-long dream?   If we can get a prospect to talk about their vision of the future then we can better understand why they go back to or continue school.   If these views can be reduced to a small set of outcomes then a new possibility arises for developing content: Write the content in a way that reflects the underlying need.  Two really simple examples to illustrate the point:

Skills: describe the practical tools they gain; expertise of faculty
Achievement: provide job and career options; testimonials of successful placements

In this day of landing page optimization and dynamic key word insertion it isn't hard to envision an environment that works more like face-to-face selling.  By sensing what is important to prospects and responding with appropriate content we might be able to improve conversion. 

Match Making in Edu

Can we redesign a match-making service for education?

In "Fiddler on the Roof" Hodel sings about match-making:

Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match,
Find me a find,
catch me a catch
Matchmaker, Matchmaker

Look through your book, 

and make me a perfect match. 

In some ways lead generation vendors in the education space think they're a modern day Yenta (the match maker in Fiddler) by offering site visitors a matching service.  With a few exceptions this is pretty much a smoke screen and gimmick.  If anyone has looked at the form that prospects fill out it is pretty easy to see that there isn't much to go on.  Contact information and year of graduation just isn't very good to pick an institution.  How'd you like to be served up a list of cars to choose from based on the same information?  

To make matters worse for the prospect, many options run with caps so when a school hits a budget goal for the month the spigot is turned off.  What other high-consideration industry turns away potential customers just because the quota is full?

There are a couple of additional issues relevant in this day and age.

1. Where is the personality, values and brand connection?
2. Where is the ability to compare and contrast? 
3. Just what do the myriad of degrees and specialties actually mean?

The match maker's book Hodel referred to contained all the attributes, characteristics, and family history of individuals.   It was meant to provide introductions that would lead to a true and lasting marriage.  So, if Yenta were to enter the edu lead generation space today what dimensions would her match making service be based on?  Here's my top three:

1. Compatibility is based on alignment.  If the key values of an institution don't match with a prospect's the outcome is predictable - "it was not a good fit".  These values are often best communicated by the deans of various Schools or Colleges whose vision and passion creates a connection.
2. Satisfaction is based on fulfillment.  With the rapid proliferation of degrees, specialties and courses it is increasingly difficult for prospects to understand which option is appropriate.   "What will I learn?" and "How can I use it?" remain questions. 
3. Success is based on the delivery of a benefit.  Whether the goal is an introduction to Fortune 20 CEOs or reinforcing the belief that "I can change things, even if I'm not in charge" an institution must understand what the metrics of success are.  (Hint: it is not really a career or better job.)

If dimensions of compatibility sounds a bit like eHarmony, that is intentional.   We're currently working with their former CTO Marcus Trevisani of Semantic Systems to create a better 'matching' experience for education prospects.  

Just need to find a better word than 'match'; that's been abused.   

Job Swap: Education and B2B Marketing

Why should education institutions hire B2B marketers?

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to write two guest posts recently.  The first was for myUsearch and focused on battling the sameness of branding and admissions marketing in the education space.   The second was for Content Marketing Institute that offered a way of segmenting prospects based on their need state using the B2B market as an example.

The education piece argued that the 'sameness' of their marketing reduces colleges and universities to the lowest common denominators of cost and convenience - not a position many schools actually want, nor where they can actually survive.  The B2B piece suggested that at any point in time prospects are in one of several need states with respect to a given problem, e.g. think of a pain as being latent, chronic or acute.   

Since both markets consist of high-consideration products where the decisions are made by a very social group there could be some complementary thinking.  What would B2B marketers bring to education?

The best B2B companies, and particularly technology-focused ones, identify or create the category they want to dominate and compete in.  They are often experts at setting the rules that establish how their offerings are perceived.  'Industry leading', while over used, does reflect an understanding that it is critical to know what category prospects put them in.   In comparison, education institutions rarely can articulate the category in which they compete.  Instead they rely on a mantra of 'education is good for your career'.  True, but not very helpful - it is like saying 'shampoo gets your hair clean' or 'cars are safe'.  There is no attempt to differentiate nor is there an equivalent to "industry leading" and there should be.

In addition, while educational institutions have a brand that would make most B2B firms envious they often treat all their prospects as if they're all on the same time frame.  If the prospect doesn't apply and enroll within 60 days they are often relegated to the rehash or forgotten bin.  In contrast, B2B understands the value of nurturing because not everyone is ready right now.  The marketing objective is often to raise a pain to level of where action is taken - and this takes time.  Nowhere is this more important to understand than in the marketing of Master's degrees. 

So, the next time you need a marketer with a fresh perspective for the edu space look no further than the B2B sector.  

Separate Marketing of Master's Degrees from the Rest

Should we continue to market the vertical stack of degrees?

For any given month, they say there are 2 million leads and 100,000 people who will enroll - for a 5% conversion rate. 

The historic thinking for growth has been to increase the payout and buy more leads, this in turn funded the tactics used to grow the size of the pool.  The usual focus was on acquisition and taking one's fair share of the conversions.   But at some point, either the increasing cost per lead or a slower growth rate suggests that we need to think about converting more than our fair share.  

If we take the point of view that in a given month there are a fixed number of people who will enroll, then the question becomes: How do we differentiate ourselves in order to grow? Some suggestions.

1. Brand - Be known for something - there is simply too much sameness across institutions making it difficult to break out the mold.
2. Message - Move beyond 'ease, convenience, and cost' - there are segments of the market where more specific messages and benefits work well.
3. Proof Points - Targeted content - augment the good strides in identifying specific niche groups of potential students with customized content for each program segment combination.

For Master's degrees these suggestion take on more importance for two reasons.  First, conversion rate is much lower than the 5% average cited above.   Second, this audience researches their options fairly heavily over a period of time.   This combination suggests a distinct approach and possibly a dedicated team to service this growing segment.

Like many other categories, fragmentation is coming to education - I think it is time to adapt our marketing accordingly. 

Five Easy Pieces: Ideas for Marketing Education

What were we thinking?

Walking around the Career College Association convention we had an iPad with a number of short presentations.  They were ways to engage in discussion around some fresh ideas we've been working with and sharing with clients.   Here is a brief summary and links to individual posts where the presentation can be found.  

• Positioning Programs - a way to look at individual programs based on how graduates intend to use their degrees.
• Leveraging the Curriculum - thoughts on how the course catalog can be used to battle 'sameness' and differentiate a program in prospecting, admissions and remarketing.
• Marketing by Degree - a look at the emotional needs of prospects across levels of education and by interest stage. Fragmentation is only going to continue.
• Organizing an FAQ - there are a 1,000+ questions prospects have.  Here's a simple suggestion on  a way to organize content to answer them.
• Syllabus-Week - Master's degree seekers are different, they need to compare and think.  This one is an idea for creating a consumer-facing site where prospects are matched with faculty and programs.

ps - the iPad is a great way to give presentations in small groups.

Leveraging the Curriculum

How can we better use the course catalog?

Battling Sameness. Once the big three questions are answered (financing, timing, and credit transfer) prospects end up with several schools in their consideration set. And as Seth Godin argues, they all look pretty much the same at this point and it is up to the sales skills of admissions to turn interest into enrollment. Courses and faculty can help make the difference.

In prospecting, conversion and remarketing curriculum-based content can help meet objectives.

Key Message: free the course catalog from the shackles of a 19th century document to help differentiate your programs.

Program Specific Micro-sites

This is the second of Five Easy Pieces

Positioning Programs Based on Outcome

How do we use a degree to get a job?

Differentiation. We all make the claim that an education leads to a better career. But exactly how does that work? This presentation provides an answer to the question "How Do Prospects Use a Degree?" When a competitive set of programs are plotted according to the specialty of the curriculum and the specialty of the institution four different segments are created.


Key Message: prospects choose a program based on how they expect it to help them.

Positioning Programs

This is the first of Five Easy Pieces

Marketing by Degree

How do emotional appeals vary by degree level?

Fragmentation. All categories splinter into sub-categories, each with its own strategy, audience and market leaders. Eduction is no different. However, all too often the same approach is applied to both the level of degree (Associate, Bachelor, and Master's) and stage of the relationship (inquiry, admissions, and remarketing.)

A simple framework looking at the needs of prospects is provided to help refine and improve creative plans.

Key Message: segment by degree and stage as you develop marketing campaigns

Marketing by Degree

This is the third of Five Easy Pieces

Organizing the Myriad of Questions

What three folders of content do we need?

FAQs. Like any high-consideration product, education spawns 1,000+ questions from prospects. To ensure that they are all adequately planned for this presentation introduces a simple way for organizing your content..

All prospect questions can be reduced to three topics:

• Program - Institutional
• Placement - Career or job centric
• People - Social

Key Message: build out a content library around the 3 Ps of education marketing: Program, Placement, and People.

Reducing 1,000 questions to 3 Ps

The fourth of Five Easy Pieces

Marketing Master's Degrees with the Syllabus

How can we use Syllabus-Week as a recruiting tool?

They are Different. All the research, both real and anecdotal, suggests that people seeking Master's degrees don't think or behave like other prospects. They tend to be more deliberate in their process and often have a longer time horizon. If Master's Degrees weren't the new black maybe we could get by with traditional marketing. But this sector is one of the most attractive segments to focus on.

Maybe what the industry needs is a comparative shopping engine or matching program that focuses on the prospect's decision-making process.

Key Message: facilitate the natural tendency of Master's seekers to compare programs.

Syllabus Week for Master's

The fifth of Five Easy Pieces

Lessons from Mirren: Cheat and Make it Up

How should we tackle new business?

Alex Bogusky recently spoke at the Mirren New Business conference.   The two key points from the videos:

1. Cheat by breaking the rules: smart is being different, not the same
2. Make it up 12 hours before the meeting: new is better than a rehash

Carrying this forward into the education market; here's my thinking.

• Don't focus on generating and selling leads to schools, focus on helping prospects choose one school over another
• Syllabus week is a new way and better way to market master's degrees because this segment researches like crazy

Actually, that last point came to me driving to the CCA conference last week so it is a couple of days old.  

Notes from the Exhibit Hall

What did we learn walking up and down the aisles?

Last week at the "Career College Association" (CCA) conference in Vegas there was a lot of talk about the big three issues:

1. Impending regulations for the inquiry (lead) environment.
2. The risks posed by loan defaults; or the 'new subprime market'.
3. The opportunities created by rising costs and decreasing quality.

A decade ago Clay Christensen wrote a piece on disrupting education arguing that the 500 year-old model would implode when several conditions existed.   The necessary conditions are:

1. Technology that makes delivery and consumption simple and foolproof.
2. Sufficient numbers of non or over-shot consumers to create momentum.
3. A business model that changes the economic model and prevents incumbents from fighting back.

Based on the conversations at the booths of vendors, agencies and a few institutions, we might be close.  There was a sense that the current lead and delivery models may not be the best or only way of doing things.   While no established company openly abandoned their previous business, they were very interested in talking about the implications and the art of the possible.   And when established companies talk this way, changes are a coming.

Consider the following companies that are doing things just a bit differently:

• StraighterLine - focuses on delivering education starting at $99 a month.  
• Zinch - reverses the recruitment process by making high-school students the center of the universe.
• Instructure - a learning management system that gives its product away to teachers.

Maybe our thoughts about comparing curriculum and faculty across schools in a 'syllabus week' isn't such a radical idea.   And the thought of an 'on-demand' education taking courses from a variety of institutions isn't such a wild idea. 

Prediction: Openness in education will lead to building your own program and degree.  

The Impact of TV on Search

What happens to intent when one broadcasts loudly?

Search and television advertising are often held out as the ends of the communication spectrum - personal and full of intent on one side vs. shouting from the largest platform possible on the other.   But sometimes we get to look at the intersection.  

The chart below is for search traffic from Google Trends for "Kaplan University" (a former client) over the past several years. 

 We see slow, organic growth for two years followed by a step change at the beginning of the third year (week 104 is Jan 2009) and another change at the beginning of this year (week 156).   What caused the increase?

My guess: TV

In January 2009 Kaplan launched the 1-month "Talent" (see below) campaign with two commercials around the idea that traditional education has failed today's students.  They reintroduced the campaign in January of this year for a 3-month run.    What's interesting is that the 2009 media burst lifted the search volume not only during the campaign, but also for the rest of the year.   While it's too early to tell what the impact in 2010 is, there are some clear questions for marketers and agencies:

1. How will we pay off the interest of a break-through branding campaign?
2. How can we take the essence of the spot into interactive, social and digital realms?
3. What content would best support this type of interaction?
4. What is the long term value of branding?
5. How and what do we measure beyond the end of the campaign?
6. When do we get rid of the silos? 

Forget the Funnel

When was the last time we thought of ourselves as being in the funnel?

Joseph Jaffe's "Flip the Funnel" and Seth Godin's "Flipping the Funnel" both make sound arguments for working from the customer outwards - reversing the traditional sales funnel by focusing on customers as fans first. No argument there. 

But I for one have never thought about being in a funnel or at some stage of the buying process.  I am just where I am, doing what I'm doing without concern for gates or acronyms;  I don't think in terms of....

• AIDA (awareness, interest, decision and action)
• BANT (budget, authority, need and timing). 

I think in terms of wants or needs and may in fact have several alternatives in mind.  So rather than a linear process as seen from the sell-side it is really a complex set of moving parts and trade-offs on the buy-side.  To help me choose there are two pre-requisites:

1. Get in the Consideration Set - this is the ultimate gating factor.  If a product isn't in this select group, then there will be no decision or sale.
2. Engagement - this is where the rubber hits the road.  If a brand, company, or product doesn't get to an emotional connection there will also be no decision or sale.

Many times it happens to be either personal recommendations (as in the "flip" scenarios) or content that does the trick.   As marketers, if we focus on engagement and consideration then we just might be surprised the amount of business we do with loyal customers and their connections.

In short, I'm beginning to believe that the proverbial funnel exists solely in the minds of sale and marketing as a means of measuring progress against their objectives not mine.   

Gaining Access to the Consideration Set

How does a product get on to a prospect's short list?

For any given business need a myriad of potential options exist making the potential consideration set too large to manage.  Hyper-choice, or having too many options, creates a kind of paralysis in the decision making process.   So we need to winnow the list down.

Since we've moved past the basic need stage of our lives to focus on wants and desires we're in the realm of emotions, perceptions and beliefs.   From a product marketing perspective this means providing more than just feature check lists.  In fact, facts alone are insufficient for an individual or group make a decision.  There must be more.

I had the chance to talk recently with a client about their white paper.  While written in impeccable prose and marketing terms, it fell short as a tool for generating interest and leads.  Here are my observations:

1. The pain wasn't agitated enough to create urgency or action.  It was a nice-to-read piece and I learned some things but could easily have filed it away without further thought.
2. It lacked the empathy required to base a relationship on; the tone was sterile and distant.  I didn't feel like the company was somebody I could easily explain the issues to.
3. There was no follow-up plan or next step.  I was left with: "OK, now what?" on my mind. And given the objective of generating leads it should at least facilitate the prospect's buying process.

Gaining access to the consideration set often requires painting a vision of the future, offering a plan to get there, and providing the credentials to pull it off.    For in the end, clients buy our products and services when they trust us to either make their problem go away or get them to a new place. 

The Race to Rapport

How does a someone choose a college?

The college search and admissions process pretty much ends when a prospect feels like a school is the 'right choice' for them.  While often backed up with facts and figures, this is an emotional decision. Therefore, the institution that builds rapport first usually wins.

So how do two common tactics used to start the admissions process differ in terms of establishing rapport? 

Direct mail allows for more creativity in demonstrating why a school is different. Although I may have to retract that a bit after seeing the picture to the left: This is what Emmie, a high-school sophomore, has at home. It also supports a little more of a broadcast or outbound approach; buy a list and send a piece to prospective students - who may not even know the college exists. A serious drawback of direct mail is that there is a disconnect between the piece on the counter and the cell phone in a prospect's pocket.

Leads from an online source can be routed directly to call centers or admission reps for follow-up.  And we're talking sub-10 minute follow-up, not in the next day or so.  But this approach requires the prospect to first raise their hand first and hit a submit button on one (or many) of the myriad of education sites and portals.  The fact that every institution can appear on a portal levels the playing field in terms of awareness while at the same time diminishing the chance to differentiate one from another.  Most portals show a list of school banner ads along with a small amount of text associated with the "request more information" form.  There really isn't much there to help a person choose one option over another and get to that gut feeling that the school is the right one.  That's not a portal's job.

If time to rapport is the critical success factor for admissions then some more thinking is required to get from point A to point B.  Online prospects should have more information, maybe delivered in the 10 minutes between submit and hello.   Direct mail recipients, while often seeing personalized URLs, may need a different delivery form or connection method.

Story Telling with Curriculum

How can we improve the marketing of education programs?

Seems to me that there is an opportunity to use a course catalog to tell a story to prospective students about what they'll cover and accomplish in a given program.    Too often the really interesting material a college or university has to offer is locked up in a document not really fit for marketing purposes.  A couple of examples:

• For a large online university, the descriptions for a particular program start on page 261 of a 400+ page document.
• For a local school, what I'd learn in a web design course are spread across departments.  And this is after all the admissions, policy and graduation bumpf. 
• For a school with both online and ground-based programs the descriptions for a history degree were at least in their own document; but that was several clicks away.

In all cases the writing style looks like it came out of a committee, not a strong copy writer. The best teachers and professors regale us with stories, anecdotes and facts and figures.  We should take a page from their success and repurpose course descriptions as telling a story.   

When it comes to building rapport with prospective students, which is the most critical factor in the admissions process, sometimes the answer to the question "What will I learn?" will tip the balance in favor of one institution over another.

Continuous Content Consumption

What do we do with our remarkable content?

The success of content marketing programs rests as much on contact strategies as it does on the content itself. In high consideration categories, where the research process is intense and occurs over a period of time, distributing high-value content to high-value contacts requires more than an eblast or a download.

In looking around for a framework on content marketing, I stumbled upon this one from the folks at Merkle.

I like it because it starts with the business objective: What are we trying to achieve? and goes through a structured approach to creating and measuring the impact of how content works.     However, the big boxes along the top seem to be missing a critical component:  Content Distribution or Consumption.

In B2B technology, education, and numerous other categories content consumption is a continuous process as options are considered, needs are crystallized and benefits weighed.  To nurture interest the where, when and with whom of content consumption must be mapped out as much as the other areas of the strategy. The role of content, be it stories or facts and figures, is to help the recipient feel more comfortable about one option over another.  In categories where personal sales ultimately close the deal, content should focus on getting you in the consideration set. 

In the end, the role of a content contact plan is not to help people decide, but rather to help them choose. 

Content Marketing and Lead Generation

Are lead generation and content marketing compatible?

Often when discussing 'lead generation' we fall into the trap of thinking that it is about driving traffic to a form.   That is certainly one aspect, but in the grander scheme of things there are other aspects of lead generation.   The following illustrates one way to break down lead generation into various segments based on the business goal and focus. 

There are two possible goals: lead origination or lead conversion.  For each there are two possible ways to view the marketing focus.  We can strive for quantity or quality of new leads. We can strive for leads that require nurturing or those that close fast. 

And yes clients will want it all - "lots of well qualified leads that close fast because they have a connection with the company."  

The reality is that any company will have prospects in all four segments because of the different stages of demand that they are in.   Content plays different roles in each of the possible group.

• Quantity:  broadcast enticing offers with a sense of excitement
• Quality:  target exclusive offers with an opportunity to further qualify, e.g. survey
• Nurture: respond to each touch with relevant content based on previous stream
• Close Fast: convey a sense of missing out if action not taken

Direct response was built on the Quantity - Close Fast combination: "If you order now, we'll double the order."

However, in many categories where prospects need to consider their next step in the choice process the Quality - Nurture combination may be a better approach.   High value contacts deserve and respond to high value content.  Content marketing of a different form is required for this type of lead generation. 

As content marketing matures we will be segmenting the lead generation pool according to their needs and developing content accordingly.