Recently in Advertising Category

Late summer greetings to everyone. From the chatter on Twitter, it seems that the arrival of new freshmen on campuses across the country has been a marvelous event. Special congratulations to everyone who helped carry freight from cars to dorm rooms.

Check at the end of the newsletter for new fall presentations, including a conference in Denmark, a December webinar for "Writing Right for the Web," and the continuation of the "Bob$100" discount for the October Aslanian adult student recruitment conference.

Plan to attend the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education and register for an updated and expanded "Marketing Communications in a World without Paper" Sunday tutorial. A highly rated summer version from eduWeb09 is the first one on SlideShare at www.slideshare.net/bestbob

Check my blog for notes on Heather Mansfield's "10 Twitter Tips for Higher Education" at bit.ly/12VoTl

Join me on Twitter at twitter.com/HighEdMarketing

For everyone here in the States, best wishes for a fine Labor Day weekend.

And now here are marketing news and notes for September.
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Forbes Magazine 2009 College Rankings

Forbes released 2009 rankings in early August, based on "the quality of the education, the experience of the students, and how much they achieve."

While most of the usual suspects fill out the top spots, Forbes calls attention to unexpected additions at the highest levels, including Centre College and Union College. At the top of the list: West Point.

My favorite criterion: 25 percent of the ranking is based on student evaluations at RateMyProfessors.com. That beats the "reputation" factor in another popular report.

Start the full report at www.forbes.com/2009/08/02/colleges-university-ratings-opinions-colleges-09-intro.html
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Evaluating Social Media Results

You should not worry if the people who sign on to your social media sites or read your blogs do not actively participate with comments and other contributions of new content. Most people just read,without joining or actively participating. And that, of course, has marketing value by itself.

By far the largest category for social media participation is from Spectators (79 percent), while Creators (24 percent) and Critics (37 percent) lag far behind. Indeed, only 51 percent will actually join a social media site where they are spectators.

What is the marketing lesson? Do not over promise active results when you start new social media ventures. For the details, check the latest research at the Groundswell blog site at
blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2009/08/social-technology-growth-marches-on-in-2009-led-by-social-network-sites.html
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Drexel Gets First Place: Top University Websites for Search Engine Optimization

Find methodology you can use to test your own school as you review "Top SEO College Websites 2009" at www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2009/09/01/top-seo-college-websites-2009

The writer gives most colleges and universities an "F" grade for SEO and includes four reasons why he thinks more schools do not do better. The first: over reliance on "brand recognition" to bring traffic to the website.

The increase in the importance of online education does seem to motivate some schools to do much better than others. The "Top Three" here: Drexel University, University of Phoenix, and Capella University.
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Google Analytics Basics

Just getting started in web analytics? Thinking of using Google Analytics?

"Google Analytics 101" by Ron Jones at Search Engine Watch is a good place to start. The link at searchenginewatch.com/3634842 will take you to Part 2 and you can track back from there to Part 1.

Better use of analytics is an essential step to getting higher impact from your website. Pay special attention to the "bounce rate" (percent of people who leave a page without going further) at your admissions entry page and at each important page after that. Be sure that you filter out results for first-time visitors from those who are returning visitors.

Google advises that a bounce rate between 20 and 35 percent is acceptable.
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Best Ad Sizes for Online Advertising

AdAge reviews what works best and why at adage.com/digital/article?article_id=138554

Special note: flash-based ads were the least effective of every type tested.
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Time Magazine Picks Top 50 Websites

No college or university websites made the Time list, but the academic world is represented by selection #9, Academic Earth. That is a website for free college courses and lectures from 7 "leading universities."

Browse the full 50 to learn more about the expectations that some of these sites will create for users of higher education websites. The Times list is at
www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1809858_1809957,00.html

And visit the clean and simple Academic Earth home page at www.academicearth.org/
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Mobile Web Help from MIT

Expect more and more people to access your website from iPhones and similar smartphone devices. And more and more schools are developing special mobile-friendly web content rather than forcing people to navigate and use their regular websites.

Review in detail the strong effort from MIT at mobi.mit.edu/about/ or access it from a mobile browser at m.mit.edu

Not only MIT can do this. For a smaller school alternative, visit the Azusa Pacific University example at www.apu.edu/m/

MIT will help you get started. Contact Information Services & Technology at mobiweb@mit.edu
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Old School Marketing: 5 Tips for Better Envelope Copy

Still using mail to prospect for potential new students? Then "mystique" and "relevance" are especially important first impression goals.

Learn more at www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/5-ways-upgrade-envelope-copy-410894_1.html
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7 High End Twitter Analysis Tools

If you are very interested in Twitter, take time to explore the tools profiled at mashable.com/2009/08/30/analyze-twitter-content/ and you will likely find something of interest.

Scroll down to the end of the report for more links to other Twitter tools.

If you are not that interested in Twitter, keep reading.
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National Merit Scholarships End at UT Austin

What is the future of merit scholarships in the present economy?

The move by University of Texas at Austin to stop funding over 200 National Merit full-tuition scholarships reflects new pressures to focus scare funds on need-based awards. That is the rationale given to explain why UT Austin is dropping out of the National Merit competition and rolling those funds over to students with financial need.

What is the marketing impact of fewer National Merit scholars? UT Austin does not believe it will be great. Current brand strength is sufficiently strong that the SAT and GPA components of the academic profile are not expected to suffer.

Read more at www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/01/merit
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Teens and Twitter: Age is Not the Problem

New research on how people use Twitter makes an important point. Yes, the "great majority" of teens do not use Twitter. But then, neither do the "great majority" of adults use Twitter.

A key finding: Teens use Twitter at a higher rate than people from 25 to 44 years of age.

Another key finding: the reason most adults and teens do not use Twitter is simple: they can do the same things elsewhere on other sites that they prefer. Not using Twitter, it seems, is not related to age.

See the in-depth details at www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/why-dont-teens-tweet-we-asked-over-10000-of-them/
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Distance Learning Gains Faculty Support

A detailed report from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities brings good news to marketers who recognize that student interest at every age level is shifting in favor of online learning.

Professors, both senior and junior, are more willing to entertain teaching online courses than ever before. That is an important message for the not-for-profit sector as for-profit competitors continue to expand their online offerings.

Of course there is a caveat. Faculty do not think they are receiving enough support for the effort it takes to develop and introduce new online courses. Read an outline of the report at www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1347 and see where senior enrollment and marketing professionals might give support and encouragement to people willing to expand product in this key area.
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Web Writer Position at Alma College

Alma College is taking applications for a web content writer position within the marketing and public relations office. Details for the position are at www.alma.edu/about/offices/personnel/jobs/archives/2009/08/28/web_writer
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My Upcoming Presentations in 2009

Share questions and answers with people like yourself who are building a competitive edge in higher education marketing. Join me for one or more of these events.

October 21-22, Chicago, IL: Aslanian Group Seminars: Competing for Adults Students, "Branding and the Web: The Value of Your Official Website in the Social Media Era." Download conference brochure at www.coburncreative.com/educationdynamics/f2009_seminar.pdf Save $100 when you enter "Bob$100" in the discount code box as you register.

October 26-27, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin System, Adult Student Recruitment & Retention Conference, "Key Website Features for Adult Student Recruitment." Conference information is at www.uwosh.edu/rrconference

November 3-5, Aarhus, Denmark: J. Boye Conference: Aarhus09, "Improving Higher Education Websites: Lessons from the Student Experience." Conference program and registration at www.jboye.com/conferences/aarhus09/higher-education

November 15-17, Boston, MA: AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, "Marketing in a World without Paper: Creating a Recruitment Communications Plan in an Online Future" (3.5 hour Sunday afternoon tutorial). Details at www.marketingpower.com/Calendar/Pages/marketingevent_highereducation_2009.aspx

December 8, Webinar: "Writing Right for the Web." Program details soon from Academic Impressions at www.academicimpressions.com/web_conferences.htm

Increase ROI from your online marketing. Expand the writing, editing, and search marketing skills of people on your campus. Host a campus workshop on online marketing.

Contact me at bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com
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That's All for Now

Be a marketing champion on your campus.

Bob Johnson, Ph.D. (bob@bobjohnsonconsulting.com)
President and Senior Consultant
Bob Johnson Consulting, LLC
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Bob Johnson Consulting, LLC

Increase your online marketing success with these 6 services.
• Customer Carewords Research with Gerry McGovern
• Writing Right for the Web On-Campus Workshops
• Marketing Communications Website Review
• Competitive Website Reviews
• Content Copywriting Services
• Usability Analysis

Start now at www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/whatwedo.html

Getting online this morning through Comcast, I couldn't help but notice a prominent right hand column ad offering "Online degrees in as Few as 2 Years." The temptation to add another example to my expanding collection of "post-click marketing" efforts was too much to resist. And so off I went to arrive at the first landing page of a long series of pages designed to "Help us match you with schools..."

10 Pages to Your 5 Recommended Online Schools

NextTag is an online comparision shopping location and I landed in the "degrees" category. Here are my notes for the journey that followed for the first page to page 10 (including a skip to review the privacy policy pages). You can take the same trip by following the link above.

• Page 1: Pick from 11 academic program areas that cover just about all things possible including "vocational." I went for "Health/Human Services." Easy page to understand
• Page 2: Tell them my age. Never sure why age is asked and this one was espcially curious: one selection for "25 and over" and 4 categories for age slices lower than that. This is an example of something asked for the benefit of the advertiser and not the visitor.
• Page 3: Pretty standard question about education already achieved, starting with GED. I told them I had a bachelor's degree.
• Page 4: Now they want to know when I graduated from high school or finished my GED. What's the point of this? Already asked about my age and previous education achieved, so this isn't going to help anyone re time away from education if I went past high school.
• Page 5: Asking if I'm a U.S. citizen is OK. Does it really require a page of its own?
• Page 6: A page for military service. This is a pretty standard question on ads like this, but the execution here was new: 26 choices, including "none." Is this level of detail necessary to determine if a person will qualify for service-related financial assistance?
• Page 7: Sombody realized the page count was getting high and decided to ask 3 things on one page: zip code; possible interest in a "nearby campus-based" program; email address. I left the campus program response in the "maybe" default answer.
• Page 8: Asking for address information, daytime and evening phone numbers, and an estimate of time to enrolling. Phone numbers were required before moving to the next page, a serious effort to pre-qualify anyone responding to the ad. The "start" date began with "less than 1 month" and ended with "more than 6 months." That's a good step to sort people for immediate phone contact. I checked one of the two middle options.
• Page 9: The schools for me arrive on this page: Ashford University, University of the Rockies, American Intercontinental University, Kaplan University, Argosy University. For each, I'm asked to pick a specific degree program from a drop-down menu. Most included only master's level programs that were in some way health or human services related. The exception was for Kaplan University, where my choices included 12 bachelor's level programs. In case I was interested in a second bachelor's degree?
• Privacy Policy Diversion: at this point, before hitting the final "submit" button, visitors can elect to read throught the long and legal privacy policy statement. Suffice it to say that if you continue, expect to receive a variety of future contacts. You've just agreed to a host of offers based on the information provided.
• Page 10: A final "Thank You" page that relists the 5 schools that will "shortly" contact me. And in case I'm interested, invitations to explore "other popular services" appear here: mortgage rates and credit score services.

That's it! Done. It didn't take as long to complete the 10 pages as it did to write about them.

Phoenix and Capella Didn't Rate

Inexplicable result: University of Phoenix and Capella University are listed on the first page as one of 12 "leading schools" participating in the ad. Wonder why neither was among the 5 schools that were returned to a person interested in an online master's degree in health/human services? How did NexTag decide what was most likely right for me? 

Particular puzzlements:

• The intense interest in age slices for people less than 24 years old.
• The extraordinarily detailed military service page.

Overall impression: This could be fine-tuned for easier completion and therefore likely higher completion rate. I'd certainly be tracking the path of those who start the journey to see how many people stopped at various pages. On the other hand, maybe the completion rate is high enough and the "puzzlement" information valuable enough not to do this.

Next stage activity: The first two emails arrived almost instantly after completing the process, from Kaplan and American Intercontinental. At least 2 others have come along since. Differences between the two are obvious. This story of "post-click marketing" will continue next week.

Each year I keep a file for online advertising... screen shots of the initial ads, the landing pages, the online and email responses, and what happens when you leave the landing page for the regular website. Great presentation material.

Not long ago I was visiting a U.K. camera review site and couldn't help but notice the right column display ad to "Find the Top Online Degrees" above a list that included certificate and associate's degrees to doctoral opportunities. A quick click and I was off to explore the master's category. The ad was offered by earnmydegree.com.

11 Competing Schools

My first stop was on a page that included icons for the 11 "Top" competing schools:

• Kaplan University
• University of Phoenix
• Gonzaga University
• Westwood College Online
• Saint Leo University
• The Art Institute of Pittsburgh
• American Intercontinental University
• Villanova University
• Everest University Online
• Colorado Technical University Online

A lingering affinity for Jesuit schools made me click on the Gonazaga University icon and arrive at a nicely done landing page that highlighted the Gonzaga benefits and included an inquiry form.

A "Bonus" for Interest in Gonzaga... Capella University 

Completing the inquiry form brought an unexpected surprise. Up came a "Congratulations Rebecca" response page that was much more than that... a "Bonus!" invitation to also explore opportunities at Capella University since "Students who requested information from Gonzaga University also show a high interest in this school." Must be true, or they couldn't print it, right? You didn't see much on this page other than Capella.

The effort to engage Rebecca with Capella didn't stop there.

Email for Gonzaga Also Leads to Capella

Rebecca also received a regular email response from the earnmydgree.com hosts. Most of that email highlighted things about Gonzaga. Right at the end was a large Green "click here" box. Being an obedient person Rebecca indeed clicked... and found herself on the same "Congratulations Rebecca" page promoting a visit to Capella.

Does online co-op advertising like this work? I don't know since I've never asked anyone who advertises. If the cost is right and the initial leads convert and enroll in sufficient numbers, then the answer is yes. And that answer may well differ from one school to another depending on results acheived. And results will vary with the quality of the follow-up, the cost, and other elements.

But this did represent a more intrusive effort to generate leads for more than the initial school of choice than I've seen over the last three years. Co-op advertising always drops the potential student into a group of competing schools on the initial landing page. What was new here was the aggressive effort to get people to continue to explore other schools.

With more time, it might be interesting to see if the unfolds a bit like those nesting Christmas boxes from Russia. If I'd asked for info on Capella, would earnmydegree.com offer me a third college or university? That's an activity for a lazier day.

One lesson is clear: track leads by source and know how conversion rate and cost-per-conversion compares to other lead sources.  

In the last couple of weeks, interesting new ad campaigns have come from Kaplan University and University of Phoenix. Today's comments are for the Phoenix effort.

In a nutshell: strong up-front creative but weak integration of what follows with the original marketing theme.

The new online campaign first appeared on my LinkedIn page... a good placement given that Phoenix is in search of professionals who might need more education to advance their careers. The creative theme in the ad also is strong... portrait of an individual person's success story with the prompt to "Be a Phoenix." For some, that just might mean rising from the professional ashes of a career damaged or destroyed in today's economy. Or it might just mean becoming a Phoenix alumnus. Either way, it works.

Following the link in the ad brings you to a strong landing page at http://tinyurl.com/9j5492 

The landing page repeats and reinforces the "Be a Phoenix" theme as it should. And there's an important message that Phoenix has 15 years experience in distance learning. Nice to know when some schools are just starting out.

And so I completed the inquiry form. In doing that, one element appeared that I haven't seen before... a place to indicate my agreement that since I had given them my phone number (I always use a false number and that part of the response plan is not included in this review) and it was OK to call me. 

An email response came just seconds after the inquiry form was submitted. That's about as fast as it gets. Great response time. And that's also where things started to fall apart:

• There's nothing in the email about the "Be a Phoenix" concept. If I click on one of 6 student images, I get to a curious page that isn't quite right. It does offer video stories based on the "Be" theme, but this page wasn't created just for people moving on from the email. It includes an opportunity to inquire again (is this a landing page for another campaign or for an online search?). It gives me a path to information about available programs and campus locations... but I already gave a program interest and a distance learning preference when I completed the first inquiry form. All in all the page at http://response.phoenix.edu/ just doesn't fit as well as it might. The stories are good; much of the rest isn't relevant at this point.
• The email is personalized by name but everything else is generic for any inquriy. This email should link me to more information about the program of interest that I told them about when completing the original inquiry.
• In the center of the email is a link to a "Quick Start Guide to Becoming a Student" that leads to an 11-page PDF that has no content about how to "Become a Phoenix." I'd bet major dollars that this hard-to-read PDF existed before the new ad campaign and was first prepared as a printed document. For sure, the people doing the campaign creative didn't have anything to do with this. The PDF appears at 103 percent of the page size. You can't see an entire page at one time until shrink the page to 75 percent. Not everyone visitor will know how to do that.
• A link at the end of the email also leads to http://response.phoenix.edu/

So what do we have here? A campaign with an impressive new creative approach to introduce people to the University of Phoenix brand. The message of "Be a Phoenix" seems strong. But like many online advertising campaigns, not enough time, energy, and money was spent on the follow-up to get maximum conversions from the initial effort.

The primary rule is simple... if you ask for and get important personal information like the name of the degree program I'm interested in and how I want to study it, then send me an email that builds on what I've already told you. Connect me directly to that program. 

And don't, for heavens sake, use the email to connect me to an 11-page "Quick Start" PDF that's hard to read, has background information of no interest, and gives me no chance to connect from that document to anywhere else at Phoenix. That's not a Quick Start to anywhere except maybe to another university. 

Way back in the 1990s, we advertised regularly on radio for "adult" students for evening and weekend programs. The result was constant phone calls from media reps promoting "reach"... the ability to have a seemingly infinite number of people in an urban area hear our ads at an insignificant per-person cost.

The trouble with "reach," of course, is that reaching people who have no special interest in what's being advertising doesn't make much sense. Much better to pay more money for the initial contacts if the result is more inquiries that convert to more enrollments. "Reach preachers" never wanted to talk much about conversions. Not their responsibilty.

That's why Steve Rubel's article today in AdAge  ("How Digital Media Will Deliver Tangible Results) struck a special note. Steve is writing about "reach devaluation" in the digital age. Here's what he says:

"Although advertisers increasingly are exploring other metrics, i.e. engagement and reputation, reach still rules -- at least for now. Unfortunately, reach is slowly losing its value as media consumption increasingly moves deeper into the digital realm.

"Where in the analog age we might be loyal to a given media brand, today's consumers are far more agnostic. We're more likely to dip into an array of online sources including traditional news sites, blogs and social networks -- and often via search or social networks.

"All of this diminishes the entire concept of reach. After all, if a site claims that it reaches millions but they're all just drive-bys, do such figures truly matter? In the years ahead, advertisers will rethink reach and not pay nearly as much for it as they did when they bought media based on a rate base and/or circulation. This will create tremendous disruption for media companies as they have to shift to new ways to prove their value."

Traditional agency media people no doubt agree with Rubel that the devaluation of reach is "unfortunate." But it isn't. In the digital era, online advertising and our analytics software gives us the ability to track and measure results in a way that only direct marketers welcomed in the 1990s and earlier. And that, especially in a time of diminishing advertising resources, is only a good thing.

The news came first on the radio driving to Marshall last night on my trip back from CASE V in Chicago... ironic perhaps that I'd just that morning done a "Writing Right for the Web" workshop that holds up direct marketing and journalism as two precursors of an effective web writing style.

The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News (two parts of the same corporate conglomerate) will end most home delivery of the newspapers next year, citing increased costs for fuel, ink, and news print. And, no doubt, continued shrinking of the advertising income.

Just a symbol of the economy in Michigan? Hardly. The news report quoted a high level person whose name escapes me now that it was time to get heads out of the sand and take a major step in recognition of the changing ways that people get news.

Then came an email from David Anger, editor of the Free Press, to home subscribers, citing two major reasons for the change:

• "First, the newspaper industry must completely transform its way of doing business in order to survive. With generations of readers and advertisers using digital media more and more, we simply cannot continue to bear the cost of delivering the ink-on-paper newspaper every day.
  
  "Second, we need to invest in new ways to deliver information digitally, whether on our Web site or on the mobile devices so many people carry now. The changes we're announcing will enable us to do that. We need to move even more rapidly into the digital age."

And so the transformation of how we get our information continues, away from print and toward the online world. These newspapers may be leading the way on the home delivery front, but others certainly will follow.

For college and university marketing, the change highlights the ongoing shift away from newspaper advertising and toward organic search optimization and online advertising.

I've read the Free Press since arriving in Michigan in 1973. Always, right after the front page headline, the comics were the first attraction. But that's changed within the last few years, as the size of most strips was reduced to tiny print matching shrinkage of the page size of the paper itself.

Life will go on. Major news headlines will appear each morning as the laptop comes to life. And there's Yahoo2Go on the smartphone for headlines anytime, anywhere when the connection works.

The Free Press editor's message to subscribers is 
here. 

Is there growth potential in online doctoral programs? Capella University thinks there is. 

Not quite sure when the ads first started, but sometime in the last week or so I've noticed a new campaign for Capella appearing as banner ads on various websites.

The ad is very simple and doesn't feature any wiggly dancers or fetching women that seem out of place on other group ads for online college and university programs. Other than the name, the ad copy is limited to "Over 30 doctoral specializations, all focused on advancing your career." The call to action is for receipt of a "free university guide."

Follow the quest for a guide and you arrive at http://capellalearning.net/default.aspx?v=unilong 

Easy to Scan Degree Offerings

Some points of note about the landing page:

• You'll see a very visible question: "Does Capella have my program?" that leads to an easy to scan chart of the degree programs available. Seems very effective to answer that critical first question, "Do they have what I want to study."
• Visitors are told clearly that a follow-up call will come along if you complete the inquiry form as requested. That's a nice way to sort out who's serious from who is not. (And of course, if you just want the guide, you don't have to give them a real phone number.)
• At the bottom, you have an option to pick up the phone and call.

Complete the form and you get a quick thank you with a note that "An enrollment counselor will be contacting you."

There's also a PDF version of what I suspect is the guide (called "Capella Degree Programs") that will come in the mail. What's unusual about this one is that you can actually read it online without having to increase and decrease the size of the image to see the photos and read the print. Nicely done for a PDF. You can move directly from the content page to the major content area of most interest, so you don't have to scroll through each one of the 38 pages in the guide.

Building the Capella University Brand

Although the ad highlights doctoral degrees, the program information outlines everything available from the bachelor's level up. That makes sense, since many people who explore the opportunity may aspire to a doctoral degree without yet having the earlier degrees in place. And for some visitors, it might enhance the Capella brand to associate the bachelors and masters programs with the doctoral offerings.

Test the form for yourself at http://capellalearning.net/default.aspx?v=unilong

A long flight yesterday from Detroit to Santa Barbara for today's "Writing Right for the Web" workshop at Fielding Graduate University was more than enough time to read Wall Street Journal and USA Today articles about the new iPhone coming in July.

No, the new iPhone by itself doesn't herald the much anticipated break out of mobile marketing on smartphones throughout the land. But it certainly moves things in the right direction, starting with a much lower entry price point of $199. That's a critical change.

Mobile Marketing Barriers

What's been holding back mobile marketing? The price of the phone, the price of the data plan needed to take advantage of the capabilities, and the learning curve for the new capabilities. And, of course, the limited ability of relatively small smartphone screens to display most types of online advertising. The iPhone doesn't remove all those barriers, but it keeps things moving in the right direction.

Change is coming. And the first step is just getting smartphones in the hands of more people. Today, something like 20 percent of people in the U.S. have them. That's not nearly enough for a significant advance in mobile marketing. But that market penetration percent will continue to climb.

Details about the new iPhone capabilities are at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2008-06-09-iphone_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

New Challenge for Google

And for an interesting article on the new challenges facing Google from smartphone expansion, see "Are Google, Yahoo the next dinosaurs" at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2008-06-09-mobile-search_N.htm 

One thing we can count on. Web marketing 5 years from now will be a much different game.

Sitting in the Sacramento airport this morning on the way back from a web review report at UC Merced, I got online to check email. That takes me through a first Yahoo "news" page. This morning, the lead story is a tease to learn about "degrees to get you hired" to help you move forward in life at least until 2016.

Since I'm always in favor of moving forward, I visited followed the link to http://education.yahoo.net/degrees/articles/featured_8_sure_fire_hires.html and scanned the list of growing employment areas. Pretty standard stuff. Along with the story "reporting" the list comes a plethora of advertising opportunities for colleges and universities of every type. Hundreds of them.

You can sort by the level of degree or the area of study. But if you're interested in a "doctoral" program, don't expect to have only those advanced fields reported back to you. Whoever programmed this thing really does follow the mantra of "just keep throwing things at people until something sticks."

I tried sorting the alpha list for on-campus programs by zip code, using one from Michigan. That did sort things out to the point where the first programs reported were indeed in or near the zip code. But the list kept right on going, reporting non-degree occupational programs in locations as far as 2,000 miles away.

Does advertising like this work? It all depends on ROI. Cost of leads returned and percent who convert to enrollments. But it sure isn't a direct marketer's idea of how to do things.

You can't miss it just about anywhere on the web these days: Advertising for adults to enroll in bachelor's and master's degree programs.

And much if not most of this is tightly targeted to people searching for the right career. After all, "career advancement" is one of the strongest terms that students of every age favor in our Customer Carewords research.

Consider this example. Yahoo runs a "news" story on the front page about the "10 stealth careers that are on the rise." That's a fly trap to lure people into a plethora of ads for adult degree programs. Visit http://education.yahoo.net/degrees/articles/featured_10_great_careers_you_never_heard.html and you'll find a story on "10 Great Careers You've Probably Never Heard Of" and the chance to browse for degrees in just about any area you can imagine.

• The advertising isn't just from for-profits like Phoenix and Capella. Search for online Ph.D. programs, for instance, and you'll find an ad for Boston University. Follow that ad and you'll eventually learn that the BU choices are for Doctor of Physical Therapy and a "Doctorate in Occupational Therapy."
• Things fall apart just a bit at this point as much of the information you find with a "Ph.D." level search isn't for Ph.D. degrees. In this case, the BU trip takes you to ads for Northeastern, George Washington, and Norwich universities. Each is offering an array of master's degrees but no Ph.D. level programs.

But why quibble? If you throw enough ads on the wall, some of them will stick and attract flys. At least that seems to be the theory at work right now for online advertising for adults.