Recently in Mobile Marketing Category

Mobile Marketing: Register for the No-Cost Sept 22 AMA Virtual Event for Higher Ed

Yesterday was the "finish day" for my September mobile marketing presentation at the American Marketing Association's virtual spectacular: "Getting to the Core of Social Media & Mobile Marketing for Higher Ed Institutions." We are recording this in advance next week as I'll be flying back from Dublin and our annual Customer Carewords partners meeting on the AMA date.

My time share is 45 minutes... so it was quite fun revisiting the mobile marketing workshop for eduWeb2010 and reducing that 3-hour session to fit the reduced time. 'Tis done and time to share thoughts from the shrinking and updating process.

Here are some things that stand out:

• The question of mobile apps vs. mobile sites is misleading. Fact is, a complete mobile marketing plan will likely have both elements. But if you can only do one, better to create a mobile-friendly site similar to what the College of Charleston has done. Search for C of C from your favorite mobile device (I used an iPhone) and enjoy the mobile friendly results. Or just enter the regular URL (http://www.cofc.edu/) and the website will sniff out that you are using a mobile device and switch you into the mobile site.
• I came across a video interiew with Jakob Nielsen that is well worth watching. Nielsen makes a point that's especially worth remembering: some tasks just are not suited to the mobile environment. He believes in-depth product searches and complicated financial transactions are best done on regular websites accessed from regular computers.
• The Nielsen note is important for higher education. You can, for instance, build an easy-to-find list of your academic programs for mobile access (right from the C of C mobile home page) but at some point you'll be tempted to link back to your regular website for complete information. At that point, mobile usability will plunge.
• Simplicity is key to mobile-friendly form completion. I use a webinar example from Kettering University for an inquiry from a potential student: all that's needed is an email address.
• Finding higher education examples of "mobile for advancement" tasks isn't easy, although I haven't yet checked to see if College of Charleston has included any on its new site. I did find one example: an offer to alumni to sign for text message updates for athletic events at MidAmerica Nazrene University.

That's enough on mobile marketing for today.

When you visit the AMA site to register, you'll see another mobile presentation from Kim Dushinski, author of the Mobile Marketing Handbook. I recommend visiting her website and signing up for Kim's regular mobile marketing updates.

Mobile Marketing Presentation on SlideShare

The eduWeb2010 version of my mobile marketing workshop, "Mobile in the Marketing Mix: Crafting a New Communications Strategy," is online now at SlideShare.

Mobile Marketing with the American Marketing Association: September 22

Register for "Getting to the Core of of Social Media and Mobile Marketing for Higher Ed Institutions" virtual event.

That's all for now 

Mobile Mrketing: Invest in Mobile Apps or a Mobile Website?

At both the ACT and eduWeb mobile marketing workshop sessions in July, a popular question was this: Should we first invest in mobile apps or should we be creating a "mobile-friendly" website?

Wise people differ on the answer. 

The Urge for an App

Apps are best done for special events that can range from virtual tours to campus transit instructions and time tables to specific marketing campaigns. An individual app done for mobile is easier to do than reconstructing an entire website. And after all, there's an app for just about everything anyone wants to do online, isn't there?

Advertising can make it seem as if apps are the "must have" element in mobile marketing. Yes and no. Research says that few people regularly use more than a few apps, no matter how many they download.

The Need for a Mobile-Friendly Site by 2011

If limited resources force you to make a choice, I'm in the camp that says work on creating a mobile-friendly version of your regular website and have that ready by mid-point 2011.

Don't do apps if doing them means postponing work on a website that will please people who access it from a mobile phone. We are not talking about iPads here. The mobile device that people are most likely to use to get to your site are iPhones and Androids. Maybe Blackberry. Check your analytics report to see what people are using now and track that growth every month from now until December.

Consider this from the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported in July:

• 65 percent of people 18 to 29 years old use their smartphone to access the Internet. Just under 50 percent of people 30 to 39 do the same. Expect those numbers to grow.

Top Tasks for Mobile: Student Recruitment

For the best marketing impact, you won't be able to get away with "mangling down" (thanks to Drew Stevenson, University of Minnesota for that great phrase) your regular website. Instead, you'll have to make difficult choices about the content that's most needed by people visiting your site and make that the main focus of your mobile efforts. That will force more attention in navigation to the top tasks people want to complete on your site. Consider these for student recruitment:

• Read a list of academic programs available
• Calculate the net cost to attend your school
• Register for a campus visit
• Make an inquiry
• Check application status
• Pay an enrollment deposit

Example of a Mobile-Ready Site: College of Charleston

The task is daunting but far from impossible. College of Charleston says it has adapted 95 percent of its regular website for mobile access. Frankly, that almost seems more than necessary. Adaptation to mobile just might be a great time to identify those seldom-visited pages on your regular website that people can't bear to remove. Mark them as "not needed for mobile" and focus instead on your most used pages.

Visit the College of Charleston mobile site. Start by reading the description of the change and then use your smartphone to see just how well it works. One of the first things you'll note: you don't have to "finger flick" to make the type large enough to read when you arrive at a page.

The Charleston site makes a strong first impression. That first "curb appeal" of your site, mobile or not, will help or hinder the success of your marketing efforts.

Expect more "notes on mobile" soon.

Mobile Marketing Presentation on SlideShare

The eduWeb version of my mobile marketing workshop, "Mobile in the Marketing Mix: Crafting a New Communications Strategy," is online now at SlideShare.

Mobile Marketing with the American Marketing Association

Register for "Getting to the Core of of Social Media and Mobile Marketing for Higher Ed Institutions" webinar after you check the September 22 topic list. I'll be speaking on strategy for an effective mobile marketing effort.

That's all for now 

My mobile marketing workshops at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference last week and eduWeb2010 on Monday attracted some great people, ready to share questions and experiences with everyone attending. Before leaving for Carol Aslanian's graduate marketing seminar in NYC tomorrow, time for some quick notes on mobile marketing and higher education.

First, a special thinks to Suzanne Petrusch and her team at St. Mary's University and Dave Marshall at Mongoose Research for assembling recruitment cycle conversion data that was of special interest to people at the workshops. Here's my summary of the St. Mary's experience using text messaging as part of the communications mix with potential new students since last November:

• Relatively few inquiries (about 4 percent) opted in for text messaging at or near the start of the recruitment cycle. That confirms findings in the 2010 E-Expectations research that college-bound high school students are wary of receiving text messages for student recruitment.
• But, and this is a very major "but": almost everyone (about 80 percent) who did opt-in early for text contacts continued along and applied for admission.
• Almost 50 percent of the people sending enrollment deposits by the end of June were people who had signed to receive text contacts.

Texting Offer Identifies Best Prospects Early

The learning here: offering the texting option was a great way to identify early in the recruitment cycle the people who were already very interested in St. Mary's and were willing to commit to a "text relationship" from the start. While this was destined to be a higher-than-normal yield group, identifying the most likely future students as easly as possible so they are not lost among (in this case) 35,000 total inquiries is an important role for mobile marketing to play.

Experience Your Site from a Smartphone

One item from the E-Expectations survey seemed a major surprise to many people: more than 20 percent of college-bound high school seniors have used a smartphone to access a higher education website. Why such a surprise? After all, somebody has been buying all those iPhones and Androids over the last 12 months.

• The real question should be this: how many people will not return after the experience they had on that first visit? Be sure to check your web analytics to see (1) how many new visitors are arriving at your site from a mobile device and (2) how the bounce rate for those people compares to the bounce rate for people arriving from a regular computer.

More next week on mobile apps vs. mobile websites, but there is a bottom line here: you will need a mobile-friendly website in the not distant future.

Mobile Marketing Presentation on SlideShare

The eduWeb version of the workshop, "Mobile in the Marketing Mix: Crafting a New Communications Strategy," is online now at SlideShare.

Look for more "notes on mobile" next week. More then about the frequency of the texting and other items that people brought up at the workshops.

That's all for now 

Mobile Websites for Higher Education... 45 to Explore

My eyes are open for all things mobile these days as I prepare for three upcoming mobile marketing workshops in July (ACT Enrollment Planners Conference and eduWeb2010) and November at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education.

This morning I was especially happy to get an email from the "University and College Webmasters" listserv sent by Jon Wilcox, web development specialist at Angelo State University, with this list of 45 links to higher education mobile websites. (A June 11 update: after my post, Jon wrote to note that he did not compile this list but did not remember who had done the work. But Michael Bazeley at the UC Berkeley School of Law did remember: thanks go to Andrew Harris at University of Melbourne.)

This quick blog post is for anyone else who might be looking for higher education examples. I've added the names of the schools for faster scanning to find your friends and competitors, but otherwise kept the list in the same order as received. I've not visited every site here so you might find a link or two that isn't working.

And of course not every school with a mobile site is listed here.

Happy exploring!

http://m.unimelb.edu.au/  University of Melbourne
http://mobile.edna.edu.au/edna/mobile/index.jsp Education Network Australia
http://m.curtin.edu.au/ Curtin University of Technology
http://m.swinburne.edu.au/ Swinburne University
http://mobile.anu.edu.au/ The Australian National University
http://m.library.vu.edu.au/ Victoria University Library Mobile Catalog
http://m.library.deakin.edu.au/ Deakin University Library Catalog
http://mobile.wintec.ac.nz/ Waikato Institute of Technology
http://www.mobile.vt.edu/ Virginia Tech
https://mobile.fccj.edu/ Florida State College at Jacksonville
http://mobile.csuniv.edu/ Charleston Southern University
http://mobile.virginia.edu/ University of Virginia
http://mobile.usc.edu/ University of Southern California
http://mobile.parsons.edu/weekness/ Parsons The New School for Design
http://mobile.tc3.edu/ Tomkins Cortland Community College
http://mobile.utexas.edu/ University of Texas
http://mobile.edison.edu/ Edison State College
https://mobile.ctuonline.edu/ Colorado Technical University
http://mobile.dts.edu/ Dallas Theological Seminary
https://mobile.aiuonline.edu/ American Intercontinental University
http://mobile.nvcc.edu/soc/default.aspx Link not working when visited
http://m.ua.edu/  << very nice!... note from Jon and I agree... University of Alabama 
http://m.iu.edu/ Indiana University
http://m.wayne.edu/ Wayne State University
http://m.stmarytx.edu/ St. Mary's University
http://m.uiowa.edu/ University of Iowa
http://m.duke.edu/ Duke University
http://m.shu.edu/ Seton Hall University
http://m.roanoke.edu/ Roanoke College
http://i.roanoke.edu/ Roanoke College
http://m.kean.edu/ Kean University
http://m.uw.edu/ University of Washington
http://m.johnshopkins.edu/ The Johns Hopkins University
http://m.umsystem.edu/ University of Missouri System
http://m.tamu.edu/ Texas A&M University
http://m.fiu.edu/ Florida International University
http://m.usfca.edu/ University of San Francisco
http://m.remingtoncollege.edu/Remington_College Remington College
http://m.uiowa.edu/home/ University of Iowa
http://m.ucsd.edu/ University of California San Diego
http://iphone.ucsd.edu/ University of California San Diego
http://iphone.insead.edu/ INSEAD School of Business
http://iphone.ucsd.edu/features/courses.html University of California San Diego
http://mobile.mit.edu/ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
http://iphone.stanford.edu/ Stanford University

That's all for now 

iPhone Dominates Mobile Access: for a small group of website visitors

Two mobile marketing workshops are set for this summer, both in July in Chicago. I'm busy with that research now, including new online inquiries at schools venturing into mobile marketing.

The first workshop, at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference, is especially for people who need to weave mobile marketing into their mix of student recruitment marketing activities. The second, at eduWeb 2010, is for anyone interested in higher education online communications.

A key question, of course, is whether or not people are using mobile devices in sufficient quantity to make the expenditure of scarce time, energy, and dollars in this area at all.

Mobile Access on Google Analytics

If you have Google Analytics on your website, that's easy to find out. When you get to your dashboard, open "Visitors" in the left hand column, scroll down to "Mobile" and open that to "Mobile Devices." You'll immediately see how many visitors you are getting at all from mobile devices, as well as which ones people are using. Here's a screen shot from my website today. Mobile devices on GA.ppt

The first thing to note (I'll bet real money this is true at your site as well) is that most of your web visitors do not yet arrive from a mobile device. The second thing is that for those who do, the iPhone has a huge lead over anything else.

iPad: Track the Growth

Will the iPad be important? Easy enough to track that week by week if you want, or at least month by month. Today, for instance, I noted the first 3 people using iPads to visit my website.

Mobile Apps or Mobile Websites?

What's going to be most important to your marketing success, mobile apps or mobile websites?

Count on both, of course. Who said life would be so simple that you'd only have to work on one or the other? But don't get carried away with app development without also preparing your site for direct access from mobile devices. Check this article at ReadWriteWeb for a presentation of the need to ensure that your official website works well for visitors using a variety of mobile devices. 

While the iPhone dominates now, expect to see Android-based smartphones increase their market share between now and the end of the year. If that happens, you'll see it in your analytics tracking. At some point, you may need to move past iPhone/iPad apps.

Check iPhone Apps on the iPad 

Don't assume that all iPhone apps will work well on an iPad. Early reports note that some do not play well on the larger iPad screen. If you already have iPhone apps, check them now on the iPad. Some are being described as "ugly" and even Steve Jobs banned some popular Apple apps from the iPad.

The good news is that web analytics can help you make informed decisions about all of this based on the trends you see emerging for new and returning visitors as you track this in the months ahead.

Web Analytics for Recruitment: Conference Presentation in June 

I'll be covering more about web analytics tracking in my session at Carol Aslanian's conference on recruiting adult students in June in Chicago

Mobile Marketing and Web Access: Tracking the Trend in 2010

Do you know how many new visitors to your admissions pages arrived from a mobile device last year? And how that number might be changing this year?

If you're using Google Analytics on your website, that's easy to watch. And the results from a recent client review suggest that you should be watching this year. Various gurus and evangelists have been declaring "The Year of Mobile Marketing" since at least 2004. They just might be right about 2010.

Here's the change noted from the last quarter 2009 to February of 2010:

• For the last three months of 2009, 996 new visitors came from a mobile device. The iPhone was well out in front as the most popular device, followed at considerable distance by iPods. The new Android phones were about half as popular as iPods and Blackberry came along next.
• In the month of February alone, 459 new visitors were using mobile devices, or 1.9 percent of all new visitors to the admissions pages. The iPhone was still well in front of everything else as the vehicle of choice: 284 new visitors were using it. Nothing had changed in the order of the next three.

The February count still represents less than 2 percent of all new visitors that month. So it is safe to say that mobile access is not yet a major factor for this client. On the other hand, the increase sends a signal that this is something to watch over the next six months. That's an easy, no-cost way to get objective data on how the "Year of Mobile 2010" is going for you.

Compare Bounce Rates for Mobile and Regular Access

For those new to the world of analytics, "bounce rate" is the percent of visitors who start at a page on your website and leave that page without going anywhere else on your site. In nearly all cases, admissions people don't want new visitors to do that. Bounce rates above 35 percent are cause for concern.

• On Google Analytics, first check the overall bounce rate for new visitors. In the "Visitors" section, open the tap for "Mobile" and have a look at "Mobile Devices."
• In the data that results, you'll find the bounce rate for people using mobile devices together with the average bounce rate for the entire website.
• If the bounce rate for mobile is significantly higher than the other, your site is not working well for visitors using iPhones and other mobile devices.

Mobile Tracking in 2010

Start tracking today. Set the base mark for 2009 from the data you have for that year. Take a peek at what's been happening so far this year. Get ready to make a quarterly report in April on any changes you find as 2010 unfolds. Keep those quarterly reports coming to help you decide: "Do I need to create 'mobile ready' website pages to make a better first impression on new visitors?"

Web Analytics Webinar in April

Want to learn more about how web analytics can help improve your recruitment success? Join me for an April 7 webinar with Magna Publications. Check program details and register soon.

That's all for now 

• Join me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HighEdMarketing
• Subscribe to "Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter" at http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/newsletter-subscribe.html

Web Analytics: Bounce Rate and Mobile Access

Yesterday and today I've been updating a fall 2008 presentation on web analytics for higher education for a new webinar with Magna Communications in April.

The presentation is based on Google Analytics and uses examples from that system. Much of what's available from GA is of course available from other analytics programs as well.

Two different elements that stand out from the updating process:

• The "bounce" rate. In checking to possible update the source for an analytics glossary recommendation, I noticed that some glossary pages don't even include a definition of the bounce rate. For the record, the bounce rate is the percent of visitors to a website page who leave that page without continuing on to another.
• It is especially important for higher education marketers to track the bounce rate for new visitors from whatever entry page they start at.
• The entry page will most often be the home page, but it might also be the admissions page or the page for a favorite academic program. If more than 35 percent of new visitors are leaving their first page without continuing, you likely have a problem.
• You can also use the bounce rate to compare what happens at the entry pages for various academic programs. Note the highest and lowest and compare the strong points of the best performing pages with those that don't do as well. (We are assuming, as you probably are, that potential students who start at the MBA or Nursing or Political Science entry page should continue to other pages in the same area rather than flee the site.)
• Mobile access. Pay attention to the percent of new visitors who access the website from a mobile device. If that figure gets near 10 percent, check and see how your website works for people who enter that way. Since 2008, Google has made that report stand out under on the dashboard with a new "mobile devices" heading under "Visitors."
• Expect access from mobile devices to increase. The real question is how quickly that will happen (some say rapidly, others say slowly) and how much time web developers on your campus should spend in creating a mobile-friendly version of your website.
• Use the "mobile" report in GA and you'll be able to see just how quickly a change is taking place and you'll know whether access is from an iPhone, an Android or a Blackberry.

Register for "Web Analytics for Recruitment Success"

Check the webinar outline and register at Magna Communications.

That's all for now 

• Join me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HighEdMarketing
• Subscribe to "Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter" at http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/ 

E-Readers: Market Growth from Barnes & Noble, AT&T, and Plastic Logic

Back from a very fine eduWeb2009 conference this afternoon... 12 presentations are online now, including my pre-conference workshop: "Student Recruitment in an Online World: Creating a Marketing Communications Plan in a World without Paper." Thanks to Matt Herzberger for taking the time to add mine and several others to the collection.

College Viewbooks and Magazine on E-Readers

Early in my presentation you'll see slides to prime a discussion of e-readers and just how soon it might be before people are downloading college viewbooks , alumni magazines, and other publications to an e-reader rather than receiving them in the mail.

This presentation first debuted in July 2008 at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference. One 2008 topic was how soon it would be before e-readers were available in color. Way back then nobody seemed sure when the technology would advance to market. For the update this year, we had new news... Fujitsu, well ahead of any schudule predicted last year, put a color e-reader on the market in Japan earlier this year. The price (near $1,000) is well beyond most people's willingness to pay but we all know that is likely to move lower rather quickly.

E-readers are advancing. No doubt about that.

Plastic Logic, AT&T, and Barnes & Noble

And so let's highlight this news first seen in USA Today while traveling back from eduWeb today. AT&T is about to join Amazon in the e-reader competition in combination with Barnes & Noble to offer a wider array of books than Amazon is doing now. Schduled start is early in 2010.

A NewsFactor Business Report article says the primary audience for the new device from Plastic Logic and AT&T service is the business community. Barnes & Noble already has 700,000 titles ready to go, a powerful amount for the business market. The article includes a prediction that by 2012 prices will fall to $99, a critical point for mass adoption.

Watch the online Plastic Logic demo of their new device.

That's today's story.

AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education 2009 

And that's continuing info to update the next presentation of my 3-hour workshop at the AMA's Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education in November in Boston. More details on that later in the summer. Plan to attend. And if you do, join me for the Sunday workshop to explore student recruitment communications in a world without paper. It really is getting closer.

That's all for now.

• Join me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HighEdMarketing
• Subscribe to "Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter" at http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/ 

ACT Enrollment Planners Conference: Another Successful Year

About done at this year's ACT Enrollment Planners Conference. In a tough year for conferences, this was the second highest regisration number in 24 years... a bit lower than last year, but quite strong overall, with more than 40 states represented. More nice work by Mike Hoveland and everyone else at ACT responsible for what has always been the best value-for-money enrollment-focused conference in higher education.

My updated 2009 workshop version of  "Student Recruitment in an Online World: Creating a Marketing Communications Plan in a World without Paper" drew 40+ people on Wednesday who were alive with questions and comments.

Points of special interest:

• Two schools present have indeed ended their printed viewbooks: Indiana University and Suffolk University. I'll be following up for more information on what's happening at each place.
• Just after showing a new website at Asuza Pacific University especially designed for access from mobile devices (the iPhone in this case), another person in the audience reported that Texas A&M has developed a similar site.

What strikes me in both cases is the very different types of universities leading the way in making these important moves. That reinforces the conviction I've had for years now that smart, innovative marketing moves are not related to any particular type of institution. What's most important are the people at a particular school who have the insight and determination to change.

Sunday night I'll turn around and fly back from Michigan to do the same workshop at eduWeb2009 on Monday. Will be interesting to see if any similar information surfaces then.

That's all for now.

• Join me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HighEdMarketing
• Subscribe to "Your Higher Education Marketing Newsletter" at http://www.bobjohnsonconsulting.com/