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FUNDAMENTALS:IS INBOUND MARKETING RIGHTFOR MY INSTITUTION?INBOUND MARKETING FORCOMMUNITY COLLEGESINBOUND MARKETING FORCAREER COLLEGESStudents considering community colleges aren’tlooking for destination campuses—they wantacademic options that are close to the placesthey already live, work, and play. Communitycolleges are relying more and more heavilyon inbound marketing to refute the stigma ofbeing the “fallback” options for students onthe academic bubble. To do so, they’re usinginbound to illustrate the multitude of programsavailable and highlight the advantages of aquality education within close proximity tohome.Career colleges were among the first highered institutions to adopt inbound marketingstrategies to recruit new students. In addition tohelping meet enrollment goals, some of theseschools have used inbound effectively to battlemisconceptions about the value of the degreesthey offer.INBOUND MARKETING FORTRADE SCHOOLSStudents considering these schools often doso because the length of time to completionis shorter, their career path is chosen priorto matriculation, and the hands-on learningstyle is more attractive than classroom-basedlectures. Inbound marketing that integratesvisual content can be very effective in helpingillustrate the advantages of trade schools, thehands-on learning environment available, andcareer outlook information to help them decideon the right path for them.Students considering these schools often do sobecause they offer attractive modalities—i.e.,fully online or hybrid online/onsite degrees—designed for speed and convenience. Inboundmarketing can help communicate the waysin which a college degree can help busyprofessionals advance in their current career orchange to a more lucrative or satisfying one.INBOUND MARKETING FORGRADUATE PROGRAMSStudents considering graduate degreesoften do so because they want to helpadvance a field of study or achieve a level ofprofessional development or prestige. Inboundmarketing can help attract and entice newstudents by showcasing the sense of personalaccomplishment, the cutting-edge facilitiesand research, and the professional advantagesinherent in earning an advanced degree.612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com9

FUNDAMENTALS:THE INBOUND MARKETING METHODOLOGYNow that you’ve been introduced to inbound marketingand understand why it is essential to higher ed marketingteams, let’s dive into the methodology that makes it sosuccessful. To recap, inbound marketing involves creatingrelevant content that empowers prospective students tomake informed decisions about their academic futures.This approach consists of four phases.ATTRACTWEBSITEVISITORSSTRANGERS KeywordStrategy High-QualityContent CONVERTSocial TSALUMNI Gated Content ent Email Nurturing Landing Pages MarketingAutomationSocialMonitoring Survey Insights 612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com10

1ATTRACTThe attract phase of the inbound methodologyuses content to answer the questions peopleare asking about higher education online and insearch engines. You’re meeting strangers wherethey are in their journey and attracting themto your website. By being a source of objectiveinformation for this audience, you’re buildingcredibility for your school and trust in your brand.2CONVERTThe goal of the convert stage is to transformwebsite visitors into prospective students.Landing pages containing relevant, nonpromotional content offers, RFI forms, andenticing CTAs are used to gather personalinformation from visitors interested in engagingwith your school. This is the stage in which youidentify the “right” leads for your particularinstitution.3CLOSEThe close phase is where prospective studentsbecome applicants, and ultimately, enrolledstudents. Personalized email campaigns,branded content, and direct social mediainteraction can be used to help prospects makeenrollment decisions and nurture them as theyprogress toward matriculation.4DELIGHTThe inbound marketing methodology doesn’tend after the student decides to enroll. Thedelight phase is all about building long-lastingrelationships with your students, alumni, andcommunity members so they ultimately becomeadvocates for your institution. Relationshipbuilding surveys, social media, alumni outreach,and email newsletters can all be used todrive advocacy.WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCEBETWEEN CONTENTMARKETING AND INBOUNDMARKETING?It’s important to clarify, inboundmarketing is not the same ascontent marketing, rather, oneis a component of the other.Content marketing is aboutcreating and curating content toencourage users to take a specificaction. Inbound marketing, on theother hand, is a methodology thatuses various marketing tactics—content, email, SEO, social media,to name a few—at strategicpoints in the buyer journey totransform visitors into applicants,applicants into students, andstudents into advocates for yourinstitution. Each phase of theinbound methodology relieson content marketing to moveprospective students through thebuyer journey.612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com11

PROCESSES:SETTING GOALSA crucial component of inbound marketing is identifyingthe metrics that will help define success or failure ofyour strategy. Metrics that colleges and universities findvaluable often include traffic, leads, starts, enrolls, timeon page, page depth, click-through rate, new versusrepeat visitors, bounce rate, and comments.Once you identify the right metrics, you can begin tracking the performance of specific sectionsof your site, categories of pages, individual pieces of content, and anything else that helps youunderstand whether or not your inbound efforts are working. The end goal is to gather the type ofdata that yields insights and, ultimately, drives institutional decisions.Keep in mind, the goals you set should be SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely.There are a lot of components contributing to the success or failure of your marketing efforts, and youneed to be able to quickly and easily separate strategies that work from those that don’t. SMART goalswill help make sure you’re positioned to reach the right audiences at the right time.1GOALS SHOULD ALWAYS BE municateswho, what,where, when,and why.Possible totrack progressfor data.Realisticallyachievable foryour team.Addressescore businessand brandobjectives.Includesfinite dateto completethe goal.EXAMPLESMART GOALIncrease starts 3 percent year-over-year by the end of the 2018 admissions cycle.612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com12

2INVOLVE THE ‘RIGHT’ STAKEHOLDERS IN YOUR PROCESSIt’s important to share your plan with internal stakeholders to gain alignment and ensure your goals arecomprehensive, but don’t overdo it. You don’t want to solicit feedback from everyone from marketingto administration to faculty to admissions. You just need to make sure that the stakeholders directlyimpacted by your plan—and those responsible for approving or denying it—have been consulted andbeen given a chance to provide input. This ensures internal buy-in while also protecting your plan fromarbitrary or subjective preferences.3DEFINE YOUR GOALSOnce the right stakeholders are involved in the goal-setting process, host a brainstorm session to delveinto the reasons for building an inbound marketing strategy and how it will benefit the school. This isa good opportunity to identify and address areas of confusion or misunderstanding, as well as gainfurther alignment. Let these three questions guide your brainstorm session.QUESTION 1WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF YOUR MARKETING?It is very important that the answer to this question is candid. It doesn’t help tosugarcoat anything at this stage. An honest assessment here will help you createSMART goals that can be applied across the institution.QUESTION 2WHAT ARE YOUR MARKETING, ADMISSIONS, AND ENROLLMENT GOALS?Your answer may be to attract more prospective students, drive brand awareness,or be seen as a pillar in your community. Whatever your goals are, the answer to thisquestion will drive your entire strategy, so be thorough, and make sure to documentthem clearly.QUESTION 3WHICH METRICS WILL BEST ILLUSTRATE SUCCESS OR FAILURE?To identify meaningful metrics you need to know what is worth measuring. If youcan’t answer the following questions about your school’s marketing efforts, thesemight be metrics you want to measure:1.How much traffic is your website driving?2.How many leads are you generating from the site per month?3.What is the lifetime value of a lead at your college?4.What is the open rate of your email newsletter?5.How do current numbers compare to historical data?612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com13

4DOCUMENT YOUR GOALSDon’t make the mistake of letting a greatbrainstorm session be reduced to vaguerecollections or cobbled together in an endlessemail stream. Be intentional about documentingyour goals. If necessary, invite someone toyour brainstorm session whose sole purposeis to record insights and assign action itemsafterwards. If you used a whiteboard for yoursession, before erasing it, use your smartphoneto take a picture of it and send it to meetingattendees. Documenting your goals will ensureyour inbound strategy has a clear purpose andwill establish a path to success.5GET THE LARGER TEAM ON BOARDOnce you’ve documented your goals,share them across all stakeholder teams.Documented goals keep everyone on thesame page and accountable for success orfailure. Communicating throughout the processis especially important if inbound is a newmarketing approach for your team.The SMART goals you set will inform everystrategic inbound marketing decision youmake and they will be used to evaluate theeffectiveness of your inbound efforts. Keep inmind, inbound is a complex process built aroundhuman behavior so you may not reach yourgoals right away. It requires testing, analysis,reiteration, and ongoing optimization. Thatmeans you’ll adjust your goals as you go andcontinuously work toward better results.HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM REACHING MY GOALS?Essential components of inbound marketing are collecting data, measuring performance,drawing insights from your data, and assessing progress toward your goals. If you don’thave a data expert on your team, don’t worry. Use an inbound platform like HubSpot todocument your goals and execute on your inbound marketing strategy.With many platforms, you’ll automatically receive analytics, including website traffic,email click-through rate, time on site, and bounce rate. After reviewing site performance,feel free to adjust your goals and alter your campaigns to consistently improve yourinbound efforts.612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com14

PROCESSES:CREATING PERSONASTo effectively create content that is optimized foreach stage of the enrollment journey, you needto know what types of content and messages willresonate with the various segments within your targetaudience. This knowledge comes from understandingyour audience’s wants, needs, challenges, painpoints, motivations, and goals. This information isdocumented in the form of personas.WHAT ARE PERSONAS?Personas are archetypes of the various peopleyou’re targeting with your marketing. Personasare created using a combination of quantitativeand qualitative data analysis that allows you tounderstand your consumers’ online behavior anduse it to predict future interactions.For example, if one of the populations you’retrying to target is Generation Z consumers (i.e.,those born after 1999), the persona you createshould embody the shared characteristics andconcerns that define them—e.g., social justice,activism, volunteering, digital multitasking,entrepreneurship, and privacy. As a highereducation institution, your consumers might allbe Gen Z’ers, but the information that motivates,frustrates, and resonates with them may bedifferent based on their specific concerns and lifeexperiences. So the content that appeals, attracts,and entices them also needs to be different.Segmenting personas based on sharedcharacteristics and concerns, rather thandeferring simply to age, race, gender, orgeography-based demographics, builds a betterconnection between you and your audience, anddrives more effective content creation.HOW TO BUILD PERSONAS1CONDUCT RESEARCHConduct research to figure out who is alreadyinteracting with your brand. Talk to admissionsteams, study your social media interactions, lookat your website analytics. Ask questions aboutyour audience’s wants and needs in relation to thecollege selection process: What causes them stress? What does a day in their life look like? What are their challenges and pain points? How do they find and share information? What common questions do they have?612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com15

2IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCEIdentify your target audience in its broadestsense, e.g., “prospective students.” Segment itinto multiple personas you can use to developspecific insight into their wants, needs, goals,challenges, etc. In this example, your personascould include: Gen Z’ers Single parents Career changers Adult learners43BUILD PERSONASUse creativity, insights, and data to define thecommon challenges, desires, and questionseach of your segments share. Build profilesaround those characteristics. Combine a name,photo, age, gender, and bio with each segments’wants, needs, challenges, preferences, sourcesof information, influencers, and any otherinformation that is relevant to their decisionmaking process. Your personas will start to takeshape as you identify areas of distinction andoverlap between them.USE PERSONAS TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS GOALSOnce you build and document your personas, share them with your larger marketing, admissions,enrollment, and leadership teams. The work you do at this stage should be used to inform futuremarketing materials, campaigns, and collateral. Keep in mind, as time passes and organizationalpriorities shift, audiences may change. Use the data you collect from your inbound efforts toupdate your personas as they evolve.EXAMPLE PERSONA612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com16

FUNDAMENTALS:MAPPING YOUR PROSPECTIVESTUDENT JOURNEYNow that you’ve defined your target audience, and havebegun building out personas, one of the key componentsto segmenting your audience is recognizing their uniquejourney, or, the individual factors that influence thedecisions they make.Fully understanding the prospective student journey will help you design an inbound strategy thatresonates with the audience you’re targeting at the time they’re searching for information. Eachpersona within your audience will likely experience a different journey, so it’s important to thinkcritically and creatively when defining them.THE INBOUND METHODOLOGY VS. THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT JOURNEYUnderstanding the relationship between theinbound methodology and the prospectivestudent journey is vital to developing a targetedinbound strategy.The inbound methodology—attract, convert,close, and delight—outlines the selling processhigher ed marketers use to transform strangersinto students, and alumni into advocates.The prospective student journey—awareness,consideration, decision—is the internal thoughtprocess a person works through as they comparetheir higher education needs with the college oruniversity that best meets those needs.As you’re ushering prospective students throughthe inbound stages, they may be in differentstages of their own journey. Each persona movesthrough the journey at their own pace so somemay take longer to consider, while others mayjump quickly to a decision. Inbound contentshould be created to help guide students throughtheir decision-making process by providing theinformation they’re seeking.IS SELECTING A COLLEGE APURCHASE DECISION?Choosing a college is a purchasingdecision—a highly important andemotional decision, with a largeprice tag to boot. Prospectivestudents choose from a large poolof potential colleges that meettheir academic needs. When theychoose to apply and eventuallyenroll, they are purchasingacademic services that canimpact the rest of their lives. Byunderstanding the prospectivestudent journey, you can use yourmarketing efforts to help guide thislife-changing decision process.612 379.3090www.oliveandcompany.com17

STAGES OF THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT tunityCONSIDERATIONConsidering/comparing optionsDECISIONTaking action tosolve problem/pursueopportunityDuring the first stage of their journey, your personas are onlytangentially aware they have a need to fulfill or an opportunityto pursue (e.g., I want a sense of accomplishment). Sometimes,people in this stage just know they need a change. They’re notlooking for solutions in the awareness stage, they’re merelyexploring their situation at an abstract level and are trying to fullyunderstand the next step that makes the most sense for them.Top-of-funnel content that is non-promotional and designedto spark interest, entertain, or answer a basic question is whatresonates best with visitors in this stage.The consideration stage is when visitors fully understand and canarticulate their need or problem. They are actively researchingmeans and methods to answer their question, meet their need,or solve their problem (e.g., Does degree A or degree B havea better career outlook?). This is the stage in which visitorsbecome prospective students and begin separating the collegesthey’re interested in from those they aren’t. It’s important to note,prospective students in this stage are keeping their options openand are gathering information, so content here should be thoroughand comprehensive. Middle-of-funnel content designed to educatereaders and answer multiple questions will resonate best withprospects in this stage.The decision stage is when prospective students will create a shortlist of options that best meet their academic and situational needs(e.g., Local colleges and universities that offer g

612 379.3090 www.oliveandcompany.com 2 how to get the most out of this ebook 03 overcoming higher ed marketing challenges 04 what is inbound marketing? 06 is inbound marketing right for my institution? 08 setting goals 12 creating personas 15 mapping your prospective student journey 17 assessing your content 19 the