Grabbing Hold of the Long Tail

In The Long Tail Effect, I addressed the concept of the long tail in social networking. Today we’ll explore several low cost, easy-to-implement tactics to leverage the power of the long tail on the Web:

RSS – Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a technology that allows information to be distributed quickly and automatically as a Web feed, bypassing e-mail spam filters. Not only do Web feeds extend your content to new audiences, but RSS can also help improve organic search results if your feeds are well optimized.

Lower Volume Search Terms – Did you know that around 25% of all Google search queries have never been seen before?

In a recent ClickZ article, Mary Bowling made a keen observation that bidding and optimizing solely for high volume keywords overlooks the long tail of search. Instead you may want to consider terms (or phrases) that return a much lower search volume, but also have less competition and therefore potentially cheaper pay-per-click bids.

Niche Social Networking Sites – Do you know who your target audience is? Psycho-demographic profiles can help you evaluate advertising for content and placement, maximizing ad dollars by ensuring advertising reaches your target audience(s) where they live, work, and play.

And if you’re looking to find your niche – whether personal or professional – visit findasocialnetwork.com where you can peruse niche sites for everything from shoe lovers to fans of High School Musical.

Widgets – Widgets give your audiences something they love: personalized content for free! This technology allows marketers to embed interactive elements – think calendars, quizzes, games, factoids, contests – into mini applications that can be downloaded onto Web pages, desktops, and mobile phones. ComScore estimates that 625 million people worldwide viewed or engaged with a widget in June 2008.

For a great overview on key considerations and best practices, check out Liza Hausman’s in-depth article on the subject.

Arguments for Advertising

University ad budgets are high-risk items in times like these. They make tempting targets for CEOs checking the closets and mattresses for undefended stash.

What arguments will you bring to bear?

Rob Westervelt outlines several good ones in his Ubrander blog on the topic. As usual, he’s right the money noting that a tight economy translates into bargains in media pricing and placement, and that downturns are opportunities to improve market position.

But I’ll take issue with Rob when he asserts “advertising is selling” (although I get the real issue that advertising is an essential). Advertising, in reality, makes a poor salesman. It’s better (and more efficient) when used to build brand awareness so that the “sales force” – recruiters, alumni, and development officers – can really do their jobs.

Rob focuses on recruitment, but there’s another crucial beneficiary of advertising that is huge during a tough economy – fundraising. Make no mistake: good advertising powers the bottom line in many ways.

By building certitude among targets that you are the market leader in an important educational niche – it’s what brand campaigns do best – you create an environment ripe for giving and support. Interrupting that effort doesn’t save money, it costs you.

We see it time and time again where colleges outperform the marketplace – in fundraising, public support, and recruitment – through a balanced integrated campaign that includes image advertising to build top-of-mind, attitude, and leadership position.

So here are my arguments to add to Rob’s good ideas – use them one and all as you fight the good fight:

• Advertising makes recruitment, alumni, and fundraising teams more effective by creating awareness and a positive attitude before they knock on the door
• Advertising impact is cumulative. You see benefits over time rather than in the short term because awareness and perceptions of quality build on themselves. Start-again stop-again strategies following short-term market fluctuations undercut your investment, past and future.
• Market leaders are the last to feel a marketing downturn and the first to benefit from an expansion. The highest value of advertising is building top-of-mind awareness of and belief in your leadership market position
• Advertising isn’t just for kids. Well-crafted influencer campaigns are proven to increase public support and income from fundraising
• Advertising, as part of a strategic integrated brand campaign, is not a cost factor, it’s an investment that can provide handsome returns. If you aren’t demonstrating that ROI, something is amiss.

Now is Not the Time to Bury Our Heads in the Sand

In these times when the daily news from Wall Street, Main Street, and, for many of you your finance offices, leads with the words “budget cuts,” it’s difficult not to think about retreating into a bunker to ride out the storm – in effect, burying our heads in the sand (no offense to that oft’ stereotyped Ostrich, which, by the way, does not bury its head in the sand).

Despite this impulse, I encourage you to do the very opposite. Look into the face of the storm and ask the question: “What opportunity is there to change what we do so that we come out of this stronger and better prepared to compete?” Now is the time to be entrepreneurial, to be an innovator, scary as that may seem. Times of crisis have been responsible for some of our country’s greatest innovations – during the late 1800’s, America experienced a prolonged period of falling prices; out of that time came railroads, automobiles, the electric light, the telephone, and phonograph, to mention some. The time is ripe to do the same in the field of higher education marketing communications.

In many ways, most of us still operate on an outdated 20th Century model and have not really felt the pressure to change. We’re not alone. The blogosphere is rich with commentaries about how American business and industry is in the same boat. Seize this chance to get your staff out of the budget-cut woes and excited about redefining how you think about marketing communications in your shop. Look for tactics you can implement right away. Inspiration is all around you in the form of what others are doing on the Web. Bob’s post, College Marketing on the Edge is a great primer. As is Bea Fields’ blog “A Down Economy is a Great Time for Innovation“. And here’s one way to start…post links to your innovations or ideas/websites that get your innovation engines going on our blog to help inspire others.

I’ll leave you with these sage words by Clay Siegall, President and CEO of Seattle Genetics on Xconomy

“At times like these, it is important to focus on what you do best, while being careful to utilize the resources that you need, not those that you want. I have observed that most truly innovative ideas come from individuals or small teams that can ask and answer questions rapidly.

For entrepreneurs, financial uncertainty forces efforts to be streamlined. This is often when the best concepts arise as great innovators are excited by and step up to challenges much as great athletes reach deep within themselves to achieve peak performance. Above all, don’t follow others during a downturn as that is a sure way to halt innovation and progress.”

Get What You Don’t Pay For

Economy’s tight, right? Budget outlook is bleak. What can you do to create awareness and shape attitudes that doesn’t cost much?

Plenty.

Top ten lists seem to beget the idea that there are only ten, so I’ll just stick on some bullets and then other folks can add to the running list.

• Take advantage of holiday chatter. One of the simplest and most powerful marketing tools every one of us has is the conversation at the Thanksgiving or Christmas get-together. A lot of you have hundreds, if not thousands, of internal stakeholders prepared to describe in your glowing terms, just what your school is all about. Harness this. Of course, to do that means being sure our messages are so tight and compelling that our faculty, staff, students, and alums can remember them. One way this season is to send out a classy holiday e-card to everyone that in a creative, spirited, and fun way reinforces your brand. Some of these folks have a month off to talk to people. Give them something to talk about, to share with their friends, to pass around via social networking sites. If you’ve got someone who can work in Flash or animation, make it even cooler.

• Fill in your Wikipedia page. I know, everyone gets nervous about being the one to do it, but let me give you a comparison. Exhibit A – Red Rocks Community College (it goes down two pages). Pretty full of info, right? Contrast that to Exhibit B – Arapahoe County Community College (below). Not even a full page screen. Note that the link to the institutional website isn’t even hyperlinked. Both are here in the Denver area, but which one looks bigger and more important? Point of fact, Red Rocks is less than half the size of Arapahoe. This kind of stuff costs you little, but can net you great gains when folks are trying to make decisions.

• Quit pumping out news releases. You’ve got better things to do. Unfortunately, the press isn’t reading them anymore, if they ever did, and they are taking you away from more impactful things. If you’ve just got to write one, go do a proper job, create a narrative and tie it to your brand platform. Then release it first into the blogosphere before sending it via e-mail.

I’ve gotten us started. What have you got?

College Marketing on the Edge

I was recently interviewed for a magazine article about how higher ed marketing is changing. Here is some of that Q&A. I’ll leave it to you to rate my answers, and I welcome additional comments from the field.

Q: How has the strategy for print versus electronic communications changed?
A: We’re shifting from print to electronic…very, very fast. Bluntly, the percentage of your total output being produced electronically is a good measure of how close you are to the leading edge. A few leading universities use no recruitment publications at all. It’s incontestable that we’re heading toward “web-centric marketing.”

There’s still a role for high-impact print, now and in the future – more limited, for sure, and different. It’s more about personality and attitude than conveying information. More emotional impact, less data. Complex lists belong on the Web, which does a better job of it with search and customized sorting.

Q: What does that mean for university marketers?
A: Yesterday’s operations will be turned completely on their heads: New rules for new media. Web-centric envisions that all communications are produced for electronic format first. After communications have been produced for the Web they might be “converted” to print, only as needed. That’s a reversal of today’s practices. Some results:

• Key messaging is shorter, more flexible, and transportable
• Designs are conceived for the Web, adapted to print if needed
• MarComm staff includes programmers, videographers, and designer/writers
• Silos are out; cross-trained, multi-skilled utility players are in
• Budgets are up with technology as a growing line item
• Brands – the Web loves brands, and strong ones have an advantage
• Brands are “Participatory” and audiences themselves advance them
• Web 2.0, social networks, email, texting, multimedia, user generated content

Q: What role will technology play in communications effectiveness?
A: Running to catch technology is a fact of life for brand managers, with four huge realities:

1. Apps programmers in the marketing unit
2. Annual technology upgrades
3. Ongoing staff training
4. Support and maintenance

We’re all guilty of looking for glamour apps and turning away from techy concerns like server capacity, operating system compatibility, maintenance and redundancy, database applications. But the future is powered by capacity, speed, data manipulation, and cross-functional applications.

So get close to your new best friends in IT. Real close.

Google Flu Tracking

Have you ever got the feeling that everyone around you has the flu? Google may be able to answer that question for you.

Google has been tracking the number of health related searches and identified which of those are related to flu-like symptoms. They then used the flu-related searches and compared it to the information on from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that shows how many people actually have the flu; and what they found was very exciting!

The flu-related searches on Google are closely related to the surveillance data from the CDC.

So what does this mean to you? The CDC data has a lag time of two to three weeks but Google’s search trends are in real-time. This means that you can get a good sense of when the flu season begins and how it moves from region to region. You will be able to know when to be sanitizing office space more often and when to watch for when faculty, staff, and students will be sick who will be possibly calling in sick more.

Whack! You Fool!

Don’t worry, that’s a compliment. It means you are looking at things differently and creatively. “A Whack on the Side of the Head” by Roger von Oech offers one of my favorite ways of being creative. Be the fool! Look at things backward, sideways, with your nose, and on your toes.

What does this have to do with higher education marketing you ask? Well, during the tough cash strapped times, creativity is a must. How do I come up with marketing tactics that are inexpensive and still helps my brand? Easy… think like a fool.

According to von Oech’s blog post, What Would a Fool Say?

“It’s the fool’s job to extol the trivial, trifle with the exalted, and parody the common perception of a situation. In doing so, the fool makes us conscious of the habits we take for granted and rarely question. A good fool needs to be part actor and part poet, part philosopher and part psychologist.”

Von Oech also mentions the fool will:

• Flip standard assumptions
• Notice things that others don’t
• Be irreverent
• Be cryptic
• Be absurd
• Take the opposite position in a discussion

So when I said to look at things with your nose. I meant that smells can often create visions in our mind and bring us back to fond or not so fond memories. Like the scent of a fresh baked pizza drifting through the house that brings back happy images. And on your toes, the two to three extra inches may not seem like much, but it is just enough to provide a different angle on an issue.

Why go through all the trouble? Why flip assumptions and be the contrarian? The fool inspires thought and provides a jolt to the stale everydayness. The fool brings a fresh perspective.

Similar to von Oech’s blog post, I am presenting some thought provoking questions. Have fun with it you fool.

1. What would a fool recommend to bring more money into your departmental budget?
2. What would a fool recommend so you save more money in your department?
3. What inexpensive tactics would a fool recommend to market your university/college?

An Effective Brand Strategy

As we’ve seen, everyone talks about strategy, but very few can actually outline theirs. So my last few posts have had a single goal: Help in defining a solid brand strategy.

There are good reasons to go through this brain damage:

1. It proves that you really do know what you’re doing
2. It helps your staff focus on priorities instead of busywork
3. It gives your CEO confidence that brand marketing is a useful tool
4. It gives your CEO confidence that you are a useful tool, too.

But if you’re going to do it right, a compelling strategy needs to:

• Define your leadership market position
• Succinctly outline what you’re trying to achieve
• Present a thumbnail of how you propose to get there

That last element should include primary targets and tactics. It’s the essence of a clear strategy and puts the first two elements into context. Using the fictitious example I started with last week, here’s an example of an effective brand strategy.

“Through 2012, Peachtree College will grow first-year enrollment by 15%, increase average incoming SATs by 10 points, and grow alumni giving by 15%. We’ll achieve those goals by convincing audiences we’re the best choice for exceptional hands-on learning and real-world experience within a community that expects high achievement and ethical conduct. First we’ll build internal tools, structures, and buy-in for the brand; then we’ll increase brand awareness and attitude among in-state opinion leaders, prospects, and alumni through integrated tactics: TV and Web image campaign, social networking, direct mail, and PR. We’ll convert awareness into action through coordinated events and one-to-one via email, texting, telephone, and face-to-face.”

Each element has to have full documentation to back it up, of course: a brand platform, a long-range strategic plan, and an integrated marketing plan. Your strategy is merely a synopsis meant for leadership, staff, internal constituencies…and yourself.

There’s latitude in how to structure it – you don’t have to quantify goals; you might skip references to media. But you’ll want to have enough detail so there’s no doubt about how your strategic roadmap will achieve your most important objectives.

You’ll be surprised at the doors this little tool can open.

The Long Tail Effect

While higher ed has been insulated from economic downturns in the past, the current financial crisis is threatening to have a lasting impact on the long-term health of universities and colleges. As budgets tighten, university marketers will need to remain nimble, adjusting marketing tactics to take advantage of the growing “long tail” of the Web.

According to Chris Anderson editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, the theory of the Long Tail is that:

“Our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.”
And while the Long Tail concept is usually attributed to consumer products, we are also experiencing this phenomenon in Web 2.0 with regard to content distribution. Technology has given us a virtually unlimited choice in where, when, how, and from whom we access our news, information, and entertainment. This has profound implications on those of us in the communications field as we try to reach our numerous audiences.

So just how long is the long tail? Take a look at Go2Web2.0 and explore the 2,770 (and counting) social networking sites currently cataloged in this directory – the majority of which represent the long tail of social networks. In fact, eMarketer reported that of the $920 million spent on social network advertising in 2007, 8.2% went to niche sites. And by the end of this year, that share is expected to grow to 10%.

The long tail is particularly evident within the pages of the intensely popular Ning where anyone can create their own niche social network. In an interview with Fast Company, Ning predicted that by 2010 it will host more than four million social networks equating to billions of page views daily.

Brand Manager’s Notebook Back Up and Running

We had a temporary outage of the blog last night through this morning. The apology from WordPress says it all…

“I am very sorry for that happening. One of our spam traps says it saw a bad link on your blog but I do not find that link – so something has gone wrong. Your blog is back and this cannot now happen again. I really do apologize though.” ~  Mark, WordPress Terms of Services

Don’t fret, we have not been shut down. Keep tuning in for more blogging on integrated brand marketing issues in higher education.