Converge Consulting’s expert staff members present on the following topics:
Join Jay Kelly and Shawna Parker as they take you through an evolutionary journey of how marketing/communications have changed from the (outbound/push model) days of buying ads and sending view books and postcards through the mail to the current model of engagement through data-driven, relevant, targeted and segmented communications (inbound/pull model).
The days of sending out a viewbook and hoping students show up is long over. Marketing has evolved to art and science. Online user experience impacts whether a student inquiries, visits, or applies. Join us for a session in which we walk through real case studies of schools that are using Google Analytics to better inform their recruitment funnels and marketing strategies. From these examples we will leave you with strategies that allow you to (1) Ask the right questions, (2) Set up the right dashboards, and (3) Explore with your enrollment team the actions that can be taken today in order to impact next semester’s class.
A one hour webinar on specific ways in which to understand and track engagement of prospective students and alumni on your web site through the use of Google Analytics. In this webinar you will learn specifics about site content reports and how users are viewing and using your site. Specifically which content is engaging and key measurement around evaluation of that content. Learn how to set up reporting that allows you to evaluate how your users feel about your content and navigation. Join us for a journey past the basics diving into Advanced Segments.
Join Ann Oleson, Principal at Converge Consulting, as we explore the topic of social media and it’s impact on fundraising. Together, we will review the demographics of social media users, who is truly engaging socially, and what mediums they are on. Why is social media important and how does it impact fundraising? We will walk through how your organization can create a social media strategy that is relevant and share examples from non-profits that have used social platforms to make an impact. We will close this interactive session with a discussion on the analysis of social media and evaluation of the ROI.
Google Analytics: Goals, Funnels, and Conversions Webinar (January, 2013)
This is an audio recording of Converge Consulting presenting a one hour webinar on goals, funnels, and conversions. Learn why setting up goals is an imperative part of your Google Analytics strategy.
In this fun and dynamic session, you will learn how to create comprehensive and dynamic personas of your alumni/donors to enhance your marketing campaigns by utilizing a combination of primary research regarding donor motivation attitudinal data, analysis of existing institutional data (giving and engagement history, wealth screening), and secondary market research data. This segmentation can help you determine the best communication strategy for each of your target audiences, gain a deeper understanding of which channels are the most effective in reaching desired segments, and learn which messages resonate most with different segments.
Hubspot for Higher Education: How can it help my college?
Hubspot’s all-in-one marketing software, founded by MIT Sloan graduates, is Inc 500’s #2 fastest growing software company. What is all the buzz about and how is it relevant to higher education?
Jennifer Nordstrom from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Ann Oleson at Converge Consulting (Hubspot’s Higher Education partner) walk through a use case study on how Hubspot can improve your marketing efforts. Learn how the University of Michigan used Hubspot’s tools as they started marketing two new online master’s programs. You will learn how to:
- Create landing pages and gauge their effectiveness
- Manage SEO efforts from keyword research to monthly reporting
- Understand how engaged your leads are and what content is drawing them in
- See how specific channels are working in terms of ROI
- Set up automated lead nurturing campaigns
Who is visiting your web site? Are they arriving from social media sources, search engines, or targeted campaigns? Are they engaging with your site and completing desired actions? How can your Analytics data help you achieve your web site goals (increasing the number of inquiries, applications, and visits) as well as engage your audience more effectively? Join Converge Consulting as their team presents a compelling case study that depicts how colleges and universities can enhance their marketing efforts by developing analytics-based user personas, tracking the effectiveness of email campaigns, and determining which site visitors arrived at their web sites via social media channels.
Tens of thousands of alumni at institutions across the nation have been classified into persona groups that predict their likely attitudes, motivations and behaviors associated with giving. They have also indicated which channels they perceive as effective for communications purposes as well as what types of philanthropies they support. Join the professionals who have been conducting the research in a discussion of how to translate this type of data into relevant, multichannel communications that resonate. Identify different methodologies that are useful for segmenting alumni, learn how best to craft communications for different segments and review examples of communications that work.
Conference of Jesuit Advancement Administrators (July, 2012): Even The Pope is on Twitter
More than half a billion people across the globe are on Facebook. Twitter delivers roughly 250 million tweets per day (some of which come from the Pope). All types of organizations, from online stores to brick-and-mortar schools, understand the importance and growth of social media. Yet, very few know how to gauge the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts. Is a “like,” “retweet,” or any other type of social media engagement a valuable metric that can be tied to the number of students enrolling or the amount of money that alumni donate? This session explores ways to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing, provides social media best practices, and presents a comparative benchmarking report regarding social media marketing at several Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
The Pillars of Successful Inbound Marketing
Outbound (push) marketing is out! Inbound (pull marketing) is in! Inbound Marketing is defined as utilizing the web as the hub of your efforts so that your target audience finds you!
This webinar will teach you how to generate more visits to your website and fine-tune your online efforts by:
- Maximizing Search Engine Optimization
- Engaging Effectively with Social Media
- Analyzing Marketing Efforts with Google Analytics
Champions. Friends. Acquaintances. Donor Motivation Defined.
In this interactive session, we will discuss the findings of our national study of the attitudes, motivations, behavior of more than 2000 alumni. The discussion will cover the six defining characteristics of donor motivation as well as the findings and implications of the three personas that were derived from the data.
Learning Objectives
- To better understand donor attitudes, motivations, and behaviors
- To determine more cost effective and relevant ways to communicate with alumni
- To take away best practices that will allow you to be more effective as you communicate with alumni/donors and attempt to enhance fundraising efforts
Analytics for a Better Experience
Every website has a purpose (at least, it should). How clear is your site’s purpose? How easy is it for users to act in ways that accomplish your goals? By properly utilizing Google Analytics, you can better understand what is working and what needs improvement. This presentation will show you how to use analytics to build a better user experience and accomplish your website goals. You will learn how to determine which pages are successful in achieving your goals, where improvements can be made, and how to optimize the weak pages so that they more effectively guide the user to your goal.
Optimize Your Multi-channel Campaigns for Maximum Impact
What you can track, you can measure. What you can measure, you can improve. By incorporating a few simple steps into your campaign planning, you can measure and optimize your campaigns. This presentation will show you how to begin with strategy, measure success more effectively, and boost your progress. We will examine how to use Google Analytics effectively so that you no longer need to guess regarding what is working. You will be able to continue doing what works confidently and eliminate unnecessary components.
Social Media Analytics: A Value-Focused Approach
This Social Media Analytics: A Value-focused Approach presentation was presented at the Social Media working group at DePaul University. The presentation focuses on how to use Google Analytics to inform marketing decisions in general, and with an emphasis on social media analytics. Other analytics tools are presented. Advanced Segments and Google Analytics Dashboard creation are discussed.
The Pope, The Dalai Lama, and Lady Gaga
More than half a billion people across the globe are on Facebook. Twitter delivers roughly 250 million tweets per day. All types of organizations, from online stores to brick-and-mortar schools, understand the importance and growth of social media. Yet, very few know how to gauge the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts. Is a “like,” “retweet,” or any other type of social media engagement a valuable metric that can be tied to the number of students enrolling or the amount of money that alumni donate? This session explores ways to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing, provides social media measurement best practices, details emerging social media implications, and discusses current social media marketing trends and how it relates to analytics.
What Can Betty White and Mark Zuckerberg Teach Us about Engaging Young Alumni?
They’re young. They’re smart. They wear flip-flops on their feet and plug ipods into their ears. Every advancement professional wonders: Who are they? How do they engage? What do they really want from us in relation to communication?
AACSB Conference(March 12, 2013): Next Generation Alumni Communications
In 1909, Henry Ford stated, “Any customer can have any paint color as long as it’s black.” In those days, consumers got what the big brands mass produced – nothing more, nothing less. Not true today. Now, the consumer is king, and brands market based on what they understand to be consumer preferences (which they study 24/7 across online and offline channels, surveys, focus groups, etc.). Colleges and universities are no different. Alumni outreach must be handled delicately and strategically because alums have many competing interests and passions. So, in this new generation of communication, how can advancement personnel acquire the knowledge of their alumni necessary to engage them and keep them committed to their alma maters? Join Ann Oleson from Converge Consulting and Rachel Fleck from the Jones Graduate School of Business to learn about the power of attitudinal alumni research and why it is a necessary component of your communications strategy. Using the case study of a recent project, Ann and Rachel will cover how a short survey and data mining led to the development of three alumni personas that informed the development of segmented communications for Annual Fund emails and letters.
Converge Consultants have presented at the following conferences:
- CASE V&VI Better Together 2012
- AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, Advanced Marketing Sessions 2012
- Jesuit Advancement Administrators Conference 2012
- CASE Summit 2012
- Iowa Development Conference 2012
- Midwest Development Conference 2012
- CASE VI District Conference 2012
- CASE Online Speaking Series 2012
- CASE VIII 2012
- American Marketing Association 2012 (2 day workshop)
- Agilon User’s Conference 2012
- Agilon Webinars in October 2011, January 2012, February 2012, and November 2012
To invite Converge consultants to campus or to a seminar to present on one of these topics, please contact us.
