Five years ago, when working with college’s on recruitment strategies, rarely would I have suggested a “paid media” campaign as paid advertising was for for-profit institutions or colleges with unknown brands. Fast forward to the fall of 2013, and let’s discuss why not only should your website be the hub of your marketing efforts, but why combined SEO SEM tactics result in major ROI from a lead generation and recruitment stand point. If you aren’t doing this you could be missing out!
SEO
“If I search ‘MBA program Northeast’ my college or university will certainly show up, right?”
Maybe. Or maybe not.
Search Engine Optimization, in its basic form, is optimizing your website so that search engines show you for the search phrases that relate to your website. Sounds easy right? Without a strategy to improve your organic rankings, your website will not appear near the top of the search results and users will have a hard time finding your programs. If you work with your college or a partner on correct SEO tactics, technical optimization, on-page optimization, keyword research, link building and social sharing, your SEO efforts will be rewarded.
SEO SEM= Results
“So if I focus on SEO and do everything correctly, why do I need to do paid media advertising (SEM)?”
Paid media is another way for you to maximize your digital media presence and essentially take up more ‘real estate’ on the search engine results. Implementing strategic paid media SEM through use of Google AdWords, LinkedIn, Bing, YouTube, and Facebook can significantly impact lead generation, program awareness, event attendance, brand awareness and overall SEO. Instead of looking at your budget for SEM and SEO separately, view it as one campaign and allocate your efforts, time and funds based on tracked performance or seasonal goals. When working with clients on SEO and paid media campaigns, our approach is 1, 2, punch SEO SEM and 1, 2 punch brand advertising event advertising.
BRAND EVENT = Results
“We are starting a new graduate program this fall and want to design a new open house for the program. How do we get people to attend?”
Insert digital brand and event advertising into your equation and watch the results. By coupling brand (programmatic advertising) into the equation, you are increasing overall awareness for your programs and your college or institution. Until someone clicks on your ad, you are generating targeted impressions at no cost. Win- win, you are sharing information about your programs at your University with little risk and high reward (new inquiries). If you add on event advertising related to online information sessions, graduate fairs you are attending, social media and webinar sessions; not only are you targeting your audience where they are, you are creating significant awareness for your upcoming events at little cost with high reward.
In the year 2013 your digital presence must come first; your website is the hub of your marketing strategy and your online presence is critical. Use your marketing time and resources wisely with a 1, 2 punch for success.
For more information on paid media join us for our Google Adwords webinar “Save Money & Achieve Better Results with Google Adwords” with Mike McCready, Manager of Marketing & Web Development at NorQuest College.
