Interact teamed up with Google and digital marketing partner ReachLocal to provide a webinar on the shifts that are taking place in digital behavior so colleges can reach students in the right space and at the right time.
The webinar was recorded on April 16th, 2020 and covered a range of topics, including:
Because Google's content is exclusive and is made available only to the webinar attendees, this podcast episode is an abbreviated version of the webinar, reviewing some of Google's key takeaways and focusing on the remaining parts of the presentation with content provided by Interact and ReachLocal. Both groups build on Google's segment by showing colleges how they can shift their digital marketing strategies to maximize the return on advertising investment.
To view the recorded webinar and access supplementary materials including the presentation, visit Interact's news center at news.interactcom.com.
Interact teamed up with Google and digital marketing partner ReachLocal to provide a webinar on the shifts that are taking place in digital behavior so colleges can reach students in the right space and at the right time.
The webinar was recorded on April 16th, 2020 and covered a range of topics, including:
Because Google's content is exclusive and is made available only to the webinar attendees, this podcast episode is an abbreviated version of the webinar, reviewing some of Google's key takeaways and focusing on the remaining parts of the presentation with content provided by Interact and ReachLocal. Both groups build on Google's segment by showing colleges how they can shift their digital marketing strategies to maximize the return on advertising investment.
To view the recorded webinar and access supplementary materials including the presentation, visit Interact's news center at news.interactcom.com.
spk_1: 0:00
marketing for community colleges is tough. But after 20 years of working solely with two year technical and community colleges, we've learned a few things. Now we want to share them with you. Welcome to the community College Marketing Masterclass Podcast. Hi, I'm married Luca, vice president of Interact Communications, your guest host for this episode of Interacts Community College marketing MASTERCLASS When. Thursday, April 16th Interact Communications hosted a live webinar with our partners from Google and reach local to explore shifts that are taking place in perspective. Students digital behavior so colleges can reach them at the right time in the right place while navigating the new, normal and related uncertainties. We heard from Tatiana Shaper, strategic partner manager with Google, who shared insights into what Google is seeing in terms of the student journey and how the pandemic is impacting student motivation, preferences and behavior. So key takeaways for that students have maintained their aspirations but need even more guidance as they weigh their options amidst significant destruction. We need to think about how we could be most useful while they're in their research mindset and spending even more time online. It's estimated that streaming content will increase another 60%. We need to provide students with relevant content as they're looking to expand their minds while they cannot expand their spaces, we also need to be more visible throughout their search, which for more than half of perspective students takes a full year. This means we need to have an always on approach with our digital advertising. These were some of the tips are Google higher ed expert shared. And while we cannot make Google's portion of our webinar public, as Google's content is exclusive to attendees and the information is protected, we can bring you the rest of our webinar conversation with Amy Hazlehurst and Aaron Green of Reach Local and interacts Chris Walker, who provided more insight into what matters to students and how we can best engage them with relevant content at this critical time. So whether you were among the more than 300 professionals who joined us on the webinar from colleges spread across the country from coast to coast, or just tuning into this podcast for the first time, welcome. We're pleased to provide you with this recording of the webinar. I also invite you to visit our interact New Center for an F A Q. With responses from our Google, reach local and interact presenters about the most frequently asked questions that we received during and following this webinar. Just go to new study. Interrupt com dot com. You can also find the discussion board we've added to give everyone a place to pose questions and share ideas about Managing Cove in 19 challenges at your college is just look for the discourse tab Once you get to our page. Okay, that's it from May. Take a listen. There's a lot of food for thought packed into this session that should give you helpful ideas for attracting students as you head towards summer and fall.
spk_2: 3:04
Hi. Everybody will think so much. I recognize a lot of people on the call today in some cases that I don't know it. Also, I wanted to take just a couple minutes to introduce our partnership from With Interact. Um, I have been at reach local for over 12 years and during that entire time have had the pleasure of working with Cheryl Groom, President uh, Interact communication. But prior to that, we were actually doing her digital marketing were Costa College and when she came on board to interact a little over two years ago, we met for lunch of discuss about how we could work together on the rest of kind of history. Of that, we have been working in handling interact digital campaigns, and we will have one unified gold with them. And it could be the best marketing firm that we could be four community colleges. We don't like or accept mediocrity, and you guys should neither. That's kind of been our goal with, um, I did want to go over just kind of some highlights of our partnership. In the past two years, we've actually we have over 1800 digital campaign with Interact for their community colleges. They provide the full creative and strategic support. And we have the partnership to talk publishers with extensive certifications that we're making sure that we are utilizing your budget the best that we can, even it smartly and optimizing the campaign. We really want to focus on the strategy beyond that and then going to involvement, growth and making sure that we are hitting our guys at school so back a little bit about us, but past that I don't gotta energy shoot to Aaron Green cheese off with regional coach is going to be talking about capturing students today.
spk_0: 4:51
Yeah, everybody I am airing praying I am the director of sales and enablement at which local and partner with Amy and Interact I love this vertical and getting to work with everybody we're gonna be talking about understanding and capturing. Students were specifically going to be talking about Generation Z, and we're gonna talk about how this content was initially developed in February in the end of marching. How, How and echoing what talking on and said, How things haven't changed is to sort of applied a lot of pressure to everything as the entire world change from starting off with back to the future. And not because it feels like that we jumped in in our timeline has been changed by somebody and that we desperately wish that they would go back and fix it. But I want to start often say that that's what the future predicted. A lot of technology changes when it came out right, And I'm gonna go through a few 100 bullet which think about this sort of in the back of your mind is, when did you you have these different technologies come on line for right? And so it's not that we got hoverboards, but we did get a lot. Almost all of the other things that predicted. Some of the things that predicted included wearable devices, wireless gaming, wireless payment technology. If you remember in the movie, they predict weather down to the minute he's got the jacket, it talks to him. There were a flat screen TVs became the menu boards, you know, on and on and on. And for most of us, as we were going through like that, became amazing. But what's crazy is that none of this is exceptional. Two generations, right? What's crazy is that they grew up with this technology, and what this shows you is the timeline when all of these things came online, right? So this is if you are a member of Generation Z. If you're the oldest person of that generation, what age did these technologies come on line? And so just let that sit with you. Think about what age did you get your first smartphone. IPhone comes online in 2007. YouTube comes online in 2005. How old were you when you got those technologies for people? Generation Z, the oldest person was 10 when I phones came out, which means that it's not remarkable, like these things are table stakes for them. One of the things we sort of always ask is, you know, like it's it's it's been the future for a while and why haven't you adapted? And the reasons for that are pretty straightforward, like one it's hard and to the future is always changing. So what, we want to talk about some of the things that we're gonna learn today three big things that we want to hammer home. First, we're gonna show agency that you understand that's gonna be more important now than ever. It was already. And now, as the world has a radically changed want to be able to communicate that you will get them that you know that what they're going through to that you want to show yourself is a trusted resource to speak their language and armed them with the tools to succeed in today's world, with the uncertainty of everything that's going on, that's gonna be more important than ever, and then of course to communicate effectively, right? How do you break through all of the noise and be heard across all different platforms? So we're going to get into the details of that. We'll talk about the anatomy of Generation Z, and a lot of people haven't taken a second toe. Look that right. But Generation Z represents 27% of the U. S relation, so it's almost 87 million people. It's the most diverse generation that we've ever had, which is amazing, and people pick different age brackets. For that. We're going to say that it's roughly people that were born from 1997 to present. So that's who Gen Z is. And then, if you want to think about the different generations and what the most important things of men sort of for some people, maybe generations isn't your target audience initially, and it gets going to need to be is things changed? But if you look a baby boomers from example, what defines them, this is the first generation that had TV adverse generation to experience to in from households. They lived a really big social change, right, like JFK and Martin Keene assassinations and are defined by a very strong work ethic. You can sort of see the same thing for a generation X that they're currently 20% of the U. S workforce, and they've been known as the MTV Generation that were like to marry that were quick to divorce millennials. Although people use the word millennial and Gen Z interchangeably like they're not right. Millennials is 50% of the workforce Now. The oldest millennials are pushing 40. But they've been called the iPhone generation and I could say they it's actually me. I get into the millennial category is an older millennial. Their financial habits were shaped by the 2008 crisis. Social media was huge in their initial shaping. And then we've got Generation Z on the next line. There's a lot of factors that have played to shape Generation Z, and you can see how this list is gonna have to evolve more rights of tragedy, school shootings and deaths. And now, with everything that's going on with co vid on teen tragedy has been a huge part of this generation and same thing of how the government is impacted them right than no Child Left Behind falsies the 2008 crisis, the elections of Obama and Trump like the mid central figures in their lives. Also, the explosion of reality television, the rise of streaming, the rise of social media celebrities. It's the first generation. If you have kids that are generation Z, they may have celebrities that you have never heard of because they're being pulled from, you know, other areas that you haven't seen. You maybe probably known 65 to the same YouTube channels that they do and don't follow people. And then, of course, technology. This is the first generation with computers in the classroom. And I'm gonna make a distinction because I think that we had computer lab, we would get up, we would go right, and then we would come back. But now computers are becoming more ubiquitous. My daughter has an iPad for test, one of the ways that you can see the difference right between how things were versus hell things are is just the covers of media. So this is what team loan looks like in March 2003 with Godwin's defining, she was a fashion Icahn. For me, you can see the headlines right? It's hot guys from Brock. But when you look at what a team boat put together for the you that end of the of the decade right for December 2019 it was Malala, right? It was a decade of youth rising and how important used activism has to come. And so if you think about that Touchstone, those worlds have changed dramatically on this trend continues, right? So even the average age of puberty for when girls reach puberty has changed from 1900 that started at 17. Now that's about age 13 and another stat that you probably wouldn't have thought of, which is what is the percentages of nine year olds who were given homework yesterday. And that was 82%. And now another throw during school from home. People are having even Mawr home right, because there's been an over abundance of communication. So that is, that pressure cooker has. The other thing to think about is how the life stage barriers have dissolved for this generation so before, for millennials gen x, and before you have very defined parts, you've got childhood and then you get your Tween years and then your teen years and you're in adulthood, but now it's all blurred together, and I'll give you a good example, right? So you know some people will you still send your kids to to camp, right? And for us, maybe for millennials, for Gen X. You go to camp and it was summer camp, and you just did fun stuff. But now it's more likely when you send your kid to camp that you're gonna send them to robot can't or steamed camp. And why? Because you want to prepare them for multiple stages of life at the same time. You need the childhood part of them have had in childcare, where you could take care of things and be with them to have fun and get to do something exciting. But also, let's go ahead and prepare them for the rapidly changing job market and give them advance still so that they don't give it left crime. And that's kind of how it's been. People are having to confront issues a lot earlier than they ever have before. Then everything is doing double duty. So what's your take away? The take away is that you know, the this demographic, it's their life, is complicated. It's blurred together and that you need to show them that you understand. And for a lot of community, colleges sometimes will say things like Oh, you know, it's on the top 10 program and I just want you to know that for both better and worse, that means less than it ever has before. The number of kids that are leaning towards wanting to go to a prestigious school and it being their final biggest choice, like that's that's dropping and so feeling understood, has been everything in the way that you do that is by being authentic, right? So it's not about being. It's not about bragging. It's about showing that you understand. And so in the next slide, to talk a little bit about how we did that for one of our community colleges. So what we did was a brand was seen exercise, and this is just a word cloud of what we've heard. Listen to the social media chatter that was going on about this particular community college and on the next side, what we did is to take that information, and this is just really authentic message you needed to climb through right so we were able to communicate a little bit off from Gen Z right? That 1/3 of the students that isn't in this particular community college or 30 and hold right. We did organic images. We know both from a posting perspective for this platform that organic and just performed better. But the this big take away for you is that we just listened. Took that information and nature to include that messaging and the so that was sort of part one. Want to go to part two Now we want to talk about the minds that we talked about the demographics. Now we're gonna talk about where is the head at for generations Sea especial with everything that's going on and one of the few thing to think about is the views on college have changed and is gonna be interesting to see how that affects even more. For boomers, college was a choice, a legitimate joint. You could be a successful with or without a degree, and then you get to millennials. It was something that millennials aspire to. It was more of a question of you know where you could afford to go and then when you get to Gen. Z, we find that college ends up being one of many options. They're fearful of the implications and are looking for their personal packs to success, which may or may not into include higher education. And so, if you're wondering why, Andi, I think a lot of us are super attended this ride, but it has to do with the amount of money that college can cost right? And so this person is a social media post. They went to a four year school but was breaking down. How much money did they really have to spend? They ended up spending to get both their bachelor and the n B A. They spent seven years in school, and ultimately, what were their repayment options for that? So for a four year school and she ultimately get their MBA, But they could either pay $1200 a month in $23,000 in interest before they're 45 or $600 a month in $72,000 interest. I was looking up recently, right, like you can get a brand new Corvette for those kinds of payments, and that's going to be how the world works for them. So if you wonder why kids maybe are are hesitant as they go into school, this is one of the things. And it's one of the advantages that community colleges, how that you can. So one of the big things that I want to point out because I think people here millennial and they believe that with the Gen Z, one of the words that comes up a lot is snowflake, right? And I would like to disabuse you with that idea, but I would like you to replace that with his pressure cooker wants you to think of it more than any other generation. There is so much pressure being applied that's being applied to all of us right now in a way that we never thought that we would have to and then think about people whose brains maybe aren't completely developed yet and having to deal with that. So even pre cove it people that report that they're dealing with anxiety, depression, pointing drug addiction, like those stats are very, very high. And that's just a reality that goes for urgency. That's not the the only reason why. So if you think about like the whole world. You know, earlier this year, Australia was on fire and we thought that that was going to be the big story of the world, right? And now, like that seems so far away. Automation was already on track to become a huge problem in terms of what jobs were still going to exist. We know that 23% of jobs for sure gonna get automated that are high risk. There's another 25% of jobs that are in medium risk, and that was pre cove it. And so now if you think about a world where you want to reduce disease, transmission and things are shutting down and they're looking for alternatives like robotic solutions and automation is going to happen even faster, and that's a reality that people are gonna have to deal with this. They figure out what they're gonna do but their lives on and then also think about like, what are the pressures that if it affecting generations, these some of these, I think that most generations have dealt with and then some of them are name, right. So, for example, the pressure to do well in school that's do. That's been a thing to be healthy. But as you go down to the end, the one that kills makes its 44% felt pressure to get a lot of lights and follows on social media. You imagine growing up with that pressure or the pressure that anything that you might do might be be re recorded. You could become a horrible meat That's a real problem, right within local social media populations and things that I hope that go go wealth. Even other things like 75% said that they felt pressure to define what they stood for or to drive change in society. So really big pressure is happening at earlier and earlier ages. The big take away right is that approximately 75% of Gen. Z say that there are other ways of getting a good education than just going to college, and we see this in a lot of different industries. This was pioneered by businesses that were hiring programmers that at some point they said, Does a programmer really need ah, four year college degree Teoh work here, or do they really just need to be able to show that they can do the job. Do internships work you? Are there other ways to prove that somebody can be effective and, like there are businesses that are leading the way for that? So Jin Z is considering that. And if you're thinking about your own message and how this of ice can you? This is the time for you to grab the spotlight and to be able to apply a beacon of heat and light on your program to say, Here is your pathway to victory. This is how that you can be successful and effective. I will kill you financially. That will set up to be effective, going for so your take away. You want to be a resource. If college is no longer the default option, you're gonna have to hit a role and helping people understand that it's the correct option for them. They're facing major financial problems that's very complex. It's very stressful to figure that out, and you can be the person helps him unwind out. So you can't just say that your great that's not going to cut it. You need to give them tools to succeed. So if you want to ask fact that it's Ash added beats full. And with our social listening, we get a comparison between for university and state school on or ah to your college for the university, you can see that there were one of the things that was really important to the college was family and parenting, for example, right? So those were the things that we listen to, and we wanted to inform that in the content that we way put out branded content for this particular community college and it helped piece together t give people that information. And it wasn't about coming up with your Just do it Nike slogan thinking that you're gonna accomplish everything with one camping thing was about coming up with targeted content and targeted ads that hit different pieces and have those across a lot of different places, right? So, for example, this last one, which is these six lucrative jobs, will be in demand for years, experts say. That's absolutely something that you can connect to. Here's the job is the education. You could be able to get the jump. OK, so that was part two. Now you can really move to Part three, which is the third theme of being connected, and I think that this is so telling. I remember we used to say BRB when we were online and we don't say it anymore, and it's because we don't really elite like we live online now. In fact, I find myself apologized for having to tell us like, Hey, just so you know, like, I'm really gonna just not be available for a little bit because people were used to being connected all the time, and now that we're all sort of locked in our houses, it's different. So before, just a couple months ago, it was. 45% of students said that they were online almost constantly and for sure this number has gone up and this is an interesting grid, right? So if you want to target Gen. Z, you can think about for across different generations. What other thoughts about these platforms and how they right? So, for example, boomers may be more likely to say, Please call me not into texting right Xers. Maybe it's Can you pick up the kids millennials? It's like opinion, their friends, if he was going out tonight, definitely more casual for urgency. Think about the use of email that flow boomers. Hey, here's like there's a 48 like boomers will still get forwards right from your mom. She will four to something being you. Because an article I thought that you like Xers. Maybe it's scheduled meeting millennials. I want to go on if it were my packages. But for Gen. Z email is just a log in for other APS, it's largely a professional professional thing. And then to think about Facebook. My daughter just got on Facebook and then I asked her why. Because she wasn't on and she was like, Oh, because you don't want to keep up with the family like she finally hit UNAIDS. You just turned 15 and now she wants toe. You see what's going on with, like, the larger family, and that's the platform to do what you can't get that on star other other busts. And then this was telling NZ works on efficient communication in a lot of different ways, and whether you like it or not, the use of emoticons, it's a huge deal. And so this is just one Touchstones for to keep in the back of your mind. I received my first text message from my daughter. That was all emoticons. I don't know if you have experienced this yet, but it was troubling to me. It took a while to uncover your big like Oh, there was a message there, and you can look at this. Two ways you can look at is that this is a gross reduction of the English language as we know it. And it's a horrible trend and they need to stop or you can look at it pretty high brown. So you maybe this is an evolution of media glasses and were transcending barriers of communication. Whichever extremely take is is actually irrelevant, right, because this is just the way that it's so efficient communication and thinking about doom. That and having your message, not trying to accomplish everything in one message Frank and thinking about how they're spending their time online. So nine hours a day are on their digital devices. That's pretty cove it. Now everybody is living on their phones, all right. That was already more than that were sleeping. Now it's definitely more their extra correct. But extracurricular activities took down dramatically. Time on homework is up, but Everybody ultimately is living online, and they're living online in multiple devices. And I want you to think about what that looks like, right? So you've got your your typical generations. The student, they are locked in the room and they've got multiple devices going all at the same time trying to get into that because this is the typical marketing funnel. And if you did not know the marketing funnel was invented in 18 99 and the marketing funnel worked for so long, it was fine. And then at some point, we started to find that the marketing funnel didn't tell the whole story. And what we started to talk about was the student journey, which we still talk about all the time. That's super effective. And it helps us visualize for a single person moving through the floor. Right? And he would tell you pretty component stories of there was this moment that they needed to act. You know, maybe they have that. I'm so done with this moment of somebody that Mr, you know, changed jobs would happen and then move through on day one. And once a learned and they want to understand, we talk about the retargeting ads getting that in front of them. But at some point when we look at Jin Z, that even starts to break down because it's just, you know, not complicated enough. You get this kind of tree ring or molecule looking story, and it still is flowing through the basic stages. But I need you to think about like putting that person in the room. If you've got the is a student, because their laptop up that got 1000 chrome tabs stealing, they've also got their iChat, which is their textbook, and they're trying to sort of pay attention homework, And they got their phone up their messaging to different people, and it got, you know, other things going on all the same time. So it's the division of attention. There's never a singular thing going on, but maybe they're going for the what we call the awareness and research planning right there orbiting through these different topics are looking for best business schools are looking for ranking websites for business. School may be looking for degrees near me, all right, and then their life goes on, but they're moving in and they're looking for, you know, the campus culture. They want to define the fit they're looking for. Tours of the campus they're looking for scholarship information are moving into the consideration face while everything else is happening in their life simultaneously. They're also watching Netflix, also watching videos of entertainment playing games. And then at some point, they go, Yeah, I'm actually going to do this and get that commitment state. So there's an email reminder of an application deadline, and they ultimately apply on sport. Maybe they share whenever they get them online, so you can use those rubrics different ways you can still use. If you like the traditional marking bundle do that. If you like the customer journey. Definitely stick with that. But this is another way to think about that. There's gonna be a division of of attention in a way that there hasn't been digested become, and this is something that Tatiana hit on. And so if you're looking for your big take away slide, we've put it in two places intentionally. 51% of prospectus of perspective students been over a year researching this journey, And, um, the biggest thing that we hear from community colleges is that they're likely to turn their campaigns on and off based on your timeline. Right? Enrollment is coming up, so I'm gonna go ahead and start my campaign. We know that most people are spending a lot longer researching their German across a lot of different platforms and the turning things and turning them off based on that timeline is not reflective of the actual way that we see in search trends and behavior and all of those. This is the other big slide to take away. So if you're one, you're missing out on reaching people if you're joining the campaigns on and off. But what we find is is that the early engagement is so critical to reach people when they are influenced herbal because when they start the process, their initial consideration set. The number of schools that they're looking at is three or four, and 75% of those perspective students did not expand that list later. So it's not like that you're going to be able to turn on your marketing campaign, jump in halfway in the middle of their journey and inject yourself in the way that maybe you can other verticals because that brand loyalty has already been dealt in terms of somebody that did shine he and likes and get somebody to be a trusted resource and be heard about noise. So if you're looking for a sort of a case city to highlight this, this came from from Google. But it was for somebody that had a very truncated journey. This was somebody that they measured for only six weeks. What did they do is part of their journey, and you can see the numbers. There was a lot of video page views. There are a lot of Google you searches on school. A page visits, but it was over 3000 digital touchpoints. And of course, Google is an amazing platform. We recommend that for everything and cover 72% of those. But if you're only looking at your last click attribution, if you're only looking at what was the last thing somebody before they've taken action. It's a huge mission for your program, and it's something that you need to be thinking about. If you're looking for a metaphor to be able to communicate that other people in your organization you can just talk about, let's say if you were in New York, we were having to travel somewhere, right? Like you've gotta go downstairs. That's one that if you get trapped thing, you gonna go into subway somewhere and you're gonna get in a cab, maybe to get to the last place, we're gonna take a bus for the last leg of it, and then you walk into wherever you want it to go. It's not walking that nailed it. Even though that was the beginning and end of the journey. It was all of those things that took you to get there. And so that's the way that I want you to be thinking about your program. Think about what are all the different methods that get you there. So your take away is that you need to communicate differently. The decision making process is complex. It's happened across a lot of different product platforms, a lot of different devices, and it's so important to be present to be a part of that process. If you're not present, can't win. So if you're looking for your simple hash tag, it's that you need to be there, and that's exactly what we did for this particular community. college. We made sure to be there to have a chat solution was on their site. He's branded content to be a resource for the community who was promoted on Socialist motor on search. We use display and G opens, and we used all of the tools at our disposal to be able to run a campaign. And as you can imagine, right, the effect of that was phenomenal. So there was a 27% increase in enrollment. When we send the check out, you can certainly get into the details of this. So let's recap first, show them that you understand communicate value by signaling to them that you really get it, especially with everything that's going on now, right to be a trusted resource in times of uncertainty, their goals have not changed, not touched on that right. Like they still want to have the same life has the same goals, and what they need is somebody help educate them on that process and how that's home to work and then three communicate effectively. We know the platform is noisier than ever there. There's more distractions, but they're also there's more opportunity. People are on mine more and one of the things that we've seen on different platforms because people are online more, it means that media costs are going down, which means that you're able to get more reaching more about fourth show, you understand, be a trusted resource, communicate effectively and then lastly. So how do you stay relevant for that? Just think about the different solutions that you wanted to use him to. This definitely want to be used in search engine marketing if you don't have your search program running. If you're not thinking about areas that you can double down and be able to people for that, take a look. I think about display over the top advertising with video, all the places that you're going to be able to reach people and being able to do geo fencing in home, they look instagram Snapchat, YouTube. YouTube has been huge right now, so create smart, well thought out digital campaign for all of the different audiences. I know that we've gone fast that we've thrown a ton of information at you and and that's that's fine if you feel overwhelmed or if you have even better if you feel engaged or feel like Oh Jin Zenit was did the exact outings that I want. How am I gonna reach Millennials or Gen Xers are returning education people? What about the people that have lost their jobs that want to retool from new careers? They're going to be emerging that are run campaigns for those awesome. Those are absolutely the kind of questions that we love. So reach out to us in the consent of individual medians and break all of those things down for your power supplies for your specific programming. North Dysentery. Fantastic.
spk_2: 31:24
Thank you, Erin. It's always a pleasure to hear. So my name's Chris. I was introduced earlier, so I won't take a long time here. VP at, um interact. And the picture here is actually me and Angela speaking in there. That's from our last event at Google. That was a lot of fun here in California on. And so we're really disappointed that we had Teoh kind of cancel the trip out to New York. I know we're not really looking forward to that
spk_0: 31:51
as well as well. And just want to say that Yeah, meet some last minute. You're definitely looks out with Yeah,
spk_2: 32:00
that was a tough. That was a tough pill for all of us. But what are you going to do? So thank you, Google for being gracious and, you know, in helping us continue and carry the message forward to the group. Been in marketing 20 years. Um, I remember marketing, you know, through y two K kind of scary, uh, agency services for about 12 years now and just done a lot of campaign strategy right now. I love being focused on community colleges. I really believe in that mission. I love my my team in this job, but I've also done a lot of work in a lot of other verticals, including everything from candy to maternity jeans to outdoor to fleet, even brain surgery. One of my largest clients for a long time was an endoscopic brain surgeon. So that's a little bit about me. The first graphic I want to call out Boo Cove. It I'm so over this. If you hear my todd, they're yelling. Sorry, I'm definitely ready for day. Care to be open again. But what I wanted to talk about is you put a lot of insights about the student journey on the path from, you know, awareness all the way through to an enrollment that's all really beneficial. And how you think about kind of the runs that you climb up the ladder and convincing a prospect or student to actually kid of all but what I wanted to talk about it. What are some of the things that we're seeing across our clientele and we've got? I don't even know how many active campaigns right now, but there's colleges all over the nation, including several in the West Coast, obviously the mid blast from the East Coast on There are some shifts that we're seeing out in response to coded. And I wanted to share those with you to either help you and your thinking and your strategy of the best kind of most effective use of your marketing for your college or reassure you that you know, you're making decisions that a lot of other people are, and we definitely agree with what you're doing on. Then I'll just go through a really quick case study. We're here with Google. We're talking about the effectiveness of their marketing products. I'm so I'm gonna just go over a quick case study so The first primary shift in marketing that we're seeing right now is that a lot of colleges are shifting their budget, are some of their budget away from outward marketing and focusing it in more toward retaining their current students. I know that you know lots of students. The fear is that with many colleges having to move their programs completely online, the threat of stop outs and students, you know, falling out, not continuing, being unsure as to whether or not they need to succeed in an online program or online curriculum. So reassuring those students staying in front of them, keeping them engaged, keeping them enrolled has really become a big focus of marketing dollars in in a big way. And so the way that we look at that is the the platforms. Really, For this, our, you know, our search running YouTube continue really strong, are targeting off of the website. We're doing lots of e mails. That's the current students. When it comes enrollment time, we're looking at you know, people who like your FT easier failed to enrolls. We've got campaigns targeting those folks. And then, of course, there's also social media Facebook, instagram, Snapchat, and then many of the display products. And that includes geo fencing and O. T. T. And some of those other things that you heard about Addressable Geo fencing Website. Re marketing keyword retargeting has a lot of ways that you can really hover around that student The way that Erin's wide showed. So retention is a big one on the other one is that more and more colleges are thinking about attracting current four year students that are in your local area, right? So you've got, you know, students that have had to come home from college campuses because of Kobe. It's really unfortunate. I know that carries a lot of emotional wait for those folks having toe leave their friends and leave their campus. So these, you know, these students are at home, and that means that they're in your service area. And that means that maybe they're accomplishing coursework at their four year at their four year institution online. That also puts them into your market. And so a lot of colleges are doing potential retargeting keyword retargeting off of four year universities that are kind of surrounding your community. So that's another demographic that you could look at this. I want to call out this particular term, protecting your home turf on one of my clients, Irvine Valley. There, p i o kind of coined this phrase and it really struck a chord with me because all the colleges you know, you have your service area. In many cases, you're sort of forced toe only market within your service area. Maybe some of you have a little bit looser boundaries. But here in the state of California, that's very clear on that community. Colleges are only supposed to market in their particular service area zip codes. And so if you've got prospects in your area, you know, we really want to draw ah really strong wall around your service area and make sure that you are showing up 100% on be visible to searchers in your local area around community college. In college, terms like this is your area, and that covers, you know, your organic listings, your paper click, which we've kind of seen of the community college terms your brand term cetera on, and then you have the other on the other local positions as well. So that's your directory listings. Your map, your phone numbers, your hours of operation, the information that is in your business profile. Those are all important to really keep an eye on. Make sure it's all accurate on just try to have as much impression share for community, college and college terms in on your home turf and in continuing really strong branding in that time. Right? And so that's YouTube that's re marketing us running video. It's, you know, making sure that students are continuing to see your message all throughout. But particularly YouTube is a great way. Teoh, you know, to continue pushing the college and pushing your position in the community, the student support services that are so important right now, all of those things. That's a great time to remind students essentially, that you are one of the rocks in their community and that you're not going anywhere. And then, lastly, we talked about this a little bit before. Google did a much better job at showing you some of the data around this. How the surge in searches for online degrees and certificates So this is kind of harkening to the data that they showed that a lot of our colleges are looking at Doing this now like this isn't new. You know. Community colleges have been offering online programs for a long time, but it's just never been in a situation like this where everyone sort of forced to go on my right. So that's another big shift in marketing where colleges have had to retool their messaging. They've had to redo ABS. They even had to rethink the images that they're using in their ads because you don't necessarily want to be showing campus shots and students on campus and these lifestyle shots of students together in groups where you know students are at home. They're on their computer there with their family. So the big shift into online has been one of the big trends, and we're seeing some. Some of our clients have really great success with that, so that kind of rounds up the major ships. So just to recap, dies retention, attracting for your students in your local area, protecting their home turf. Ah, and then really pushing online, and then just one case study I wanted to shoot through one of our clients is Los Angeles Community College District. It's ah uh I think maybe the nation's largest community college district. It's over 200,000 students. I think it's in the neighborhood of about 230,000 coming up to 240,000 students in this area. Ah, and we ran a campaign from December 10th through February 10 just for this past spring to really push enrollment. That's what today is about. It's okay on my, you know, OK, Google. How do we really push and get online involved? And so what we did was we developed. And now this is nine colleges within the district. And so each of the colleges have their own set of abs that included retargeting ads, paper, quick written abs, social media ads, videos, etcetera. We also did a bunch of email sent, I think what the numbers are at the end, but over well over a 1,000,000 emails out to current students failed to enroll students, and so we had a series of emails sent that were really there to just focus the messaging down to getting students to register or two in wall. And so what The Aziz were planning the campaign? Strategically, we're looking at what's the best use of of this budget in the first is obviously paperclip Google's pay per click. Somebody's searching in our local area. We need to be there. We need to show up. You saw stats about how important it is to influence students early, right? So they're just getting into thinking about going to college. That's probably the most opportune time to get in front of them. Put yourself on that initial consideration list, right? And then we also did YouTube. You know, lots of video, really high energy. Talking about enrollment. Keeping your your college career going. I mentioned we did a mountain of email again to current students trying to get them to enroll quicker, Right? We would rather see your sections fill up sooner rather than right at the end of the line, read at the end of the registration period. We're going to get them in the system, get them registered, whether crosses are available, and then, for those who you know, had had applied or Hatton and Roll or they had been in a current or previous semesters and they hadn't yet enrolled. We email those folks, encouraging them to enroll to we just in social media Facebook Instagram Geo offense. Snapchat all of those things together again hovers around that students showing them that it's time to enroll and get involved in their spring classes. And so, at the end of the campaign, we again two months. We've served 10 points, almost seven million campaign impressions. All of the campaigns together essentially created 183,000 Web visits to the nine different colleges Israel segmented out into each of the nine service areas. We had over 200,000 completed 100% video views generated a little over 3000 phone calls, had about 1500 post engagement. We set 1.5 plus 1,000,000 emails out. We had just under 500,000 of those opens or open rate was really strong, and I haven't seen the actual final numbers. But some of the reports that were leading up right into the end of the spring registration period we're showing about a 5% district enrollment quote district wide, so it's across all of the nine colleges. Keep in mind 240,000 students, 5% pretty significant number. We're very, very excited about that now. I wanted to talk about that I know we're running up on time is really it is. That campaign is a testament to, you know, really leveraging all of the different lovers that we can pull. So we lean heavily on reached local and Google pay per click YouTube. You know, all of those things. All the social media Facebook, instagram, Snapchat. It really takes all of those touchpoints that you saw very early on. How many Touchpoints averages? Six. Right. So e mails add videos, searches, re marketing, chat All those things add up, and it takes all of that effort to really push that enrollment needle. So that really is it. I know we're at an hour. I just want to say thank you to everybody for joining us today. I'm gonna turn it back over to marry. I also just want to say if you have any questions or if there's anything that we can do to help any of you Interactive's a resource to you. In this time, we're here to help. You've been supportive of interact over. There are 24 years and business, and we just want you to know that we're here for you as a resource. We're happy to answer any questions and thank you so much for your time.
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Thanks so much for joining the community. College Marketing Masterclass Podcast. For more great tips on how to improve marketing communications at your two year college visit, interact com dot com and join us next time as we discuss and share actionable time tested strategies on topics directly related to community college marketing. Hang in there and remember anything you need. Just reach out. We're here to support you. Thank you for joining the community College Marketing Masterclass Podcast. For more great tips on how to improve marketing and communications at your two year college visit, interact com dot com and join us next time as we discuss and share actionable time tested strategies on topics directly related to community college marketing.