Web 2.0 Marketing for Educational Institutions - What Should Happen Before

In considering an e-marketing strategy oriented around Web 2.0 technologies for educational institutions, it’s best - in line with the theme of Seth Godin's Meatball Sundaes - to go back to the overall ‘structures’ and ‘culture’ of the organisation and work from there to the gadgets and tools (e.g. blogs, twitter, facebook, the works). The spirit of a visionally transformed corpus must come first, then the flesh of technology will follow.

It would help to use Godin’s principles cum questions for Disney (see p.223-6 at the end of the book) :

1. Direct communication between producers and consumers – after students fill up the forms or make an enquiry or initiate the ‘first contact’ with XYZ College, do they hear from it again in a way which isn’t intrusive and which in fact brings delight? Do these potential and on-going clients receive anticipated, personal and relevant messages (a Godin mantra)? And, of course, do they receive it in the medium they prefer (e.g. some may not like email)

2. Direct communication between consumers and consumers - the New Marketing is consumer-driven i.e. ultimately the students are the Marketing Department because their Word-of-Mouth is more powerful than all the brochures and flyers. What is XYZ doing to encourage student reviews, student influence, student sharing? This goes beyond ‘friend2friend’ promotions and must go deeper to ‘unofficial sharing’ (see no. 3 below)

3. Amplification of the voice of the consumer and independent authorities – how much does XYZ respect the influence and voice of everyone who visits our sites, of our students, our partners, our clients, etc.? Does XYZ ‘host’ any platform or space as a way of allowing and encouraging peer reviews of educational products? Is XYZ seen to ‘amplify’ the voice of the average man on the Web?

4. Stories spread, not facts – what’s the ‘story’ of XYZ's next educational offering? What’s the ‘story’ of its new lecturers, its next events, its latest branch? What will people be spreading after they attend or are exposed to its latest function, PR event, communique, etc.? (Note: here is where YouTube, Facebook and Blogs could be most effective, because every upload is a potential story – colleges need to give people a reason to include it into their RSS feeds)

5. Extremely short attention spans – how is XYZ tackling the fact that students and consumers nowadays have extremely short attention spans? (Tip: send shorter and more frequent messages instead of longer and less frequent ones); this is also where content must always catchy, helpful and worth remembering! Again, people need a reason to ‘come back’

6. Tuning in to ‘spare time’ – why would the average student want to think about XYZ college in his/her spare time? What would make the college attractive/engaging enough for young adults to want to make room in their minds for XYZ marketing/community material after classes?

7. The Long Tail (mass customization/diversity) – what is XYZ doing about the customization of education? Instead of giving ‘fixed’ educational offerings to students, can they be allowed to choose what and how they wish to study? Can XYZ raise the level of student-selection and student-design of programs?

8. Google and Search Engine – apart from manipulating search engines such that XYZ ‘shows up’ more often, can the college offer great experiences which many students will talk, blog and/or leave updates about thus leading to more serach-result pages with XYZ at the top? What can the college do to encourage more people to hyper-link to the college’s website or blogs? (Tip: provide online education!)

9. Triumph of the Big Ideas – what redefinition or reinvention or re-conceptualisation is XYZ pioneering? Is XYZ known as an innovator, constantly coming up with new products to get people talking?

10. Shifts in Scarcity and Abundance – what is so rare that people intuitively value (e.g. clean open and creative space)? What’s so abundant that people hardly bother anymore (e.g. classes!)? How does XYZ College stack up in the abundance/scarcity ratio and is it focusing on improving this ratio?

Godin’s point is that unless the above are dealt with effectively, unless the ‘spirit’ of the organisation has changed, simply adding more gadgets or Web 2.0 tools may be nothing more than a façade (which people can very easily ignore anyway). So it’s best to get the substance and culture right – the technology will take care of itself.

The substance is key; the gadgets merely the key-chain.

A 60-Second Video Tutorial?

The below is a very short video pitching an email management solution. How about something similar to explain college courses?

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, our sixty-second tutorial is worth 10,000." (Sabrina Parson, CEO, Palo Alto Software)


Email Center Pro from Atelier Transfert on Vimeo.

Post-Marketing

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50 Strategies to Create a Web 2.0 Product

Dion Hinchcliffe's fascinating series continues...below is 10 of 50 strategies:

1. Start with a simple problem. All of the most successful online services start with a simple premise and execute on it well with great focus. This could be Google with it's command-line search engine, Flickr with photo sharing, Digg with user generated news. State your problem simply: "I make it easier to do X". Focus on solving it elegantly and simply, only add features carefully. Over time, complexity will become the enemy of both your product design and your software architecture, so start with as much focus as you can muster.

2. Create prototypes as early as possible. Get your idea into a working piece of software as quickly as possible. The longer you take to go through one entire cycle, the more unknown work you have ahead of you. Not producing software also means that you are not getting better and better at turning the work of your team into the most important measurable output: Functioning software. Throughout the life of your product, turning your ideas into software as quickly and inexpensively as possible will be one of the most important activities to get right.

3. Get people on the network to work with the product prototype rapidly and often. The online world today is fundamentally people-centric. If your product isn't about them and how it makes their lives better, your product really doesn't matter. And if they're not using your Web application as soon as possible, you just don't know if you are building the right product. Constant, direct feedback from real people is the most important input to our product design after your idea. Don't wait months for this to happen; get a beta out to the world, achieve marketplace contact in weeks, or at most a few months, and watch carefully what happens. This approach is sometimes called Web 2.0 Development .

4. Release early and release often. Don't get caught up in the massive release cycle approach, no matter how appealing it may be. Large releases let you push off work tomorrow that should be done today. It also creates too much change at once and often has too many dependencies, further driving an increase in the size of the release. Small releases almost always work better, are easier to manage, but can require a bit more operations overhead. Done right, your online product will iterate smoothly as well as improve faster and more regularly than your competitors. Some online products, notably Flickr, have been on record as saying they make new releases to production up to several times a day. This is a development velocity that many new startups have trouble appreciating or don't know how to enable. Agile software development processes are a good model to start with and and these and even more extreme methods have worked well in the Web 2.0 community for years.

5. Manage your software development and operations to real numbers that matter. One often unappreciated issue with software is its fundamentally intangible nature. Combine that with human nature, which is to manage to what you can see, and you can have a real problem. There is a reason why software development has such a variable nature in terms of time, budget, and resources. Make sure you have as many real numbers as possible to manage to: Who is making how many commits a week to the source repository, how many registered users are there on a daily basis, what does the user analytics look like, which product features are being used most/least this month, what are the top 5 complaints of customers, and so on. All of these are important key performance indicators that far too many startups don't manage and respond to as closely as they should.

6. Gather usage data from your users and input it back into product design as often as possible. Watch what your users do live with your product, what they click on, what do they try to do with it, what they don't use, and so on. You will be surprised; they will do things you never expected, have trouble with features that seem easy to you, and not understand parts of your product that seemed obvious. Gather this data often and feed it back into your usability and information architecture processes. Some Web applications teams do this almost daily, others look at click stream analytics once a quarter, and some don't it at all. Guess who is shaping their product faster and in the right direction?

7. Put off irreversible architecture and product design decisions as long as possible. Get in the habit of asking "How difficult will it be to change our mind about this later?" Choosing a programming language, Web framework, relational database design, or a software interface tend to be one-way decisions that are hard to undo. Picking a visual design, logo, layout, or analytics tool generally is not. Consequently, while certain major decisions must be made up front, be vigilant for seemingly innocuous decisions that will be difficult to reverse. Not all of these will be a big deal, but it's all too often a surprise to many people where the architect should be malleable. Reduce unpleasant surprises by always asking this question.

8. Choose the technologies later and think carefully about what your product will do first. First, make sure your ideas will work on the Web. I've seen too many startups with ideas that will work in software but not on the Web. Second, Web technologies often have surprising limits, Ajax can't do video or audio, Flash is hard to get to work with SEO for example. Choosing a technology too early will constrain what is possible later on. That being said, you have to choose as rapidly as you can within this constraint since you need to build prototypes and the initial product as soon as you are able.

9. When you do select technologies, consider current skill sets and staff availability. New, trendy technologies can have major benefits including higher levels of productivity and compelling new capabilities, but it also means it'll be harder to find people who are competent with them. Having staff learn new technology on the job can be painful, expensive, and risky. Older technologies are in a similar boat; you can find people that know them but they'll most likely not want to work with them. This means the middle of the road is often the best place to be when it comes to selecting technology, though you all-too-often won't have a choice depending on what your staff already knows or because of the pre-requisites of specific technologies that you have to use.

10. Balance programmer productivity with operational costs. Programming time is the most expensive part of product creation up front while operations is after you launch. Productivity-oriented platforms such as Ruby on Rails are very popular in the Web community to drive down the cost of product development but can have significant run-time penalties later when you are supporting millions of users. I've previously discussed the issues and motivations around moving to newer programming languages and platforms designed for the modern Web, and I encourage you to read it. Productivity-oriented platforms tend to require more operational resources during run-time, and unlike traditional software products, the majority of the cost of operations falls upon the startup. Be aware of the cost and scale of the trade-offs since every dollar you save on the development productivity side translates into a run-time cost forever after on the operations side.

The Psychology of Colour

Tom O'Leary writes:

"What's your favorite color? Obviously, if you ask this question to a group of people, you will get a variety (or spectrum!) of answers. Colors affect people in different ways, and much research has been accomplished to ascertain what emotional response different colors provoke. An effective communicator always takes her audience into consideration when preparing a message. Vocabulary, tone, length of material, and style are all adapted to each particular audience.

But how important is color really in terms of communicating a professional message? Isn't content all that matters? According to psychology.about.com, psychologists estimate that the response to color can account for 60% of the acceptance or rejection of a product or service.

Modern communicators who use design elements in their messages must consider what colors are appropriate for their audience. When considering color in the context of your message, you must take into account the cultural, gender, and age difference of your audience." (read on)

Pick-Up Artist's Guide to Effective Online Marketing

A cute article by James Chartrand, worth pondering:

"A beautiful woman sits alone at a bar. She’s had a long day. Clients were difficult, work piled up, and she scrambled frantically to get it all done. Now she’s tired and trying to unwind.

On either side of the woman sits a man. One is wearing a fancy suit, a gold watch, and has a briefcase next to him. The other man wears a baseball cap, a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

The man in the fancy suit starts talking to the woman. He tells her about his credentials and diplomas. He mentions his Ivy League education and his top marks. He’s impressive, and he doesn’t mind letting her know.

He talks about last year’s deals, each worth at least a million dollars. He bandies some big names around, and tells the woman how he has personal connections to each one. He mentions his luxurious apartment, his five cars, and his success stories.

Then he hands the woman a sleek business card with bold, gold lettering. He asks for her card in exchange and mentions that if he gets it, he’ll put her on his list of preferred customers (along with other hinted perks).

The woman turns to the other man in the baseball cap. The man strikes up conversation and asks the woman about her day. He listens to her answers. He asks more questions. He lets her lead the conversation, and he expresses empathy, nodding and telling her he understands how she feels.

The conversation revolves around the woman and the problems she faced. The man never talks about himself at all. He offers the woman some suggestions that might help tomorrow be a better day.

Who do you think got the woman’s number?"

Email Campaign Case Studies

From Seth Godin, the master of Web 2.0 marketing:

"In one week, I heard from two companies in the same industry. The comparison is instructive, I think.

Every month, I get a great email from Paul McGowan, founder of PS Audio. His newsletter is anticipated, personal and relevant. I signed up for it and I look forward to it.

Paul mentions his products, their reviews and their new technology. He also tells stories and acts like a real person. Because I signed up for the newsletter, I open it. Because he never abuses my trust, I trust him. If I hit reply, he writes back.

When it's time to buy the sort of thing he sells, I won't look around much, because I'm already sold.

I also got two identical emails (with different subject lines) from a speaker company called Thiel Audio. I never signed up to hear from this company, and judging from the email addresses they used, they harvested my address either from an attendee list at a conference at which I spoke or from an old business card.

The problem with believing that just because you have access to an address you have the right to mail is that there is no friction with email. It's free. You can email a million people in a heartbeat, costing the recipients time (and thus money) and you not much of either. The recipient knows this, and feels exploited or cheated. It's not fair, and so the lack of friction backfires. The very ease of interruption makes the interruption more annoying.

I get a lot of spam from non-reputable companies, but it was surprising to get this html ad via email from a company that used to have a good reputation.

My email box is where I live all day. They showed up, uninvited, and worked to sell me something even though they had no connection with me as a consumer or a blogger. That's not brand building, it's the opposite. Even worse, it's undependable.

With PS Audio, Paul realizes that over time, the more months I get the newsletter, the greater the chance I'm going to trust and like and buy from him. For Thiel, the opposite is true. The more they send, the more people will get in the habit of deleting or unsubscribing. It's not an asset, it's a risk. It doesn't scale, it shrinks.

No doubt, there are old-school marketers who will talk about their right to email or interrupt because it's not against the law, or perhaps it generates short-term sales. The thing is, consumers now have rights too. The right to ignore, to distrust and to choose someone else when it comes time to spend money.

There are a hundred ways to skulk around, to collect email addresses, to write clever privacy policies or to argue about whether opt-out ("you can always unsubscribe!") is a valid way to build a brand. None of those schemes work. What works is exactly one way: making promises and then keeping them. Every person who unsubscribes or deletes or just stops reading your mail is a person lost, a negative word-of-mouth opportunity waiting to happen.

Run an ad in traditional media or online and promise me a great newsletter, or a prize or news or even a discount if I sign up. That's clear and honest and it works.

A spam campaign feels like a smart idea, but over time, the more you use it, the less your brand is worth. A permission campaign, on the other hand, only grows in value, until it gets big enough that you can build an entire business around it.

Earning permission is a long-term, profitable, scalable strategy that pays for itself. Think about how much better off a brand would be if it took the time to make promises, keep them and be transparent about its communications."

8 Ways to Better Media Exposure for Business

Pamela Slim shares some tips:

1. Have a focus, and an opinion. I have to agree with Seth that the quickest way to get any idea to spread is to be remarkable. Sometimes I feel like I bore you to tears with my urging to choose a niche, but in the case of press coverage, it is essential. I would much rather be known as "the Escape from Cubicle Nation Lady" (someone actually addressed an email to me like that) rather than "Pamela Slim, general career coach who can help with any sort of work-related topic." Blech, boring, and bland as oatmeal, don't you agree?

2. Be a resource to reporters. Too often, entrepreneurs become obsessed with getting their company name in print. Instead, your focus should be to act as an exceptionally helpful resource to journalists. I have worked behind the scenes for years with some reporters before getting in print myself. If you are constantly trying to get yourself in the press, you will be viewed as a self-indulgent bore, to put it kindly. :)

3. React to press inquiries with lightening speed, and with relevant information. Journalists are always on deadline, so the quicker you get back to them, the more likely you will be A) viewed as a resource and B) potentially featured in a story. The relevant information is hugely important, as they will be tremendously annoyed if you either send too little or too much information, or (shudder) pitch them totally off-topic when they ask for specific information.

4. Be a resource to your circle of clients and partners. One of the best moves I have made is to join Help a Reporter Out (HARO), a three-times-a-day listing of press queries run by the indefatigable Peter Shankman. I scour it religiously each time it hits my email box, respond to queries that relate to my expertise right away, and forward on those that fit friends and colleagues as well. Some of my friends and clients have gotten press as a result which is a totally fantastic thing. A rising tide floats all boats, and this definitely applies to your network. Joan Stewart of The Publicity Hound also has good tips.

5. Blog about your press, where relevant to your readers. I remember the first time I was contacted by the PR person for the Wall Street Journal, wanting me to blog on a topic in the publication. I chuckled aloud at the flip in traditional media -- how the publications we have all dreamed of appearing in, like the WSJ, now like to get attention from scrappy bloggers like me. I really do think we all need each other -- I don't see social media totally overtaking mainstream media any day soon, nor do I think it should. I would love it if we could take best practices from both sides and help each other. And there is nothing like mainstream press to make it easy for your relatives to understand what you do. I will never forget the day that Seth said something exceptionally kind about me in his blog. But have you tried lately to explain to a grandparent who Seth Godin is? "Um, Grandma, he is this total marketing genius, thought-leader, viral idea-spreader guy who is also a great human being ... " It is much easier to say "Grandma, you know all that time I spend in front of my computer? BusinessWeek noticed -- here , read the article!"

6. Set up a system to make it easy to respond to press queries. I have an email template that includes a brief bio, a link to my press page, and contact information. That way when I see a specific query, I don't have to type in all that new information each time. In the lucky case that you are asked to provide a photo, have a good one handy on your desktop to send to reporters (I recommend both a high resolution image for print and a low resolution image for online).

7. Always respond to queries exactly as asked. If you see a general query which asks you to include a specific email header, do that. If not, it will probably mean that your response will not be seen, since the journalist may have email filters to sort queries. Peter Shankman has very specific guidelines for HARO, and will publicly "out" someone who flagrantly violates them. This would be the equivalent of being a teenager and being paraded in front of your entire high school in your underwear. A professional nightmare come true. So don't do it -- pitch well, pitch focused, and use good judgment.

8. Blog. All of this press coverage has come without the help of a public relations person, and 95% of it has come to me because I blog. If you have something to say, start to say it. It can't hurt!

Read the whole post here.

Are We Boring?

Seth Godin may sound a little harsh, but his words are worth reflecting on:

If the marketplace isn't talking about you, there's a reason.

If people aren't discussing your products, your services, your cause, your movement or your career, there's a reason.

The reason is that you're boring. (I guess that's what boring means, right?) And you're probably boring on purpose. You have boring pricing because that's safer. You have a boring location because to do otherwise would be nuts. You have boring products because that's what the market wants. That boring staff? They're perfectly well qualified...

You don't get unboring for free. Remarkable costs time and money and effort, but most of all, remarkable costs a willingness to be wrong.

Remarkable is a choice.

Bright Future for Online Video Marketing?

In the 2008 campaign season, primary debates were co-sponsored by YouTube, and questions from the public were submitted through the pioneering video-sharing site.

In 2004, YouTube did not exist.

eMarketer projects that the US online video audience will grow to 190 million people by 2012—that will be 88% of the Internet user population. Read more.

Good Power-Point

From Seth Godin's Really Bad Powerpoint:

Here are the five rules you need to remember to create amazing PowerPoint presentations:

1. No more than six words on a slide. EVER. (check out some ideas on presenting with text)

2. No cheesy images. Use professional images from corbis.com instead. They cost $3 each, or a little more if they’re for ‘professional use’. (alternatively, Google Images and Flickr might suffice)

3. No dissolves, spins or other transitions. None.

4. Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never (ever) use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have.

5. Don’t give hand-outs of your slides. They’re emotional, and they won’t work without you there. If someone wants your slides to show “the boss,” tell them that the slides go if you go.

You put up a slide. It triggers an emotional reaction in the audience. They sit up and want to know what you’re going to say that fits in with that image. Then, if you do it right, every time they think of what you said, they’ll see the image (and vice versa).

Viral Marketing

Your message is the virus! Find out more:


1. Joy. An emotion suited for irrelevant or fun brands and brands who want to revitalize their image. Suitable for products which promise life enhancement.

2. Sadness. Suitable when seeking an immediate response to unfortunate events. Consumer reactions may result in short-term commitments instead of long term patronage. Best to balance sadness with messages of hope or change.

3. Anger. Best suited for single issue campaigns that require an immediate reaction to perceived injustices experienced by the target market or general environment/society. Anger is a fleeting emotion and is not suitable for campaigns which require long-term action. Also does not work well with complex or subtle issues.

4. Fear. An emotion that is a short-term response to a perceived threat. Must be used carefully and sparingly. Likely to receive mixed responses from target market and best accompanied by proposed solutions which solve the fear-causing problem.

5. Disgust. Best targeted towards young males. Suitable for brands with a rebellious image. Should only be used intermittently to avoid unnecessary offense. Males are twice more likely to pass on messages involving disgusting humor than females.

The Long Tail

When you launch a new product or service, you have a choice. Find out from Seth Godin what that choice is.