Higher Education Marketing News

Higher Education Marketing has launched Schools-Training.com, a new school and career resource directory for students. The aim of the directory is to offer a host of education resources for current and prospective students, with an emphasis on career options and career resources.

Schools Training uses article marketing for colleges and universities to deliver education news, advice and tips. Articles cover a wide variety of fields and range from the benefits of certain career training and diploma programs, to news stories and press releases involve new programs, campuses and open houses.

Schools Training has already developed relationships with numerous career colleges across Canada and hopes to become a leading article marketing resource for schools, colleges and universities around the world. The directory has a “submit article” feature, which enables schools to post articles and press releases of their choosing. The service is completely free, and will give institutions the chance to improve their search engine rank and increase backlinks with simplified article marketing tool.

Check out Schools Training today for more information.


Higher Education Marketing founder Philippe Taza will be speaking at this year’s British Columbia Career Colleges Association (BCCCA) Conference (October 27-29 at the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, BC).

The BCCCA is this year expecting over 250 attendees, who represent over 70 of the province’s most successful and dynamic private colleges. The conference will also be attended by senior managers from the BC government who regulate the industry, and by vendors who provide products and services to those in the education field. The conference will feature presentations, panel sessions, workshops and much more. Click here for more information on the 2011 BCCCA Conference.

Philippe will be speaking at 9am on Saturday October 29th at the Corporate Exhibit area. He will be discussing the increasingly important role that Google Analytics plays in today’s education marketing, particularly when it comes to increasing, maintaining and managing lead generation. The 90-minute session will explain how analytics-driven marketing can help colleges improve their ROI and increase the number of leads generated from their websites and online marketing initiatives (such as SEO, PPC marketing, mobile marketing and social media marketing).

We are proud to now offer a free technical website audit. A comprehensive website audit provides a wealth of data and helps the implementation and focus of Web analytics. This approach can give education marketers a clear understanding of what their brand and site needs, shedding light on how to build a new brand that better resonates with prospective students, alumni, faculty and special interest groups.

Individually tailored for each school website, our comprehensive strategic web audits can determine the competitive landscape and provide insight into the current performance, search engine ranking, online lead generation and calls to action of a school’s website or program webpages. An audit can also enable site-specific problem solving and provide easy to implement adjustments that will improve rank and usability and increase online visibility. This is beneficial for a whole host of Web and online marketing tactics and issues, including SEO, Google Analytics, social media or a combination of these tools and tactics.

To request a free website audit from Higher Education Marketing, please click here. 

Higher Education Marketing held a webinar on Wednesday, July 13th. Entitled “How to Configure Google Analytics to Optimize your College’s Marketing Initiatives”, the webinar highlighted education marketing best practices, including how to:

• Effectively analyze visitor traffic
• Create student/audience profiles
• Define website marketing goals
• Sub-domain and cross domain tracking
• Enable site search and Google AdWords integration
• Track specific audiences and traffic segments with multiple profiles
• Implement advanced configuration techniques
• Implement a process for continuous improvement

Increasing the effectiveness of your online marketing is critical to the overall success of your college’s marketing initiatives. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that, if used effectively, will help you to better understand your audience, set marketing goals, measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and optimize your return on scarce marketing dollars. Video and slides from the webinar are available for viewing below.

How to Configure Google Analytics to Optimize your College’s Marketing Initiatives from Philippe Taza on Vimeo.

Higher Education Marketing will be sponsoring the Web Analytics Canada Unconference on June 22^nd. The unique conference, which will be held at Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, has been organized by Stéphane Hamel and Gautier Lemesle, an analyst at Cirque du Soleil. Higher Education Marketing is the latest sponsor in a list that includes: Acquisio, AT Internet, Cardinal Path and more.

The “Unconference” is designed for SEO and Web Analytics professionals but also open to neophytes. The conference hopes to create an environment that stimulates creativity and ideas, and organizers are reminding participants that there will be no “sales pitches”, roundtables to facilitate discussion, and a report to share essential points. The “Unconference” will begin at 1pm on and will feature 9 different workshops.

Hamel is a frequent speaker at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and a member of the International Institute of Business Analysis. He earned an MBA in eBusiness from Laval University, where he teaches a graduate class on web analytics. He was among the first to receive the CWA (WAA Certified Web Analyst) title and the WAALTER Award (Web Analytics Association Leadership and Technical Excellence Recognition). He also sits on the Web Analytics Association Board of Directors.

Higher Education Marketing is pleased to announce a partnership with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC).

The ACCC is the national, voluntary membership organization that represents colleges and institutes on a government, business and industry level, both in Canada and internationally. With an Ottawa-based Secretariat, the ACCC interacts with federal departments and agencies on members’ behalf and links college capabilities to national industries. The ACCC also organizes conferences and workshops for college staff, students and Board members to facilitate networking and participation in national and international activities.

“Higher Education Marketing is providing the type of service that allows our member-institutions to make strategic investments in their marketing and recruitment efforts. They provide the data our member-institutions need to make cost-effective decisions, with the benefit of directly tracking the results of their marketing and recruitment,” said ACCC President and CEO, James Knight.

HEM Founder and CEO, Philippe Taza, is equally fully engaged in the opportunity to support the ACCC in focusing and calibrating their e-activities to recruit students and build their brands. “We are very excited to be working with the ACCC. Schools can no longer rely solely on traditional advertising, and Higher Education Marketing specializes in helping colleges and universities reach their targeted student audiences through search engines, mobile smartphones, text messaging and social media,” Taza stated.

The future looks very bright!

Higher Education Marketing is proud to announce the winner of our first ever Mobile SMS contest. Congratulations to Halifax native Verity Turpin, who took home a brand new iPad 2.

Attendees at this year’s PSEWEB conference were invited to text a special code to Higher Education Marketing with the latest and greatest from Apple as the grand prize. The response was fantastic and we want to thank everyone that took part. Better luck next time!

Please follow the Higher Education Marketing blog to stay informed of all our contests, conferences and events.

Higher Education Marketing will be attending the 2011 Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) Annual Conference. The conference this year will be taking place in Edmonton, Alberta from June 4-7 at Grant MacEwan University, NAIT and NorQuest College.

Higher Education Marketing founder Philipe Taza will be taking part in a roundtable discussion on June 4th at 1 pm. The roundtable is entitled “Social Media and Traditional Media” and discussion will be focused on what works best for colleges and institutes. Phil will be presenting his thoughts on traditional, online and social media for marketing and communications. He will be sharing the stage with Techlife Magazine editor Sherri Krastel and Ken Steele, the senior vice-president of Academica. It promises to be a lively and informative discussion.

The theme of the conference this year is “Big Sky Thinking” and more than 800 delegates from Canada and around the world are expected to attend. This impressive includes CEOs, senior administrators, board members, managers, faculty, staff, students, international guests and business leaders.

It goes without saying that the ACCC Annual Conference offers a great opportunity for colleges, institutes, cégeps, university and polytechnics to share their success stories and help shape a new direction for the association’s future. Higher Education Marketing highly recommends it.

If your school is attending, please come say hello.

There’s another exciting and busy summer ahead for Higher Education Marketing, and that’s just the way we like it! To find out more about our analytics-driven marketing approach, why not come say hello at the following industry conferences?

•    May 4-6th: National Career College Conference (NACC & OACC)
Registration for the NACC+OACC Joint National Conference May 4-6, 2011 is now open. This joint conference, which is being held at the Hilton Hotel & Suites Fallsview in Niagara Falls, Ontario, will bring career college professionals from across the country to at one event. The theme of this year’s conference is “United We Are Stronger”.

Find out more about the NACC & OACC Conference here.

•    May 18-20th: PSE Web
PSEWEB is a conference for college and university marketers, programmers, designers, digital architects and community managers. The conference features numerous speakers, including Mathew Hoy and Stewart Foss.

Find more information about the PSEWEB conference here.

•    June 4-6th: The ACCC Annual Conference
The ACCC Annual Conference 2011 will take place in Edmonton, Alberta. This year’s conference theme “Big Sky Thinking” will provide an opportunity for colleges, institutes, cégeps, university colleges and polytechnics to share their success stories and help shape a new direction for the future.  It involves more than 800 delegates from Canada and around the world.

Find more about the ACCC Conference here.

Contact Higher Education Marketing today to find out more about analytics-driven marketing.