Good marketing is all about segmentation.

If you truly understand your market and communicate effectively with them you will be successful in whatever your goals or “conversion events” might be. The higher ed marketplace is no different in this respect, it is just really complicated by the wide range of programs, approaches and types of people it serves. This post provides a few organizing concepts and examples to try and help make it a bit simpler for higher education marketers to understand their digital market segments and improve their overall effectiveness (and results!) through analytics.

So let’s review the four basic types of market segmentation and showcase how two tools, Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer, can be used to analyze those different segments of traffic on your website.

The four basic types of Market Segmentation are:

1) Geographic
2) Demographic
3) Psychographic
4) Behavioral

1) Geographic Market Segmentation

Geographic segmentation breaks down your web traffic by geographic criteria – countries, states/provinces, regions, counties, cities, neighborhoods, or even zip/postal codes.

The report below, from Google Analytics, shows a distribution of website visitors from the state of Texas to an anonymous college’s website over a 1 month period.

If you are College or University marketer with a high priority to recruit students regionally, this simple type of analysis can make your marketing planning and recruitment human resource allocations much simpler.

2) Demographic Market Segmentation

As you know, demographics are statistical characteristics of your site visitor population.

Demographic segmentation involves things like age, gender, family size, income, occupation, education, religion, race and nationality. In this example, Google Analytics is used to report visitor behavior, based on the language settings used on their computers.

International student recruitment is a very important part of revenue generation for many colleges and universities. This type of analysis can be very useful to marketing planning and optimization of your site, as you work to develop a relationship with these foreign language speaking, prospect students.

3) Psychographic Market Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation examines markets according to lifestyle, personality, and values.

Psychographic segmentation is often studied in parallel to demographics as people within the same demographic group often have very different psychographic profiles. In simple terms, they represent an individual’s interests, activities, and opinions, including attitudes and cultural touchstones.

In the Google Analytics report below, a community college’s microsite mobile traffic is examined to reveal local student smart phone preference. Over 66% of the mobile device traffic is from an Apple operating system. So in this market, Apple is clearly winning the brand battle for the hearts and minds of the college student. Understanding student popular opinion toward and use of Apple, Android and Blackberry systems can be very important in setting priorities in the future development of internal college mobile apps and campaigns.

Just for the record, in the writing of this post we’ve had a lively discussion in our office over the question of “is mobile operating system a psychographic or a behavioral segment”.

I personally believe, that in this case, it is psychographic because it seems that these days, your selection of smart phone OS is as much a political statement of your support to Apple, Google and to a lesser extent RIM, rather than simply the purchase of a product. Let us know how you feel about this question and we will report back with your feedback in a future post.

4) Behavioral Market Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation typically divides people into groups according to their knowledge of, attitude towards, use of, or response to, a product.

In the higher education digital marketing context, we use web analytics to break-down the range of all visitors (prospective students, existing students, staff, parents, alumni, etc.) into a number of discrete channels. Each channel is then analyzed and a virtual profile is created to deal with each channel. These profiles can be developed into personas that give you a starting point in terms of deciding what content, navigation and layout to present to each of the different personas for optimal conversion results.

Further micro-segmentation of your channels can be researched using A/B testing, (the example below is from Google Website Optimizer), on content, messaging and calls to action, allowing visitor behavior to further indicate which of your communications lead to the most desired outcomes or conversion events for each segment and when to further split your messaging into tighter segments.

I‘ve only touched on a few examples here, revealing the tip of the segmentation iceberg.

We’ve looked at a few default reports, to demonstrate how readily available this type of analysis is to you, within your existing resources. Once you master the basics of segmentation, the sky is the limit in terms of what higher level segmentation strategies you implement and the analyses you develop to track their performance. But that is another topic (or two)! I do hope to have demonstrated that using these (free) tools even in the most basic ways, can lead you down the road to improved marketing effectiveness.

We would love to get your feedback on these approaches and hear about your favourite market segmentation success stories.

Please share your feedback and comments below.

Thanks

CATEGORIES: Blog

Tags: Analytics-Driven Marketing, Google Analytics, Recruitment Solutions, Smartphones

It hasn’t been an easy couple of years for law school enrolment. Applications have been their lowest since 2001, and dropped 11.5 percent between 2010 and 2011. The main driver for the drop seems to be a combination of poor job prospects and high tuition fees, making the profession less attractive than it was a few years ago.

Image source: new-tabletpc

The John Marshall Law School (JMLS) in Atlanta has developed an innovative strategy to try and boost enrollment: it has introduced a mobile application process to prospective students. Prospective students can apply to the school using their iPhone, Android device, Blackberry phone, iPad, or other mobile device. Alan Boyer, associate dean of recruitment and marketing at JMLS, feels that the immediate nature of mobile devices means that the school will get applications from students, who, in the past, might not have applied: “If [prospective students] have to wait until they get home and turn on a computer, they may not apply.” In order to encourage early adoption, the school is waving the application fee for students who apply using the new process. It should be noted that the application procedure isn’t completely mobile: academic transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a personal statement must still be mailed in.

Boyer suggests that in today’s age, leveraging technology like mobile is critical to the marketing process at schools. “Technology like this is going to catch students’ attention…” he says, and indeed, in today’s age when students are increasingly tech savvy, having a mobile strategy that is cutting edge can definitely be attractive to prospective 20-somethings. A key element of a school’s marketing to potential students is its website, social media, and mobile presence. The more interaction schools can promote on these media, the more success they will have attracting students.

CATEGORIES: Blog

Tags: Mobile Marketing, Recruitment Solutions, Smartphones

At one time, a prospective student would pick up brochure if they wanted to learn more about a school. In today’s digtial age, however, students are much more likely to visit a school’s website on their computer or smartphone. But even that still requires a bit of effort, since, at the very least, a school’s URL has to be typed into a browser. QR codes are set to change all that. A QR (quick response) code is a graphic that contains a set of instructions that smartphones can read, so long as they have the proper app installed. Think of it as a new-and-improved barcode for the 21st century.  Just point your phone to the code, and you’ll instantly be brought to a website, Facebook page, video – or anything else you can find on the net.

For schools, QR codes mean a quicker and more seamless communication with existing and prospective students. They can be printed on any surface, so they can be placed on posters, ads, business cards, direct mail pieces, etc.  Most smartphones can save QR codes in memory, so users can access information later if they wish. What’s more, like most digital marketing vehicles, QR code use can be measured with Google Analytics, so marketing departments can know exactly which codes are being accessed. This information can then be used to optimize recruiting campaigns, and maximize marketing dollars. QR codes are also free to generate… making them a virtual no-brainer for schools looking to increase the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

An example of this can be found at St. Leo University. St-Leo has done the following to increase engagement among existing and prospective students:

• Facilitated the application process by inserting QR codes on marketing documents allowing prospective students to access an on-line application page directly
• Promoted school events by printing a QR code on a T-shirt under the tagline “Scan me for a Good Time” which sends students to an events calendar
• Increased engagement by creating a QR code game where students search for “hidden” QR codes and compete for prizes

Another example of innovative use of QR Codes is the Mohawk College Continuing Education Catalog. The catalog was recently singled out in an article by Learning Resources Network (LERN) Magazine, a leading periodical on continuing education, and the largest association of continuing education institutes and professionals in the world. The magazine applauded Mohawk College’s use of QR codes as a way to increase engagement and immediacy with their catalog. Here is an example of a QR code being inserted in a Mohawk College Continuing Education program description as a way to provide readers with even more information:

On its own, QR codes may not be enough to improve your lead generation and marketing ROI, but as part of a comprehensive Web and social media marketing strategy, they are becoming another useful weapon in the education marketing arsenal. In fact, the example above shows how QR codes can work well with other initiatives, as St-Leo’s codes lead students to the official school Facebook page. This approach will increase the amount of “likes” and no doubt help the school increase its share of social media voice.

With so many potential avenues for student engagement, other educational institutions are sure to follow St-Leo’s example soon. Don’t be left behind.

For more information on QR codes and how St. Leo University is using them, read eCampus News’ article.

CATEGORIES: Blog

Tags: Education Marketing News, Smartphones, Social Media

As reported in the latest issue of Academica’s Top Ten, a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has highlighted the cell phone behaviour of Americans. There are certainly differences between Canadians and Americans, but this information is still handy, as it does illustrate the way people in North America are using their mobile devices on a day-to-day basis.

The report, which states that 83% of American adults own some kind of cell phone, found that during the 30 days preceding an interview participants used their phones for:

• Quick information retrieval: 51% had used their phone at least once to get information they needed right away.
• Entertainment: 42% of cell owners used their phone for web surfing, apps, games, music downloads, etc)

CATEGORIES: Blog

Tags: Mobile Marketing, Smartphones

According to a recent US study, there is a wide generational gap in regard to mobile device preferences. Affinity Research has found that older consumers are favouring tablets and e-readers, while younger users are still flocking to smartphones.

Among the findings, the research observed:

• Gen Xers are 16% more likely to have a tablet
• Baby boomers are 19% more likely to own an e-reader
• Millennials are 28% more likely to have a smartphone

When it comes to the Gen Xers’ numbers, they may look a bit different if you also consider a study by GfK MRI, which adds e-readers into the mix. The GfK MRI findings indicate that a Gen Xer is 25% more likely than the average US adult to own a tablet or e-reader (A higher level of income may play a part in this divide).

As you can see, however, the younger demographic surpasses all in terms of smartphone adoption, with millennials 28% more likely than the average consumer to own a smartphone. In fact, 46.5 million millennials already have a smartphone. What’s more, Affinity reports that more than 24 million millennials plan to purchase a smartphone in the next six months, which means this large demographic is still growing at an explosive rate.

These findings back up our previous Mobile Marketing discussion and highlight the need for a mobile strategy. With every day, the range of prospective students experiencing the Web from mobile device increases, making it important for schools to go mobile. The future is here.

CATEGORIES: Blog

Tags: Mobile Marketing, Smartphones

CATEGORIES: Blog

Tags: Smartphones, SMS Alerts