Don't call us, We'll call you.

I saw a promotion for the above titled webinar. I looked back at the direct marketing field and started thinking about what response looked like in the past. Thirty years ago people got a mailing for a product or service, (postal only by the way) and either went to the store to make their purchase OR, made a phone call if it was for a catalog. Then, email became a household method of communication. Although visiting a store and calling a call center continued to be key, people got used to seeing an email, clicking on the link and ordering their product or service.

Life got easier, more streamlined, but as with all new methods of marketing it too had it's problems. People would load their cart, then abandon them. They would respond to an email, click through and discover that what they thought they wanted, wasn't really what they expected. Forms asked for too much information so people just left, or they found that there are many more interesting things to click on than fill out a form or order.

Fast forward to the current environment and phones are as complex as a home computer. Everything that used to require a printed catalog and call center are now in our hand, accessible 24/7. I believe we have become overwhelmed with information. Everyone wanting a part of our time, a piece of our life. To the point where people no longer want to give their information to companies without a compelling reason to do so. Why? They know that the followup inundation of mail, phone calls or email will be more than they wanted. Which, brings me to the title of this blog.

People have developed the attitude of "If I want what you're offering, I will call you". I admit, I do this a lot. I get more advertisements (mostly email) from list managers pushing their latest and greatest list. Are these valuable to me? Not really. It's just more junk to delete and not particularly relevant. There are two sources that list every direct marketing list on the market. SRDS and NextMark and primary search engines for direct mail/email/telemarketing lists. Why keep or respond to an email for a new, updated list, when I can type in a few keywords and get a complete list of all lists on the market? It turns out, I have been using the Don't call us, we'll call you approach for years! I just didn't realize it.

What else does this new attitude toward our marketing message mean? Tracking sales is more critical than ever. Where did an order come from? If you do an email campaign, get an order but not from on line, where did that customer get the information they needed to order or attend your school? I guarantee you that if you have been doing billboards, broadcast ads, direct mail and email campaigns you likely have NO idea where your leads are actually coming from.

I had a client who spent hundreds of dollars on inserts in coupon packets. I did an analysis (at their request) of performance, added a user code, tracked it for 3 months and discovered that what they thought was a fabulous lead generation tool, generated zero response. NO ONE used their coupons to call and attend their school. Instead, their direct mail program generated over 50,000 leads over a period of years. Enough for them to call and follow up to attract new students.

The key to all of these changes in customer response is to build a system to track where your customers are actually coming from. Ask them. If you're a school in Higher Education, go to your Adult Students and ask "What brought you to our school?" It's simple, Ask and you will find out so much about your prospects and how to reach them. BUT, remember they are likely calling YOU, not responding in a way that you expect or anticipate.

Baseball has 3 outs, how many outs do you have?

I am constantly being asked to review email creatives and landing pages for my clients. What surprises me is the number of clients who fail to understand what their ultimate goal is. Let's look at this from the end result to the beginning.

First, the goal of any campaign is new students. So, consider your landing page. What should it contain? A list of benefits! A matching message from the email that they got. A form for them to fill out to indicate interest. A phone number in case they want to call. That's it! NOTHING ELSE.

Why nothing else. The reason is simple, if you give them any other options such as links to Facebook, LinkedIn, your website, even a program related portion of your website they are gone. They leave your landing page, never fill out the information, you never hear from them again UNLESS they decide to contact you in some other way other than the landing page. I constantly see reports where people click through to the landing page and then disappear in to the outs that you gave them. Why give them ANY choice but to fill out the form, or call you? It's self defeating and it dooms any campaign to the failure category. This is a sample email I sent in 2014, Notice that even I didn't know the best practices back then. Now, there are key Call to Action (CTA's) through out the email and NO outs other than to the relevant landing page.

Next, let's move backwards to the email. You craft a perfect message, benefit laden for a prospective student to want to attend your school. The CTA button is below the fold. Will they find it? Very possibly not. Above the fold? Yes, they will click on it if they are motivated. BUT, included in your email are OUTS. Why would you give a prospect the option to leave your email and go anywhere other than your landing page? You need their information. You have peaked their interest. Yet, you let them get away to YouTube, Facebook, or anywhere else.

2014 Email with over 14 outs

2017 Email with zero outs

I recently had a client who had a landing page with 18 outs. And they wondered why no one clicked through. Well, they did, they clicked everywhere but to their landing page to fill out the form! Understand the purpose of your campaign and then design ALL elements to focus on that goal.

Outs are never good. They distract from the purpose of the campaign and offer the prospect a way to go places that you don't want them to go. As an example, say you want to show a video. Most people will put a link to the video, the prospect clicks on it and goes to YouTube. Guess what? You just lost them. They go there, see other opportunities to click on or think about that new video that's out from Beyonce and poof, they are no longer thinking education, but are instead being entertained. The solution? All videos should be put in a shadow box. Click on the link, it opens a box over the landing page or email, runs and then stops, closes and they are back to where they started, your email or landing page. No interruption in thought process and they AREN'T watching a music video!

Keep all of these thoughts in mind,

Innovation in direct marketing list acquisition!

Innovation in Direct Marketing comes slow. MMP List Management Inc. is on the cutting edge of innovation by dealing with multiple issues that affect direct marketers. What is it that companies want?

• ·         Deliverable postal addresses.
• ·         Customers who WANT to hear from you.
• ·         Emails that don’t bounce.
• ·         Phones that actually connect.

So, what is the solution? MMP List Management Inc. has solved all of these issues. Instead of updating our files every quarter or every month, we update our files when ordered! We survey our database of over 140 million consumers asking if they are interested in hearing from your company….Your products or services. Those who say yes, get added to your prospect database. The results?

• ·         Prospects who WANT to hear from you.
• ·         Postal addresses are up to date and deliverable.
• ·         Emails with less than 5% hard bounce rates.
• ·         Phone that are current, cleaned through the Do Not Call system and will connect.

PLUS! You can take delivery of postal, email and phones to contact on your own. While under license, your prospect list will be updated monthly, allowing your file to stay fresh, deliverable and up to date.

Join an Innovative Company and let us give you a quote for our prospect mailing lists. We offer a Customer Satisfaction Policy that guarantees email delivery exceeding 95%. Don’t rely on surveys that were done a month ago, six months ago and are generic in nature. Get a prospect list that contains people who WANT to hear from YOU!

Call David Fant, President 616-914-0537, or write David@mmplistmanagement.com

A new approach to target marketing. Be on the cutting edge of targeting. Call us today.

Increase response by creating an emotional appeal

It’s interesting to work with so many different institutions of higher education. Each one looks at their programs from a unique perspective and feel that they have the best degree programs in their area. I am not qualified to determine if that is true or not, but I do know that finding adult degree completion prospects is a never ending fight for every institution.

 

What makes my job difficult is that everyone creates marketing plans that focus on the institution and on some of the roadblocks that people have for returning to school to complete their degree. They talk about: 

·         Flexible classes

·         Fast degree programs

·         Convenient location

·         Some mention daycare

·         Low cost is referred to by most 

Yet, the one thing that most marketing campaigns miss is EMOTION. People frequently make decisions based not only on facts, but on their emotional feelings toward a given subject. Take a quick look at Harley Davison. What is it that they sell? In their ads, in their stores? Motorcycles? Not exactly. If you ask Harley Davison that question they will tell you they are selling a lifestyle. A way of living that INCLUDES a motorcycle. 

So, the question is, what is YOUR emotional message?  

US News and World Report recently published an article that referenced the fact that college graduates will earn an average of $20,000 per year more than not having a degree. My question is, what could someone do with $20,000 per year? Strike an emotional note with the following approach: 

Life is filled with ups and downs. What is it that you would like to do in your life that you can’t afford to do today? Maybe you are looking to: 

·         Take that historical trip to Machu Picchu.

·         Buy that one car that you’ve always wanted.

·         Invest in a house for you and your family.

·         Visit every baseball stadium in the country.

·         What is YOUR dream activity if you had the money? 

No matter what your dream is, a degree will allow you to earn as much as $20,000 more per year compared to not having a degree. Attend Xyz College and let us help you attain YOUR dreams. 

Emotion, draws them into thinking about what they can do with a degree and increased income. Benefits, not features. Focus on what they will get out of their degree and how you will help them achieve all that they want to do.

What makes a strong offer?

The first questions is, what is an offer? We all know the answer to that so I won't go to the Dictionary to give you the formal definition of an offer. Yes, is the word "offer" the right word? The offer states what you would like someone to do. Whether you are selling toothpaste, a car, a college education the offer creates the groundwork for a prospective student to decide to move forward and actually buy.

Remember the offer is the first step in the sales process. Your goal is to get people to buy, not browse and "kick the tires" so to speak. So the offer has to have some serious incentive to get someone to move forward. Let's look at a couple of examples.

You are selling a tube of toothpaste for $2.95/tube but the offer is $.50 off the retail price. The savings is 17%. Not an insignificant savings.

You are going to buy a car, It's retail value is $15,000, you offer a $1,500 discount plus a trade-in guarantee of $1,000 for a total savings of $2,500. The savings for this offer is 16.6%.

Now, you send out a mailer, offering a student a degree completion offer with a total projected cost of $20,000 and you offer to waive the application fee (estimated at $75). The total savings for this offer is .37%. Pretty pathetic when you compare your offer to offers people see every day in the overall marketplace.

People have come to expect something for their investment. Whether it's toothpaste, a car, or an education. I find, that most Higher Education institutions don't recognize the fact that to attract more students (note, I did not say prospects) they have to give them something that they consider valuable! And keep in mind, that doesn't have to be money. Meeting the needs of a busy family, a tiring job, a busy work schedule and around hobbies and other areas that conflict with them completing their degree can be more valuable than a cash outlay. However, it's YOUR job to translate the intangible benefits of your institution into a strong offer.

One negative example comes to mind. I have a good friend, single mother, child under the age of 10, who was working on completing her degree. She registered for a class, started taking it, and due to a work/child scheduling problem missed two classes. When she returned to class after her mini crisis she was told by the professor, she had been dropped. She knew, going in, that she was only allowed one absence/semester. Now, this may have been a totally unreasonable professor (by the way, it was a required class) yet, had the institution had a resource to help her work through that issue this could have been a huge offer to make. We have an office to help you with a flexible schedule. Had this institution done that she would have remained in school or that class she would have felt wonderful. As it was, she finished her other class, dropped out and completed her degree at another local institution.

On the other hand, a positive example. A Midwest University wanted to increase enrollment to their degree completion program. After three email deployments, 75,000 each they ended with 112 new REGISTERED students. How? They offered each of them a $1,000 scholarship, no strings attached. It's the offer and how you communicate the offer to your client that makes the difference.

My recommendation is, don't think institutionally, think like a prospective student. What do they want and from there, create the best offer possible. The offer is what get's them to buy.

Landing Page 101

Anytime you use social media, email, banner ads to advertise your schools programs you need a landing page. But many people don't understand the true purpose of the landing page and why it is so important. In addition, many don't understand what makes a landing page effective. These tips will show you how to make your landing page effective.

In a nutshell, a landing page is an internet micro site that is a single web page that simply states your offer. When someone clicks through to a landing page they have shown that they are interested in learning more. Opening an email (as an example) doesn't have much meaning. But clicking a link is an action that they take on purpose. Something in the email/banner ad/social media has peaked their interest. It's up to the micro site to capture that interest and get them to act on it.

What are the most important elements of a landing page?

·         It must state your offer simply and directly.

·         Do NOT add links that allow them off of the landing page without filling the form.

·         A consistent message between the email/banner ad/social media and your Landing Page.

·         It should have no copy "below the fold".

·         The call to action/variable fields are above the fold.

·         No more than 5 mandatory fields to complete.

·         Keep it simple, not text heavy. State the offer, give them a form to complete and be done with it.

·         Make it visually interesting but not visual heavy.

Once they complete the variable fields and click "submit" send them a thank you note immediately after their submission and tell them information is on the way.

Remember, this is the ONLY way you will know who they are. Keep it direct, to the point. This is not the place for a full sales pitch. That's what your Admissions staff is for. This is for your prospect to tell you who they are and how to get in touch with them.

So, what do most Universities do wrong? I've developed a list of mistakes that are fatal in capturing the needed information.

·         NO OFFER! Everyone expects or needs some incentive to buy. Going back to school is no different. It could be as simple as a scholarship, day care, a free class to get things going, discounted tuition. Anything that gets them past the time and cost involved in returning to school.

·         Variable fields that go on, and on, and on, and on, and on. 60% of all internet users who click through to a landing page will abandon the page if there are more than 5 variable fields to fill out. FIVE!

·         More text than existed in the original message. This is the place to make short, bulleted points that reinforce your offer. Make the sale, but make it simple.

·         Multiple links that allow the visitor to click away from the landing page without filling out the information. There can be only ONE way to leave the Landing Page. Fill out the form and click "Submit"

·         If I have to I will say it again. NO OFFER - no one will complete the form!

The landing page is the one way for you to capture your leads. The role of prospecting is to identify those who are interested (clicking through does that) and capturing who they are (the Landing Page). Most schools violate one or all of the above bulleted points. To be successful, you need to adhere to the first set of recommendations. This isn't rocket science, it's a study in psychology and motivation. If you give them the proper motivation, they will do what you want them to do

Why prospect three times a year, when potential students are looking for degree information on a daily basis?

My past 23 years has taught me a few interesting things about Universities. First, and foremost they are "traditional" in their approach to marketing. They think that there are two key semesters per year, and one summer session (by and large). So, they market three times a year. Yet, prospects are a fickle bunch. They go on line, research for information and want to make a decision when THEY are ready, [...more] not when you advertise to them. So, the question becomes, how do we reach prospects when they are doing their immediate search, OR, as close as possible to the time when they are doing their research.

As most advertising articles will tell you, customers frequently select an item based on their last impression. What I am saying is, when presented with a number of options to buy from a given company/institution, the one that last contacted them (or, in the case of Higher Education was the first) is the one they choose. Degree program offerings, cost, location are all factors, but when you get right down to it, if you have the right program, at the right price in the right place, you will capture them as a student simply because YOU were the one to contact them.

Let's say there are 20 different institutions of higher education in your market area. Prospects are confused, curious as to which one is best for them, and yet, the one that is responsive, contacts them first, follows up with good information in a timely manner will likely win. So, how do you do that?

Change your mindset from marketing three times a year, to marketing monthly, weekly and if possible daily! Imagine one week after searching for a degree program in business, a prospect gets an e-mail from your institution offering them a free consultation (for not only the student, but their family as well), give them a counselor that is uniquely theirs to contact, invite them to visit a class, whatever you are able to offer to get them moving forward. They expressed interest in completing their degree or getting an advance degree only 4 days ago. Now your message goes out, offering to help! Kind of like setting up a school Concierge program.

We do the e-mail campaign, you get the response in a timely manner. Change how you think about marketing. Focus on what the prospect wants TODAY. A quick reply to their search. Market Mapping plus LLC can make that happen. Contact us today for a quote and to discuss how to implement a program that targets your best audience in a timely way.

Content Marketing in Higher Education

Content Marketing is the latest trend in marketing. You build content based on your prospective audience and then find the audience to drive to the content. That sounds simple, yet it's not. What is included in Content Marketing? Well, basically everthing you do to market your College or Univeristy. Direct mail, e-mail, website, blogs, FAQ's, billboards, newspaper/radio/television/cable ads all contribute to the overall marketing of your Content. The difficulty with Content Marketing is that the content must constanly change, be updated, be new, and most institutions aren't very good at keeping things fresh. New videos of campus, new blogs from either marketing or the world of academia you are promoting.

Imagine a blog(s) sorted by field of study, written by not only professors (I know, thats a major topic in and of itself) but by students in the program. Maybe a video of a "fun" class. Lab work. An experiment where something blows up! You never know what might peek someone's interest.

Transform those blogs into copy for the school website. Include them in a direct mail/e-mail campaign to promote attending YOUR institutaion. So, what is content marketing in reality? Nothing more than a well coordinated effort to promote your institution to prospective students. The difficulty is, your prospect pool is so diverse, you need massive amounts of content to fill that need. Yet, by providing content on Education, Pre-Med, Psychology, Computer Science, Liberal Arts you are finding ways to promote all you have available, on a unique/personalized platform.

Imagine, sending out an e-mail campaign to prospective degree completion prospects, with a list of potential programs for them to consider. Each e-mail lists the degrees with a link to a unique landing page (yes, 10 programs mean 10 landing pages) but each is tailored to a specific degree program. Then once they fill out the form (keep it short), send them to an information/welcome page for that program, then to the admissions site to apply.

All of this is content driven, focused and uniquely yours to implement for YOUR institution. Content Marketing is not easy, but can be HIGHLY successful if implemented correctly.

Have realistic expectations.

Expectations!

What is it about marketers and marketing that makes us suddenly think we are the exception to the rule. What I mean is, we market our University in a way that we ourselves would never respond to. This may be a bit of a stretch, but let me offer a story to help explain my position.

You're sitting in your home either reading the mail, or scrolling through e-mails. There in front of you is an offer from a local car dealership (one you know well). The marketing piece goes on to explain that you can purchase a brand new car, with great features, mileage, styling for only $28,500. You, of course, have been thinking about a new car so you head to the dealership, walk in, tell the salesman you'd like one of their cars and put down your check for $28,500.

Interestingly enough, I doubt any of you would do this. You research the car, IS IT your style? Does it get good gas mileage? What is the repair history on the vehicle? Will it suit your family either in size or comfort? So you research,  check to make sure that THIS is the car for you.

Now, let's fast forward to marketing your University. You prepare what you think is the perfect e-mail campaign, or postal campaign, You drop one message and expect people to flock to your door eager to plunk down $28,500 in tuition for an institution they may know of, but actually know nothing about. How do students actually make a choice as to what school to attend. Either to complete a degree or to get an advanced degree. They do exactly what you would expect them to do. They research, look at who attends your institution, what graduates have done, how much will it cost, will it fit in the family schedule or lifestyle.

There was a time when the expectation was that you needed three contacts before someone was willing to make a buying decision. Yet, most Universities market once, maybe twice and expect prospective students to sign up and attend. Today, the rule of thumb is more around 20 impressions. Now, don't get me wrong, but reality is more than 3, less than 20 for most people. But this includes all forms of impressions. Radio, television, billboards, web surfing, direct mail, e-mail, personal referrals, LinkedIn, Face Book to name a few. All of these give the prospect some idea as to what your institution is all about. So, why do schools constantly do a single, or two marketing campaigns, get few if any responses and then dub "direct mail", "e-mail" a failure? In fact, it's not a failure, you simply didn't give the prospect enough information or time to make an informed decision.

As with buying a car, students need to focus on their needs. For example, if a student is concerned about going back to school they may be asking themselves "Can I do it?". You should offer them a free course to take as a warm up. A course that WILL apply to their degree! You invest in them, they will invest in you. It's in a way, a two month free trial. It's time that schools focus on what it really takes to sell someone on attending their institution. Information, frequent contacts and understanding that THEY are the most important person attending your institution. Give them a free class, one that will get them used to coming on campus, sitting in class and I will bet they will keep coming back.

Where do prospect names come from for e-mail campaigns

This is a common question I get from clients and prospects regarding where our prospect names come from for our e-mail campaigns. Eveyone has the preconceived notion that there are bots out there, combing every e-mail server harvesting names left and right. Those names are then placed in a massive database and sold. Actually, this does in fact happen and as you might know, these lists are garbage. We ONLY use double opt-in e-mail addresses. What is the difference between a harvested e-mail list and a double opt-in mailing list?

Basicially a double opt-in mailing list is created by someone REQUESTING information on a given topic not by them having their e-mail address "stolen" from them. Maybe they are interested in boating, hunting, cars, furthering their education, or changing careers. The process for obtaining these names is simple and straight forward.

People start by searching the web looking for educational opportunities, they find our web site(s) or maybe they receive an e-mail asking them if they are interested in getting a degree in xyz field. They click the link and fill out a form asking that they be put on the mailing list for educational opportunities in that field of study. There are over 60 fields of study that we track. This is step one in a a double opt in system.

For the next step they will receive a follow up e-mail asking them to confirm that they did, in fact, want to receive further e-mails from us that are related to educational opportunities. (Or any other of a hundred interest areas.) If they click accept, a cookie is placed on their computer so that further e-mails from us will bypass their filtering system and be delivered to their inbox. It's this confirmation step that makes our database a double opt-in program. This process also makes our lists Can-Spam compliant.

One other key factor to consider is that most  people own multiple accounts. These e-mail addresses tend to be home/personal addresses, but I know in the case of my wife and I we have 9email accounts between us. I have two business accounts and 5 personal accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) and my wife has two accounts (Yahoo, AOL). At any given time I use multiple addresses for form completion or when asking for more information. So it is very possible that someone may have filled out multiple requests using different e-mails. There is no real way of eliminating the duplicates, but where there are duplicates you are assured that they will be receiving your request. We typically e-mail 10% more e-mails than are ordered to cover bounces, but our bounce/non-deliverable rate is typically less than 10%.


One last thought. Many e-mail lists that are created by bots have an infinite life. They use them over and over and over again, even when the address has gone dead. We however, send a confirming e-mail every two months to every e-mail in our database (yes, millions of conformations) asking the recipient if they still have an interest in whatever topic they selected. If they say no, they are removed from the database, if they say yes, they stay. Each e-mail campaign also has an opt-out option at the bottom of the page. A recent campaign of 182,000 e-mails got 24 opt-outs. Not a significant number, and a testament to the quality of the names on the list.

I hope this helps! Contact us for your next e-mail campaign and we will help you reach your needed student prospects.

Capture 100% of your E-mail campaign click throughs

Universities have always wanted to do e-mail campaigns but have had difficulty in capturing who is clicking through to their website or landing page. Clicking through is the first step in a prospect exploring their educational choices and by clicking through to YOUR website it shows they have a higher than average interest in your institution. However, getting a student to click through and then tell you who they are has always been the challange.

Market Mapping plus LLC has solved that problem. We now have a program where we deploy your e-mail campaign, AND when they click through, we will provide you with the e-mail address and name/postal address of the person who clicks through. You will receive this file for your own use! You can follow up with them, prospect, contact them by e-mail/direct mail to see if there is a fit between what you offer and what they are interested in.

If this is a program that you would be interested in, contact Market Mapping plus LLC today for a free quote. There are millions of prospective students out there looking to complete their degree or get an advanced degree. Let Market Mapping plus LLC help YOU identify and sell them.