At this point you’re expecting me to give you the magical answer, yes! However, instead I am going to be completely, 100% honest with you – I have no idea. I think we can all understand that each buyer needs to closely evaluate how lead scoring could benefit their operations to be able to answer that question appropriately. The first step for buyers is to determine what questions are they looking to have answered by lead scoring. Answering this question will get you on the right path to deciding whether or not lead scoring is right for your company.

Last week I had the pleasure of traveling to the wonderful town of New Orleans to attend TARGUSinfo’s Lead Scoring Summit. The intimate conference is an excellent conference to get the lowdown on all levels of lead scoring. Whether your a newbie or a lead scoring pro you can rub elbows with the best and pick up tips and tricks that will push your lead scoring strategies to the next level. What was refreshing about the show is that I got a chance to hear all points of view. One session included a school that implemented lead scoring a year ago and was still struggling to make work. There was not coverup agenda in place to say that lead scoring is easy. In fact, it’s hard and companies should be serious about the investment of time and resources that it takes for lead scoring to reap the intended benefits. On the other hand I spoke with a number of buyers that saw clear benefits as soon as they implemented scoring. From being able to optimize their lead buying efforts to targeting the right demographic and geographic segments they were able to better place their marketing dollars and effectively manage leads to a higher conversion rate. The point learned at the show is that lead scoring is not always an e-Ticket to the front of the line.

If you have questions regarding lead scoring and if it is right for you, feel free to reach out to us here at GearyPMG and will help you get pointed in the right direction.

The president has set the goal that by 2020 American will once again lead the world in producing college graduates. He said that community colleges play an important part of that goal, hoping to produce an additional 5 million degrees and certificates in the next 10 years.

Many of GearyPMG’s education clients have asked us how they can capitalize on the deluge of students graduating from our nation’s community colleges, who may seek further education beyond a two year program.

In addition to a robust marketing program, we often advise schools to forge articulation agreements with the community college systems they wish to partner with.

What are articulation agreements?

When a student decides to go beyond a two-year education, they are required to transfer to a new school. A key component to the transfer process is reviewing courses at each school to determine which are comparable and eligible for transfer. This may be done on an ad hoc basis, but to make the most efficient use of dollars and time spent on courses, it is wise for students to research and compare any formal articulation agreements that are currently in existence. This means that the four year schools which have multiple agreements with community schools stand to gain more students than those that do not.

Breaking it Down

• Articulation agreements are formal, written agreements between two or more educational entities, usually a community college and a four-year traditional program. These program-to-program agreements define which courses the receiving school is required to accept from the community college.
• The institutions “match” its courses or requirements, and outline them in the agreement. These courses may be ones that satisfy general education requirements, or ones that satisfy major requirements. For example, a four-year university might have an agreement that if one earns an associate’s degree at a certain community college, the student’s credits will satisfy all freshman and sophomore general education requirements, assuming grade requirements are met.
• Educational entities may have multiple, separate agreements between them, with varying provisions, as they may apply to whole degree programs or may be on a course-by-course arrangement. Stipulations are usually found in the agreements such as any GPA requirements that must be met, as well as any program or degree requirements.
• Most articulation agreements are between institutions within a particular geographic area or between public community and four-year colleges within a state’s system of higher education. Through the years, most states in the U.S. have made it an initiative to have some policy on college transfer of credits for students moving from public community colleges to their four-year schools, and some have passed legislation to do so.
• With the advent of online schools, many are targeting the community college systems in geographic areas where there is a growing demand for their courses or programs.

With more than 1,200 community colleges in the U.S, which serve about 6.5 million students, community colleges have become an essential part of post-secondary education. Forging alliances with these entities, can help four year universities and colleges boost their own enrollment.

Just when it seemed like the summer days would never end; it’s suddenly the holidays again. Everywhere one turns there are Thanksgiving hams and turkeys propped up in market windows, Christmas lights and Menorah’s adorning neighborhood homes, and limitless displays of toy commercials and jewelry ads. All of the festivities will be punctuated with the beginning of 2011.

At Geary, we’ve noticed a funny phenomenon happen during this time of year. After eating one too many turkey and cranberry sandwiches, and suffering through a December 24th mall trip, many people are ready for a fresh start. As the New Year approaches, after the gluttony of the holidays, individuals avow to lose 20 pounds, quit smoking, watch less TV, spend more time with their children, and other self-improvement goals. Now a new one is being added to the list more and more each year: go back to school and FINALLY get that degree.

Career colleges and online universities have changed the face of education in many meaningful ways, one of which was to erase the prohibitive semester system which gave students fixed windows as to when they could or could not attend school. Now learners can go back to school on their own clock, and many of them get the urge right before or around the New Year’s holiday.

Ways to Make it Work in Terms of Lead Generation

1. Cater your copy and creative to resonate with prospective students who are looking to enroll as a part of their New Year’s resolutions.

2. Allocate media budgets appropriately to capitalize on a new wave of prospective students. Where will they be searching or looking online? What times are they most likely to conduct their research?

3. Rethink your content/ pull marketing strategies like email campaigns and social media to take advantage of the holidays. How can you help prospective students in their decision making process? How does this relate to their holiday-inspired desire to continue their education?

• Third party sites/ aggregators aren’t going anywhere. If you are not on these sites, you are losing some prospective students. Dive into the process and set up quality assurance steps like lead scoring and brand standards to ensure that you are getting the most from your investment.
• Microblogging sites are a credible source of school reviews and information. If you are ignoring trends because they seem irrelevant to you, you’re also ignoring viable market segments and how they communicate. Take a strategic approach to social media marketing with multiple touch points that target specific demographics; for example a particular group could be extremely active on Facebook while another might have moved on.
• Post secondary students are mobile marketing savvy. SMS can be a powerful tool if used correctly. Many marketers are already incorporating it into their follow up process. Keep in mind that prospective students might have to pay for this service, so be careful how and when you employ this tactic.

• Facebook is a source prospective students use to gauge the personality of a school. If students are using social media as an education tool, you should become part of the conversation and monitor buzz about your brand. Let the conversation happen naturally and inform where appropriate. Remember a referral from a friend-even a digital one- can carry more weight than a canned marketing message.
• Students use generic queries to start their pre-enrollment research. Since the largest amounts of searchers don’t search using your school brand/ name, you need to focus search efforts on identifying profitable long tail keywords. From both a SEO and paid search aspect, your terms should be in the language of your prospects and should direct them to customized landing pages that relate to their query.
• New devices like iPads can be utilized to engage students outside of traditional classroom settings. Using new devices proves that your school is cutting edge and adapts to progressive students who are on the move. Applications could involve taking an interactive virtual tour or flipping through a virtual course guide that leads to a form.

• How marketers are mismanaging their lead generation campaigns
• Criteria for evaluating a lead management technology solution
• Strategies and tactics to increase the efficiency of lead management programs

The following in an excerpt from a newly released whitepaper from GearyPMG. To download the whitepaper in its entirety, click the download link at the bottom of this post.

Lead generation is a common marketing goal. Most strategies and a majority of marketing programs are created with the goal of producing leads. While this goal keeps marketing and sales departments progressing forward, lead generation is only the means to the end goal of driving revenue. If leads do not convert into business, are they serving their intended purpose? This whitepaper will investigate how marketers might be losing leads through fragmented management tactics and present tips and tricks about how marketing departments can manage earned leads efficiently—so not one lead is wasted.

Lead generation is a sizeable marketing investment with $1.7 billion projected to be spent on lead generation in 2011. Digital lead management is still transitioning into the digital space as 65 percent of marketers note that they are increasing spending on lead generation-based website design and 47 percent are investing in online data quality and management (CSO Insights). While efforts and budgets are being allocated to digital lead generation, most marketers note it as one of their top three challenges—behind lack of budget and lack of time for efficient program execution (MarketingProfs). This means that generating leads is a top marketing priority that will get resource support, but there is still a gap between generating leads and generating business.

Download here–

GearyPMG Whitepaper_Lead Management Generation Strategies

I recently wrote an article about how lead management is a major component of many industries—including enrollment marketing. A study released by Leads360 showed that converting a lead is 57 percent lead quality and 43 percent an efficient sales process. This bears mentioning because it shows that conversion is not based just on lead quality; it is a combination of lead management and quality.

Speed to contact
The first problem is a perceived lack of urgency around contacting leads. Education marketers must understand that their potential students are researching several institutions at one time. They probably don’t have an idea of which career college best meets their needs, so they need your help deciding. As a rule of thumb, most users complete 2-3 forms before ending their research. Consider contact speed the most important factor in lead management. Students need to be addressed when their interest is high. A minute later, they may lose interest or, even worse, enroll with another institution.

A study performed by MIT, and recently confirmed by LeadQual, showed that the odds of converting a lead are five times greater when the lead is contacted within five minutes of form completion versus waiting 10 minutes. The worst possible scenario is when students are not called at all. The same survey notes that of a 423 lead sample, 37 percent were never contacted. Edu marketers should use a lead management system to guarantee timely lead delivery.

The rules of lead management are simple: Call your leads, and call them within five minutes. Doing so will greatly affect your bottom line, guaranteed.

Call frequency
Finding a call frequency “sweet spot” is another issue of concern for education marketers.

Another survey by Leads360 proved that contacting a student 6 times is optimal. Calling a lead at a higher frequency than recommended will not improve your chances of making contact. One other thing to note is that marketers have an 87 percent higher chance of contacting the lead on call No. 2 versus call No. 1.

I suggest calling potential students at different times during the day and take note of any trends.

Try not to focus on just lead generation and think about the larger lead management picture. As an edu marketer, it’s your responsibility to process leads effectively. Effectively managing leads needs to be a top priority for education marketers.

World-class education marketers typically engage in:

• Evaluation of affiliate leads based on demand as well as enrollment objectives
  
  • It is beneficial for marketers to not just ask for leads but to look for programs that they may want to highlight, and then guide affiliates to generate leads for these programs.
  • Focus your budget appropriately to give a “lift” to lower performing programs.
• Expansion of lead sources by identifying new, qualified affiliates partners
  
  • Don’t put your eggs in one basket. Constantly evaluate your relationships and adjust accordingly.
  • Every affiliate partner has its own specialty. Don’t assume a high performing partner will be effective across all programs.
• Integration of affiliate lead data into a single reporting structure
  
  • You should have the ability look at the campaign data holistically, as well as on a granular level.  World-class affiliate marketers have the ability to aggregate and disaggregate data, giving different insights into campaign performance.
    
• Being able to extend your marketing reach
  
  • Affiliate programs help your brand get into the “cracks” of the digital world to reach potential students you might not otherwise have communication with.
    

Here are some questions you should be thinking about for your affiliate program:

• Are you scrubbing and de-duplicating leads?
• Do you measure performance of individual affiliates based on their cost-per-enrollment results?
• Have you implemented a real-time scoring system for all leads from affiliates?
• Do you provide full disclosure of your lead scoring system to your affiliates?
  

- John Perkins is Manager of Media Partnerships for GearyPMG

Clinton didn’t disappoint; and was dynamic and articulate. He touched on many “big picture” topics, namely advancements that we were fortunate enough to witness in our time: the mapping of the human genome, space travel and exploration, cell research, and other profound innovations in biology, physics, and our favorite, technology. As he highlighted those benchmarks of achievement, he underscored the importance of each person, regardless of age or background, being committed to lifelong learning.

Lifelong learning, to me, is the concept that each of us follow our passions, and realize that we are evolving every second, and with that, we need to augment our knowledge base and skill-set whenever the need arises. Traditionally, education is punctuated by completion dates: high school graduation, throwing your cap in the air at college graduation, and finally, for a segment of the populous, earning that master’s or doctorate degree. Clinton inspired us to blur those hard lines, and instead embrace the idea of education being a lifelong commitment. This could mean a stay-at-home mother taking an online class in childhood education to better understand her children or a retiree going on campus to Berkeley because he is curious about poetry.

On a more granular level, Former Vice President Al Gore also addressed the topic of global advancements and how they will change the face of our nation’s education landscape. When he spoke at the EduRG conference in Phoenix a few months ago, he honed in on how technology, and specifically the relatively nascent online education space, has erased barriers to education. Geography, age, and socioeconomic background, no longer impede getting an education.

Now, soldiers in the desert can attend classes from their laptops in tents and a farmer in the wilds of Montana can be in the same virtual classroom as an executive in Manhattan.

At PMG we are admittedly technophiles! It was inspirational to hear these two visionaries address how advances in technology will blur lines and erase barriers to learning.

-John McKusick, Co-Founder GearyPMG

SAN DIEGO (June 16, 2010) − GearyPMG, a national leader and innovator in performance-based marketing services for higher education, will attend and take part in Interactive Day San Diego 2010, an all day conference featuring some of the top talent in digital marketing and advertising.

“We always look forward to Interactive Day. It is a great forum for San Diego’s top marketers to collaborate and discuss what’s new in our industry,” said GearyPMG Founder, John McKusick, who participated on the Interactive Day San Diego Planning Committee. “We are especially excited to see the new technologies exhibited and show attendees some of our projects like DegreeScout. It’s our tool to help prospective students communicate with colleges and universities.”

“Interactive Day proves that San Diego is home to some of the nation’s top digital marketers,” said Andreas Roell, Geary Group Chairman and CEO. “It continues to draw a prestigious group of marketers, brands and vendors that are executing impressive interactive campaigns.”

Roell will also be moderating various speaker sessions at the event, as well as speaking himself on topics that include mobile marketing and the future of digital marketing.

The all-day trade show is expected to attract more than 300 guests and takes place at San Diego’s Hilton Bayfront. It will showcase online advertising solutions and services, including seminars on trending topics such as email marketing, mobile, online video, web design, SEO, ad networks, and social media.