Marketing
It’s usually a mystery how a spammer got your info. But in 1996, a tiny mistake became to the most useful spam filter I’ve ever found.
October 26, 2011 — 0 Comments
There are over 4000 higher ed institutions in the United States. With largely similar audiences (prospective students, current students, parents, faculty, alumni, donors, etc.) and goals (recruitment, retention, donations, etc.) we’re certainly not alone in our challenges. Thus, when faced the same problems we come up with the same solutions. This is what I call design convergence.
September 02, 2011 — 2 Comments
If Google does something, we all notice. If a hot, new social network hits, we all notice. So this week, the world is a-buzz with the latest social network, Google+. And if you’re a cynic, like me, you’re thinking, “Great! Another social network. What makes this special?” Here’s the thing: it’s ok to be intrigued or cynical.
July 06, 2011 — 2 Comments
New term, you heard it here first.
SMASS: Social-Media-as-Savior Syndrome.
A few weeks ago I wrote about a return to business fundamentals and away from the eager puppy focus that many of our colleagues have to social media.
Then I presented to a group of marketing professionals at “social ...
June 09, 2011 — 2 Comments
Yesterday I taught a workshop on social media to a group of small business owners. Halfway through the session, I realized that teaching these folks about social media was all wrong. They didn’t need to learn about making friends on Facebook or video blogging on YouTube. Half the room didn&...
May 16, 2011 — 6 Comments
I spend a lot of time looking at other higher ed websites. Knowing what’s out there is part of our job. Last week, a few colleagues and I spent some time sharing our favorite sites and looking at what others are doing out there. And something strange happened: we became critics.
If you have...
April 11, 2011 — 0 Comments
Every month, we offer “brown bag” presentations to our fellow campus communicators. These staff and administrators are responsible for some kind of communications role, whether for their program, department, or entire college or division. The skills and backgrounds vary widely, leadin...
March 24, 2011 — 1 Comment
In Part 1: The Dangers of Letting Your Website Stagnate, I argued that a website project never really ends – that the risks of leaving a website alone can actually cost you money, and not just from missed opportunities.
So what do you do after launch? The answer to that begins before launc...
March 10, 2011 — 0 Comments
We all know the feelings of a major web project – the rush leading up to the launch, the last-minute jitters, the discovery of problems, and the relief of finally going “live.” Websites are long projects. But unlike many other marketing materials, launching a website isn’t...
February 25, 2011 — 0 Comments
Last year, we looked at the 2010 Horizon Report and the emerging technologies that are expected to affect our institutions in the next five years. Now, the 2011 Horizon Report is out, and as it is with every year some technologies creep closer and others mysteriously fade away. Let’s take a...
February 11, 2011 — 0 Comments
Three tales of email marketing gone awry, where they went wrong, and what you can do to make sure you don’t have an email fail.
February 02, 2011 — 0 Comments
One of my bosses told me about a nonprofit association she’s working with, and she mentioned that they have an interesting challenge: they’re becoming irrelevant. An old organization, they find themselves struggling to attract members and donors or explain the value of their mission. ...
December 26, 2010 — 0 Comments
At the end of his recent blog post about catch phrases by my talented colleague and insightful higher ed copywriter, Mike Roe, he poses a question (emphasis mine):
Do you have a tagline? If not, how might people sum up your department, group, association, or college in just a few words?
Do you r...
November 27, 2010 — 0 Comments
In February, Notre Dame’s Alumni Association did something remarkable: it launched an interactive television program entirely online.
The program is called Tender, Strong, and True: Living the Gospel Daily. It’s a panel-format show discussing a topic of faith with academics and spiri...
March 30, 2010 — 2 Comments
ND is rolling out Blogs at Notre Dame, a blogging platform using WordPress MU. We’re hoping to get some of our brilliant and interesting faculty members blogging. This raises a lot of questions:
There’s been a lot of talk about blogging for admissions and student recruitment, but sho...
March 18, 2010 — 1 Comment
The web profession is a client-driven one, even when we don’t technically have clients. We’re always teaching, educating the various stakeholders as to best practices, how to use new technologies, and why they shouldn’t waste their time on the flashy buzzword-du-jour.
If youR...
March 09, 2010 — 4 Comments
Like many higher ed web professionals, my team is caught in the middle.
On one hand, we have clients and want to help them get their projects done, make them happy, and accomplish their goals.
On the other, we have the institution. Even if we’re entirely client-driven and can run like a bus...
March 03, 2010 — 1 Comment
If you haven’t checked out the Horizon Report in the past, it’s an annual publication that highlights key technologies expected to affect higher education in the next five years. This year’s report was published on January 14 and has some real gems, as usual.
What’s On the...
January 16, 2010 — 0 Comments
Take this brief quiz and make a mental note of your responses:
Have you and your boss (or client) agreed on the important metrics for your website’s success?
That’s it. If the answer is yes, you’re on the road to being an analytics superhero. But if you don’t know the a...
January 09, 2010 — 1 Comment
I’ve written and spoken on website usability testing plenty of times. But recently, our team at Notre Dame has begun to seriously investigate other methods, tools, and concepts to improve every part of our projects.
Special thanks to Kate Russell, our information architect and usability coo...
August 29, 2009 — 8 Comments
Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad, famously said that “marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”
I have this quote taped to the wall of my office. Sometimes I stare at it, wondering what I can do to be more “remarkable” in my work.
As a marketer, I find the...
June 29, 2009 — 0 Comments
I get asked this question all the time: how often should you redesign your website?
The answer? When you need to.
Recently, a client compared it to a car: sure, you can get a new car every three years, but if it’s still meeting your needs, isn’t that pretty wasteful? Then again, you c...
April 01, 2009 — 5 Comments
It’s more important that you fit into the party than it is to get in the door.
Perry Belcher uses the metaphor of social media as a series of parties. (Aside: This guy makes me want to grill some barbecue.) How to Make Money with Social Media
So social media is a big party. And at a party, ...
March 09, 2009 — 0 Comments
When you get a chance to introduce people to social media, what do you cover? What resources do you recommend?
I had a meeting today with a new-to-social-media-but-diving-in-headfirst communicator on campus and we covered some pretty basic stuff like Twitter, Google Analytics, and Technorati. I o...
March 06, 2009 — 0 Comments
When I talk to clients about social media, I hear two common responses:
I’m too busy.
I have no clue what you’re talking about.
That’s fine. These aren’t social media experts. Heck, they usually aren’t even professional communicators. They’re folks who have...
February 17, 2009 — 0 Comments
Maybe you’ve heard it before: you should give your visitors what they want.
But what if that’s not in line with your goals? Aren’t you spending all this time and money to achieve your goals?
So the advice should be: you should find a way to make your website mutually beneficial ...
February 16, 2009 — 1 Comment
.eduGuru has a good post about the three different approaches to data-driven work:
You’re doing your designated task like a happy hamster on a wheel, when someone else reads a new article, goes to a conference, talks to a vendor, gets a random complaint, or whatever, and it’s time fo...
February 15, 2009 — 0 Comments
The funnel is a common visualization tool borrowed from the business world, where customer acquisition may follow a similar path.
Many have applied this model to the admissions process, helping them to identify conversion points where schools can change their strategies for recruiting students.
...
February 09, 2009 — 1 Comment
In real life, I tell a lot of jokes. I make a lot of faces. I do weird voices. Sometimes, I screech and do my best impression of a velociraptor.
I rarely do this on my blog. I’m only a little better about showing my personality on Twitter.
And I’m not sure why this is.
A personality i...
February 03, 2009 — 0 Comments
The United States Air Force has developed a flowchart to help individuals decide how to participate in online discussions. Even for experienced web users, just having some guidelines can help cooler heads prevail and act appropriately.
Download the PDF here.
(I found this via Jeff Brooks’ ...
January 26, 2009 — 0 Comments
Yeah, you heard me. Though I often post skeptical, cynical posts about low social media adoption rates or why social media isn’t worth your time I am very much interested in (and invested in) social media.
Slate magazine points out that Facebook has passed 150 million members. TechCrunch re...
January 23, 2009 — 0 Comments
There’s a post bouncing around called 11 reasons you can’t ignore social media in 2009. There are some great points. But to continue my “I’m a self-hating social media guy” pattern, here are my 11 reasons you should ignore social media in 2009:
1. The wrong people ar...
January 22, 2009 — 3 Comments
I’ve been trying to find usage and adoption rates of different technologies, especially in certain demographcs:
Do high school students use Twitter?
How many college students use feed readers?
Do faculty members have Facebook profiles?
I’ve seen surveys and research done on organ...
January 20, 2009 — 0 Comments
Recently, my designer friend, Oak, asked me: what’s the point? He is starting out his blog at the bottom. He’s not “Internet famous” and doesn’t have a following. And there are millions of design blogs out there that are all competing for the same visitors.
So the qu...
January 12, 2009 — 0 Comments
In Moving the Needle, Part I I wrote about avoiding the Kool-Aid effect when you read a new book or blog post and speaking in platitudes.
At the end of the post, I included a final note: “Do something: move the needle.”
This was the most important part of the post, and it was buried a...
January 08, 2009 — 0 Comments
Henry Ford is rumored to have said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
So don’t listen to customers.
Henry Ford has also long been rumored to have said that customers can have any color car they want, as long as it’s black. (Or som...
January 06, 2009 — 0 Comments
Sometimes I think about what it would have been like to be born hundreds or thousands of years ago, when so much of our taken-for-granted world was yet-to-be-invented.
Would you have been able to grasp the concept of gravity? The number zero? Basic geometry? What would it have taken for such a br...
December 29, 2008 — 0 Comments
In a conversation about web companies, we compare ourselves to Google.
If you’re talking branding, Nike is sure to come up.
For product development, it’s Apple we admire.
If you’re a marketing blogger, you want to be Seth Godin.
The list goes on and on.
They are outliers. They a...
November 23, 2008 — 2 Comments
Anyone who’s worked with me probably realizes I don’t mind offending people (and I barely consider graphic designers to be people) in hopes of improving the work. This post will certainly offend. Enjoy.
I’ve been meaning to share this gem from Seth Godin for a while, and apparen...
November 20, 2008 — 0 Comments
Update: As Matt pointed out, InBev is Belgian, and not German. It’s like North and South Dakota to me.
Since InBev acquired Budweiser, I’ve been curious to see how the Germans Belgians would influence our American beer. The other day, I saw the first sign.
Bud Light’s latest ad ...
October 08, 2008 — 1 Comment
An hour ago, I was watching a DVD from the first season of AMC’s Mad Men. As I finished the second episode, I posted to Twitter:
i think i like mad men… it’s going to take some time to get used to. it definitely makes me want to drink scotch.
Suddenly, I was followed on Twitter ...
September 14, 2008 — 0 Comments
A University website isn’t really a single website. It’s actually made up of many sites: Human Resources. Office of the President. Department of Zebra Fish Studies.
So the question is this: how important is it for these websites to be look the same?
This recently became a topic on several fo...
September 02, 2008 — 2 Comments
Check out this feedback form from the TweetDeck website. It’s a modal pop-up box with a form and instant feature request form (using UserVoice).
How easy is it for your customers to give you feedback?
September 02, 2008 — 0 Comments
In higher education, marketing is a dirty word.
Some faculty members believe that self-promotion is offensive to their intellectual, academic pursuits. What these purists don’t realize is that they’ve been marketing for their entire careers. They do this through the normal course of t...
June 21, 2008 — 0 Comments