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alright guys we are going to move into our next next topic which we are keeping with the subject that's near and dear to my heart and my professional interest and that's marketing I did a great job of speaking to how we display our messaging and get prospective students interested in our products but we have a lot of that's just the beginning there's a lot more work that needs to be done once we have made that first point of contact with our prospective students so please join me in welcoming Sarah Hamilton to the podium to talk about lead nurturing in higher education [Applause] thanks guys so what I'm going to talk about is not so much the future after lead nurturing but our future here in how we nurture our leads so we're gonna talk a bit about what lead nurturing is and I know this is new for a lot of people and how we talk about nurturing our leads and what I specifically mean when I talk about lead nurturing here and why we need it next how we do it so what are those next steps and how could you do it for your own school for those of you streaming and then we'll leave some time for the Q&A so let's start by what is lead nurturing and just to throw in some marketing we always know that gifts and dogs perform really well all the time so we're gonna combine them and use them throughout so to start us off while you have the definition of lis nurturing which is the purposeful process of engaging a defined target group by providing relevant information at each stage of the buyers journey positioning your company as the best and safest choice to enable them to achieve their objectives so I'm gonna translate that of it so that means we want to give each of our leads the right content for them at the right time through a series of emails to make sure that we position our college as the best choice and the only choice for them when it comes to deciding where to go now this is one tool in a series of many tools at our marketing team deploys so what we're looking at here is a big series of tools that help us through the buyers journey to bring a stranger all the way through to a promoter of our school so each person that enrolls at une online that then graduates go through this series of stages they start as a stranger not knowing who we are as a school then they visit our website hopefully they see one of our ads they've searched for a keyword either organically through the work that our content managers do or through Ivy's work with paid SEO maybe it's through social media following our channels seeing some boosted posts and then they visit our website there they're able to click on some content they can download they fill out forms they visit our landing pages just like you learned about in our last presentation and they become a lead now here's where lead nurturing really picks up this is where we use a series of emails and series of more content to really help make them a true believer in what we offer and make sure that decision is kind of not really a decision when it comes to deciding to join un E's group of amazing students once they do that they become in our system a student or an you'll see here just in marketing terms of customer and once we do that we engage them through other promotional or marketing efforts like our ambassador program or events that we often put on to become promoters and want to share une as an awesome choice for their colleagues or to come back for additional programs later on in their career so why do we need lead nurturing well it's a really crowded marketplace like we've heard over the last day and a half when we first started it was a pretty open field and we had a ton of success over the last five six years the marketplace has gotten really crowded and we need to grab our audience's attention students are doing tons of research on their own so it's really important that they make an informed decision and we help them make an informed decision by providing them with the con they need to make that choice and by putting that relevant content out there we're able to build our reputation build our credibility and stay top of mind as they evaluate their options of where to go to to get that next degree or to take that next Namit regulated course and by putting the right content in front of our leads at the right time we eliminate their need to search for additional information and eliminate their need to seek information from additional competitors that they might not have thought of or might not have seen before that would then become a player in the mix that doesn't need to be so how do we do this there's a variety of steps when it comes to executing a lead nurturing campaign the first is defining our buyer persona so who are we trying to reach you need to really understand our audience we want to consider their demographics their psychographics so what's valuable to them what's really important when it comes to making that decision what are they searching for so what keywords are they searching for that we can really hone in on and create content around to make sure that what we create doesn't just sit somewhere on the internet never to be found but surfaces to allow us to really start this process of nurturing them and where do they get that information so even if they're not searching where do they consume information do they consume it on social media do we get our posts up there do they google a lot everyone Google's a lot so that's important do they you know have certain publications that they really look at maybe an mph student has a ton of interest in hospitals and they really look at what's going on in different hospitals in their area and we want to make sure that we're providing relevant content in those arenas so that's really important to understand when it comes to aligning with the right placements and their writing with the right content and outlets the next step is identifying the content we want to create so based on the content our audience is searching for and that tons of keyword research that we do we want to start planning out the content we need to create to engage each audience at each stage of the buyers journey so we don't just create one piece but we create multiple pieces to nurture them throughout their buyers journey so this includes creating and planning blogs to get the content out there social posts to promote it and any additional supporting content needed to distribute that that might be ads for those different placements that we talked about based on where they're consuming media and then lastly we build out our nurturing pathway so in our case our une Online's instance we would use engagement studio which is part of par dot to build out our system they convert on different pieces of content they'll enter the engagement studio at different phases and then they'll be able to be led through a series of emails towards that next piece of content to help them eventually work with an enrollment counselor and fill out their application all right the lead nurturing pathway another big series of steps so bear with me this is a series of four steps as we convert somebody again from a stranger to a student here so the first is educate so when we educate our students here are uh leads here it's the very beginning where we're focusing on educating our customers in delivering a commercial teaching point of view so this is not about our school this is about something really broad that we want our leads to focus on and where we're gonna position ourselves as a thought leader then we're gonna inform our students a little bit more form our leads we're gonna teach them how to make a better decision and advance their process of figuring out what schools that to attend for their next degree followed by the engagement phase this is where we're gonna share even more relevant content engage the in gain the engagement of our prospects to begin that conversation we really start focusing on our program our school and why they need to work with us and then lastly this is where we convert them from a lead to a student and really show them how they can start working with us to fill out that application and become one of our students so we start building content that resonates so during the educate phase we work on content that educates and is not focused again on our own program or school but rather the topic that our lead is searching for so that initial piece that they might have been searching for on Google or may have scrolled by and saw on Facebook this examples would include ebooks on careers for social workers so again broad topics may be a guide to being an online student because they're looking at online programs but they don't know what it means to be an online student and it's kind of an intimidating topic if they've only been to on-campus undergraduate programs or tips a collection of tips for starting or searching for a graduate program maybe they don't know what's important to consider when it comes to evaluating different graduate programs and we can be that resource to help them then we shift to inform this helps our beads again make better decisions moving them closer to the decision making process and helps them think of our Institute as reliable and trustworthy and a thought leader so again it's still not about you any online but its positioning us as a reliable and trustworthy player in the space so examples here would be an e-book maybe the impact a graduate degree has on the next generation of educators infographics on what a health informatics degree could mean for your career or white papers so research papers that EDD educators have done for their communities and now we get a little bit further and we really start to go in and go for the kill so we engage our students we are leads to become students and introduce you any online as their engagement choice and we really want to work on prospecting these leads to really becoming students here so examples would be a maybe a comparison document between our program and another highlighting why our program would be the RUP the wise choice for them case studies it's focused on graduate students and their successes and why they really succeeded on our program testimonials collections of first-hand positive experience from our students or a collection of F cues from students so really as they start to get into the application process questions they might have as they start to consider you any online as their true choice and lastly this is where the hard sell comes in and we start to talk about how they engage with us for the application process so speak with an enrollment counselor apply now wave your application with this code these are the moves that we make to really get them to apply now here or never now what else do we need that's a lot of content that we just covered needing but that's not it so we need blog posts we create these pieces of content but we need places for it to live so that people can access it and download it so for every piece of content we create we need three to four blog posts in order for people to find it and download it what's important is that these blog posts have different keywords that people could be searching for so we do even more keyword research and find out different topics that people could be searching for so that they could find those blog posts read them and then find that pieces of piece of content so we're really amplifying that blog blogging strategy in that search strategy to find multiple keywords people could be searching for to get that one downloadable and get them started enrolled in that lead nurturing process same with social media we want to make sure that this lives and breathes as much as possible in our space especially as an online college this is an awesome place for people to engage with us now we don't just share it once on Facebook we can share it up to four times at a month and it doesn't get stale especially as we share more and more content on their Twitter Twitter is time based so if somebody misses it and they're not spending a ton of time on Twitter they're unlikely to see it again so we can post it up to ten times a week and somebody might only see it once if they even see it because Twitter is so crowded depending on the number of followers you have or who you're following and calls-to-action these calls to action are the buttons you click to download those pieces of content need to live everywhere and on multiple places on a page so those blog posts we'll have two to three opportunities for somebody to click on it and they'll have multiple variations so they might be different colors they might have different languages or they might say different download versions and might say download click here to view this brochure and see what resonates with our audience so when it comes together it looks a little bit something like this now this shows why ian has a job I am NOT a graphic designer up here we start with those CTAs so those yellow buttons are those yellow suns is where somebody would really start that first process so we see that somebody could fill out a CT or click on a CTA and they would be directed no matter where that CTA lived to a form and they would fill out that form and start that lead nurturing process now what's very cool about technology is that no matter what piece of content they were interested in whether it was that very first piece of content that was very high level about becoming an online student all the way to the comparison document between you any online and our competitors based on where they are in their decision-making process they can enroll in our lead nurturing process and get picked up and we can start to send them those follow-up emails to move them towards that application push so we can have that set up for anybody no matter where they are in their decision-making process they can also jump between that which is really exciting and very cool so if somebody was very moving along their process very quickly and they went from that first phase to that third phase our technology now can skip that second column altogether and keep moving them along and now here's just a little bit closer up look so we can see what those emails look like so if we have that first piece of content we see did they open it yes or no yes we move them to that next piece of content we want to make sure that they're moving and getting relevant pieces of content to them we're not giving them anything stale we're not sending in the same offer over and over again but we're moving them that next piece that will help make sure they know that we are relevant and timely and up to date with our technology if they don't open it we're gonna send them reminders for that next piece okay so we saw that maybe you got our email but you didn't get a chance to check out this new checklist on how to fill out your online application here it is again we want to make sure that you get this checklist before the application deadline approaches let us know if you have any questions and we will repeat that process to make sure that they get that right piece of content for them so what happens next so once a student has completed the lead nurturing cycle there's two paths they can take the first one is that they've converted into an applicant and they're working with our enrollment team and the second is that they didn't convert in marketing would work to enroll them into a long term drip campaign that would help keep them engaged until they're ready to work with us again now it's important to note that that might mean they're never going to work with us again it may have enrolled in another program or they may have decided that school's not through them or they don't need a degree after all there are always going to be those students that it's not a perfect fit and then lastly we analyzed so another important step to this is never letting us get into the habit of setting and forgetting it so each piece of this has the opportunity to review and make sure that we are looking at opportunities to make it better so when we look at the emails that we're sending here are some just quick factors we can look at so we have a high open rate with a low click-through rate that might mean that the content piece that we're offering or the CTA that we're showing isn't really enticing for the students and we might want to see if there's something else that we can offer them if there's a low open rate in a low click-through rate that might mean our subject line for the email isn't resonating with our students and once they do open it the content isn't really resonating either let's rethink that step in the lead nurturing process high end subscribe rates that first piece of content might have been something really cool but not relevant to actually getting students and they're not interested in our program overall low open rates with a high click-through rate our subject line wasn't really enticing but the content that we're offering is awesome and the people that really opened it we're super excited let's try some new headlines or subject lines and then lastly the gold standard would be a high open rate and a high click-through rate super exciting to see let's model what we did here and see if we can get that across some other emails and some other opportunities we also want to look and see what social posts and blogs are performing well what did people search for in our blogs what resonated well with this audience and what CTAs on that blog clicked well was there certain CTA in terms of placement that clicked well was the CTA that was higher up performing better than lower down on the page was the orange CTA performing better than the blue was the one that said click here doing better than download what opportunities there can we look at to see what performed better same with social posts what kind of content performed better the social post that went to the blog that then went to the offer or the one that just went to the offer let's look and see what did better and then lastly we want to gather feedback from our enrollment and sales team to hear about the leads that have come through to see if they're relevant to see if they're excited and to see if they're good prospects all right I think we've got a few minutes off for questions um can you talk a little bit about how you're applying all this now so you know what program are you working with who else is part of it so obviously this is really helpful and useful but thinking about what the next steps are for us internally absolutely so this is a pretty big project I'm sure I hope I kind of made that clear but we are starting off with health informatics so we are piloting this initial launch with health informatics so we have a few stakeholders really starting starting in on the process and we're developing buyer personas next so that is our next stage we're getting together with we have enrollment we have marketing we have research and strategy we have program all sitting in the room I may have forgotten somebody I apologize if I have all sitting in the room to talk about what we look for in an ideal student who's done really well from in from research and strategy to talk about the demographics so to get anecdotal information as well as hard research to really perform and meld together to build out those buyer personas so that we can start that process if identifying the content and where to start to think about placement for that content and Alison as well our content manager has started keyword research for this program as in the background so that once we have those buyer personas we can start to overlay the opportunities we found there with keywords that we're finding in the back not to lose any time but we are hoping to have this process rolled out for health informatics in February so all of that content and enrollment or engagement studio built out for February hi yes you mentioned in your analysis space that you looking and seeing how the models for how you're reaching out to and grooming these leaves how you can how you can make that work more efficiently how you can fix the the weak weak links in the chain and it occurred to me that you're working on different ways of marketing what exists in the program or the programs and I was curious about instances where the feedback that you're getting may speak to the actual content within the program such as you know the program could emphasize or offer something like this or something like that or do this thing differently or and is that the case you sometimes does the analysis show that the program and and those of us who are working on the product that we're actually like selling here could be done in a different way and if so how is that collected so since this is new and we haven't rolled it out yet I don't have the perfect anecdote to share but I do think in the future as we look into it one thing that I'm thinking of is if we see a piece of content about one area of expertise or if we're looking at things like focus areas that are resonating really well or we see a lot of engagement around that that if we worked with instructional design and if we work with the programs that we could see develop into something long-term for building out some of our courses in the directions of that based on what people are looking for and engaging with in our marketing content absolutely I think that that would be a really wonderful way to do a full loop there or close the loop there did I answer that okay hi so I just had another question sort of off of what Elena had asked but in regards to buyer personas how many do you have sort of a range that you're thinking how about how many buyer personas you're going to build out for each particular program or when you're building out the engagement studio yeah that's a wonderful question so prior personas can be a little bit tricky because you can go in there and you can create as many as you could possibly think of and think of small nuances that can differentiate them but I think it's important to keep in mind didn't try to keep it down to two or three when you're developing those buyer personas because if you have too many you're going to create so many different opportunities for being unable to track what does well and miss out on those bigger pictures of overlap and what really is the core of what drives these different personas and developing that kind of content and developing those pathways one area that is very cool about buyer personas though is developing a negative persona so not only can you develop two or three buyer personas with people you want to reach you can build out the persona of that person that you don't want to reach that might come through the funnel quite often or might come through every once in a while that you don't want to spend too much time on because they often aren't the right fit or rarely are the right fit and you want to make sure that you are not spending too much time or creating efforts that would attract that person so that's a cool addition that you can do during that process hello hi I've got a question for you sure and and this might be a little bit of a loaded question but i'ma switch gears and ask you about content in particular I think you know in higher education in here in particular you've got a lot of folks that are constantly you know producing content in different ways you know we have our own assets that we're building for our products it's our intellectual property etc etc I'm wondering if you can just kind of speak to how the content that you're talking about in a marketing aspect may be in some cases very different than the content or you know the the verbage that someone on the side of the product side might use does that make sense question make sense yes absolutely that's another really good question so I think what's really important when we're thinking about marketing and the content that we're creating is that it's not about our program necessarily most of the time a lot of times it's about the industry and it's about programs in general like ours so we want to talk to people about what they value in our programs and speak to them more generally when we get to things like the courses we offer that's where we get really specific about our programs but what's really great about marketing content is that we can talk to our personas and we can be a little bit more broad and really focus on those values and not focus too much on making sure that we are wording things in a very specific way because we're trying to get to them at a certain level and their decision-making process that is a little bit higher up so it's not that educational level it's not that textbook level but it's that almost conversational level like come to us because we can talk to you about what we are offering and it's that friendly tone that we're going to welcome you into our community in our school I think that's it so thank you guys [Applause]