ARE PEOPLE GETTING TIRED OF INFLUENCERS?: For years, influencers have cashed in on using their likeness to promote brands. Studies now show that only 3% of consumers are actually swayed by celebrity influencers. The decline of influencer impact on social media reveals an underlying trend in marketing. Companies are shifting focuses to communities that share common passions and interests, allowing brands to increase their visibility and relevance via word-of-mouth and customer referral.
Why you should care: We tend to associate trust with a product a close friend or acquaintance is using, rather than that of a popular celebrity. Enrollment marketers who can make it as easy as possible for happy current students and alumni to be natural promoters of their programs will find this tactic more powerful than any paid social or influencer marketing tactic.
STAY AWAY FROM LAST-CLICK COST PER ENROLLMENT: Last-click marketing attribution inaccurately assesses the true impact of many marketing channels. In one LinkedIn study, a school identified 106 students whose last click prior to enrolling was on a paid ad. After digging deeper, 4x more students clicked on that ad prior to enrolling, and 29x more students were exposed to the ads prior to enrolling. When calculating the ROI of the ads, a last-click attribution model would have only shown 106 students enrolled thanks to the ads. If your attribution model covers all stages of the customer journey, the ad would have shown to influence or yield 3,074 enrolled students instead.
Why you should care: If you’re reporting on a last-click attribution reporting model, chances are several of your marketing channels are being devalued. This model often overlooks top of the funnel marketing efforts and fails to paint a larger picture of the customer journey. Instead, ROI of marketing efforts should hinge on who was influenced by that channel or content (an ad, email, video, etc) and later took a desired action like inquiring, applying, or enrolling.
HOW DOES VIDEO HELP SEO?: Video content does more than just engage users in a visual way; it’s also been proven to improve SEO. Oberlo found that the average user spends 88% more time on a webpage that contains a video. And since Google attributes longer time spent on page to higher SEO ranking, video is a quick way to do just that. Video content can also improve your likelihood of getting an organic Google snippet, and soon, it's anticipated that Google will begin to crawl video content and add it to its algorithm.
Why you should care: Enrollment marketers who accumulate a plethora of video content and spread it across web pages can bolster SEO efforts. Consider reusing student video testimonials, event promos, and even long-form online info-session videos to help improve on-page SEO, organic Google rankings, and your chance at obtaining Google’s magical “position 0”.