News Roundup — Higher Education Digital Marketing

You have digital objectives to meet, and limited time to stay in the loop on how best to implement your online marketing. We can help — here's our latest monthly roundup of industry articles and tools that we believe to be valuable for your work in higher-ed:

Strategy

• Marketing the Why in Higher Education. Via Inside Higher Ed.
  "Introduced in 2014, the Gallup-Purdue Index, a study of college graduates, found that the type of college a student attended 'hardly matters at all' in a graduate's workplace engagement and current well-being." So you really have to identify the "why" students choose to come to your school, and communicate that well.
• Changing spending trends for digital vs. traditional marketing in admissions. Via Ruffalo Noel Levitz.
  How is your website performing for your digital marketing goals?
• How To Improve your design process with Data-Based Personas. Via Smashing Magazine.
  "When you know how much of your user base the persona represents and how well you're serving them, it quickly becomes obvious whether a potential feature could actually make a difference. Suddenly deciding what to work on won’t require hours of debate or horse-trading."
• The Discount Store vs. the Boutique: Understanding the Pricing Frame for students. Via Encoura.
  How you communicate about sticker price, Net Price Calculator, and scholarships on your site is critical. An insightful read on the psychology of price and how it affects the early choices about which institutions a student will even engage with at the start of college search.

Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality

• Virtual reality grows as asset in academic, enrollment management. Via EducationDIVE.
  Four ways campuses are introducing virtual reality as a tool to expand the academic enterprise.
• Bose is developing augmented reality glasses with a focus on sound. Via the The Verge.
  A great way to enrich self-guided campus tours, historical tours, and more.

Technology

• Google begins to roll out mobile-first indexing. Via TechCrunch.
  For search engine ranking, the question is no longer whether you have a mobile-friendly site, but how well optimized is your mobile site. Universities need to apply a continuous improvement model for their site to ensure continued good rankings, rather than simply evaluate if it finally updated to a responsive site.
• Universities are releasing their own digital pattern libraries and software design systems — examples are Indiana University and University of St. Andrews. They are finding it important to create their own internal frameworks to make their user experience as seamless as possible.
  The task of creating a cohesive design pattern for your school can be challenging and time-consuming, and yet not always an urgent priority. Partnering with us can help you reap the long-term benefits without sacrificing the more urgent projects.
• How to Prepare Your Higher Ed Website for the Rise of Voice Search. Via Carnegie Dartlet.
• CKEditor now offers Google Docs style editing, responsive images, and more.
  This is a great tool for any medium to heavy-content projects.

For Fun

• More than meets the eye — optical adjustments in components. Via the Medium.
• What's the waiter doing with the computer screen? When digital solution meets real world use.
• Design Canada (the Film) — we're loving the trailer and the website.

Missed Last Roundup?

• Read the latest on blowing the whistle on rankings, the Content Performance Quotient, managing shifting prospects during yield, statistics and game-based learning, Google AMP's new story format, spring planning documents, color forecasting, and more.