Transcript Slide 1
In April 2011, The CPE PhD, LLC became Course Outcomes, LLC. The training materials are referred to in this packet are owned and copyrighted by Course Outcomes, LLC and can only be used for free trainings. They may not be rebranded nor sold without express written permission from Course Outcomes. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Part 2 An overview of ‘do-it-yourself ’ online marketing technologies and techniques. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Marketing is a daily task Your expertise is your knowledge Decide the percentage of time you can devote to marketing Using the Internet to attract students Finding the right students Finding the right advertising venues Enrolling students online Even Internet marketing needs daily devotion © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Your Competition Search Engines Who are they? Advertising What are they doing? SEO How can you beat them? Analysis Tools Building Your Website Social Media Domain Name Advertising Hosting Services The Value of Tools and Skills Relationship Maintenance Analytics © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com List your top 3 or 4 competitors. What is their online presence? Can you identify their value propositions? Use the attached worksheet to organize your analysis. Click on this object to open the Word Document. Competitor Worksheet Competitor © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Website Value Proposition Click on this object to open the Word Document. Now, evaluate your: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Threats This is called a ‘SWOT Analysis’ Use the attached worksheet to organize your thoughts. Examples: Possible strengths – solid reputation with many repeat students; strong brand in local area; strong relationships with area professionals; unique courses not offered by competitors Possible weaknesses – no online presence; lack of identifiable brand; sales ebb and flow—no steady stream; same courses as other provide Possible opportunities – new laws or regulations requiring new CPE course; new markets (i.e., if you tailor you courses for CPA’s, can they be re-tooled for other professions?) Possible threats – pressure from competitors with bigger marketing budgets; similar courses available without CPE accreditation © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Click on this object to open the Word Document. Now that you know more about your competitors and yourself, it’s time to map a comparison. Use the attached worksheet for your analysis. The plan is to market to your strengths and opportunities; and minimize your weaknesses and threats. Comparing You to Your Competitors SWOT Strengths 1. 2. 3. Weaknesses 1. 2. 3. Opportunities 1. 2. 3. Threats 1. 2. 3. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com You Competitor 1 Competitor 2 (Y/N) (Y/N) (Y/N) Your website is an online expression of your brand, who you are, and what services you offer. Building it yourself has become easier with a variety of diy tools. The next few slides explore what you need to know for a diy website. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com A domain name should be easy to remember .com is the most common extension for businesses You can use a website such as www.godaddy.com to see if your domain name choice is available. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Search for your domain name. If your website name is not available, GoDaddy will make suggestions for you. While you are on GoDaddy’s site, check out their offers for website services. We’ll look at one more a few slides later. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com ‘bestcpe.com’ is not available; here are some suggestions. A hosting service is a An all-in-one service – company that keeps your for domain name, website on their servers, hosting, and up and running 24/7. development – may be a good choice to get you Typically, when you started. purchase your domain name, the same company GoDaddy.com and will offer hosting Homestead.com are two services. sites that offer complete packages, including email. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Website building services sites (such as Homestead.com) have many templates pre-built you can choose from. You can pick a design you like rather than trying to create one from scratch. You can make changes to the template such as colors, graphics, etc. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com As for the skills you will need to create your website—they are similar to what you might use to build a PowerPoint presentation or create a Word document. Homestead.com offers a 30 day free trial–give it a try before you commit. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com GoDaddy.com also offers ‘build a website overnight’. Once your site is up and Keeping your website running, keep it current. If you list class dates, be sure to regularly delete class dates gone by and update new sessions. Add keywords, customer comments—whatever is relevant—on a regular basis. current and active will help search engine web crawlers find you more frequently. This means people searching for your services will be more likely to find you—and not your competition. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Do you like to use the internet and visit websites? Do you think you have untapped design skills? Do you have the time to develop a website? If you have a website, what do you want it to do for you? Do you have a budget for creating a website and maintaining it? (This includes your time to provide regular updates to the site.) © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Search engines such as SEO = Search Engine Google and Yahoo use web crawlers to find your site If the web crawler sees something new about your site from one ‘crawl’ to the next it will keep your site searchable Optimization = optimizing your website with keywords and elements that will be found by search engines Remember – keywords you want to use (CPE, Accounting Class) are being used by others, too © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Google AdWords “When people search on Google using one of your keywords, your ad may appear next to the search results.” It depends on how many others have the same keyword, and your budget. Your Google AdWords Ad will appear here Read some Google AdWords success Stories: https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/ad words/select/success.html Source: http://www.google.com/ads/adwords2/ © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Search engine advertising is based on CPC—Cost Per Click. You can set the amount of money you want to pay to the search engine for each click your ad generates. Your budget also dictates how often your ad will appear for specific keyword searches. Visit www.google.com/adwords for more info. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Find Keywords Google is the most used search engine in the world; Yahoo is #2 Both can help you find valuable keywords Keywords help search engines find your site The more keywords you use on your site, the more it will be found Get Keywords © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Alexa.com Google and other search engines will give you an analysis of keywords and ad results. Another great website for analytics is www.alexa.com. Google Analytics © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Think about keywords you would use on your website to enhance search engine optimization. Visit a search engine and try out your keywords. View the websites returned and evaluate their relevancy. Can you see your website coming up in your search? Be sure to look at the number of results your search returned. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Advertisers have found results building customer relationships using social media outlets such as FaceBook. You can also buy advertising space with social media networks. LinkedIn FaceBook © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com As discussed in part 1, Have a link to your social media sites are valuable for building relationships with your clients – your ‘fans.’ Use social media sites to build relationships by FaceBook or LinkedIn page on your website, and vice versa. Include ‘Find Us on FaceBook/LinkedIn’ in any non-web advertising you do, too. Keeping information current; The more engaged you Responding to feedback. are, the more you will be recommended. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com To see any results from Research social media any advertising you do, you need to keep the advertising in place for a period of time. It takes between 7 and 21 impressions of your ad before someone will act on it. networks on your subject matter and see if these are people you want to sell to. After that, it’s a monetary decision – how much are you willing spend each month to see a return? © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Example: LinkedIn has five groups for ‘accountants’ with over 1,000 members, total. If your course is available for accountants, look at LinkedIn’s advertising packages and target an ad to these groups. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com Do you already have accounts with LinkedIn, FaceBook, or Twitter? If you do, do you interact with them on a regular basis? Perform a search in each venue on keywords that relate to your CPE courses. Look for professional groups that will appeal to your course, such as accountants, lawyers, etc. Do your search results indicate that this may be a good place to advertise or advocate your course offerings? © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com This course packed in a lot of information on how to ‘do it yourself’ on web site development and advertising. Take the time to review suggested web sites and decide if the diy route is worth your time and fits in your budget. After your initial investment, be sure to keep your ads, website, and social media efforts up to date. Part 3 of this course provides focus on branding and building an integrated marketing communications plan. © 2011 Course Outcomes, www.courseoutcomes.com