1 Internet Collaboration versus Competition How Education Providers and Agents Can Help Each Other Recruit More International Students via the Internet Rod Hearps ICEF Online - Director Hyperstudy.com - Director EdMedia Student Recruitment - Director The ICEF Middle East Workshop February 3, 2007

2 Background • 17 years in International Education industry • Owned and ran an Agency with offices in Japan and Australia for 7 years • Recruited students via internet since1994 • Helped set-up 3 schools for international students in Australia + worked as Principal, Marketing Manager, Teacher • Owner / manager of 10 Education related websites for students, agents and schools • Creator of ICEF Online

3 Collaborative Roots versus Modern Day Competition • Internet originally created for collaboration • Now businesses have created massive competition • WWW gatekeepers like Google make billions of $’s by encouraging competition • He who bids highest and spends the most gets promoted the most • e-learning Providers like Uni of Phoenix (USA) spend US$ millions per month • How high will bidding go? How high can you afford to bid ? For how long?

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How to increase your visibility Online PPC Marketing Google AdWords

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5 Characteristics of the internet • Today’s billion internet users are expected to double by 2015 • Of these 1 billion, 300 million speak English, 128 M Chinese and 80 M Japanese • English are speakers already a minority on the internet (<30%) • This will drop to 25% by 2010 • Chinese, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese are on the increase • Chinese will grow fastest, doubling over the next 5 years

Internet Usage by Language 6 Used with permission of USjournal.com

7 Internet impact for Providers • How many and which languages should I translate my website into ?

• Does the internet mean I can recruit more students directly without paying commissions to Agents ?

• Should I list my authorized Agents on my website ?

• Should I provide links to the websites of my authorized Agents ?

• How can I best manage my brand and presence on the internet with such a proliferation of websites ?

8 Internet impact for Agents • Will I make less enrolments as students can now more easily contact Providers directly ?

• Will I make more enrolments because I can now recruit students from every country ?

• Should I translate my website ?

• Should I list Providers ? And their prices ?

• How can I compel students to contact me rather than contacting Providers directly ?

• What’s my USP or value proposition, and how can I make it more attractive ?

• Don’t attempt to compete on price • Do attempt to compete on service levels

9 Question: • Do Providers have the internal language resources to effectively handle student enquiries in all languages ? • Eg. website translations and Search Engine Optimization, understanding and responding effectively to all enquiries in the prospective student’s native language ?

• Or would they get more enrolments if they out-sourced some of these tasks to better resourced partners, including their Agents ?

10 Types of internet collaboration • Agent login areas on Provider websites • Pay Per Action (Affiliate) Marketing models • Linking – one way and reciprocal • Enquiry generation, management and sharing • White-label solutions

11 Agent login areas • Most commonly feature a simple document download area – brochures, application and enrolment forms, agent manuals, image galleries, videos etc • Please allow agents to choose their own log-in details

12 Example Agent login area

13 Agent login areas - less common features • Enrolment form with embedded Agency ID • Fee calculator Reports for Agents on: • numbers of students enrolled • student progress - course start and end dates, holiday dates, attendance, results, course renewal details • tuition fee reports – fees due and paid • commission reports – due and paid

14 Example Agent Support area

15 Pay Per Action (Affiliate) Marketing models • Merchant = Supplier = Provider • Affiliate = Referrer = Agent • Pay Per Click – US 1 cent to US 10 cents per click through • Pay Per Enquiry / Lead – US$1 to US$50 per enquiry (depending upon how well the leads are “qualified”) • Pay Per Enrolment – 5% to 10% of tuition fees paid per enrollment

16 Why are PPA (Affiliate) models not widely used in Education ?

• Typically the Merchant = the Provider benefits the most • Can be costly to implement • Employ a resource or outsource ?

• Questionable likelihood of uptake by Agents (who likely prefer commission model) • Questionable likelihood of results • Why not stick to tried and tested agent based recruitment methods?

17 Linking for Agents • For Agents, links to Provider websites = “leakage”. Why would they do it ?

• Will they do it for SEO purposes ?

• Or is it just “too risky” / not worth it ?

• If Agents link to Provider websites, it’s most likely to be from low PR (page rank) pages that are of little value to the Provider.

• Not all links are equal in value • 1 x PR6 link = 70 x PR3 links

18 Linking for Providers • Providers wishing to increase their SE rankings via link exchange might focus on exchanging links with websites other than Agency websites • eg. Travel industry websites • Links from Provider websites to Agent websites are more common than vice versa • See Reciprocal Linking example at www.hyperstudy.com/student-links/ • Get this link exchange software for free at www.phplinkdirectory.com

19 Link exchange example

20 Providers linking to their Agents / Representatives • Should Providers offer prospective students links to their Agents / Representatives? • Students want CHOICE - to enrol directly or via an approved in-country Representative • Consumers appreciate not being limited in their choices • A Provider who links to many Agents / Representatives may even be viewed more favourably by prospective students

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25 Enquiry generation, management and sharing • Via Agent websites - handled by Agents • Via Provider websites - handled by Providers or sent to Agents?

• Via 3rd party websites - handled by Providers or sent to Agents?

• How to decide ?

26 Providers - how to decide who handles enquiries?

• Country by country - visa conditions, prevailing cultural preferences etc • Enquiry volume vs marketing staff workload • Which Agent/s to forward enquiries to?

• Those who are more ‘web savvy’ • Reward loyal / high producing agents • Monitor success of receiving agents & change if unsuccessful • Please send 1 enquiry to 1 Agent only

27 Enquiry Management • Providers need a good Enquiry Management System (EMS) that helps them easily forward enquiries to Agents • Ideally Agents also need a good EMS in order to professionally manage enquiries on behalf of their Provider partners who send them

28 White-label solutions • Common in more commercially (especially e-commercially) mature industries eg Travel • Instant Provider approved, maintained and hosted content streamed to host websites • Hosts (Agents) need not update the content • Customized with host website header and footer to look like part of their website • See an Education white-label example at http://www.icefonline.com/studyguide/guide.

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29 Travel Industry example

30 Education Industry example

31 In conclusion • Why are many of the types of internet collaboration presented not more commonly embraced by the Study Abroad industry?

• Are they simply inappropriate for this (high level of service) industry?

• I suggest white-labelling is a more viable and sustainable solution for the international education industry. See details at www.icefonline.com

• Ultimately the industry will decide the answers to the questions and issues raised

32 Thank you for your time • Feel free to email me any questions via [email protected]

• Or meet me at the ICEF Online stand in the foyer Warm regards Rod Hearps