Definitions

  • An advertising campaign is a series of promotional messages that share a single idea and theme and are a part of the marketing plan. Advertising campaigns utilize various media channels over a particular time frame and target specific audiences.

  • Brand awareness is the likeliness that people are able to recall or recognize a brand. Brand awareness is a key factor in consumer behavior, advertising channels, brand management and strategy development.

  • A competitive analysis is the process of identifying your competitors’ current go-to-market strategy, market share, offerings (programs), product delivery (in-class, online, etc.) trends, etc. Sources used to gather competitive intelligence include website, online search, trade magazines, annual reports, program literature, published statistics, etc.

  • Conversion is the point when a viewer of an ad performs an action such as a click, opening of a file or email, filling out a form, navigating to a page or making a purchase.

  • A cookie is a small text file dropped by a website server on a user’s computer at the Internet browser level. A cookie can only be placed and later retrieved for use when the user accesses the website server directly or by the way of a third party tag - see third-party cookie. Only the domain or website which has previously placed the cookie is able to read and use it.

  • CPC is the amount of money it takes for an ad to be clicked by a view.

  • CPL is the amount it costs to acquire a lead and one of the most important metrics of a paid campaign.

  • The CPM model refers to advertising bought on the basis of impressions.

  • CRM is the software programs that enable the University to keep track of existing and potential customers.

  • A CTA is a text link, button, image, or some type of web link that encourages the viewer to visit a landing page and become a lead. Some examples of CTAs are “Learn More” or “Apply Now.”

  • CTR is the percentage of audience that advances (or clicks through) from one part of the website to the next step of a marketing campaign. As a mathematic equation, it’s the total number of clicks that the page or CTA receives divided by the number of opportunities that people had to click (e.g., number of pageviews, emails sent, number of ads served).

  • Economic analysis is a process of data gathering to help identify insight into market potential and trends. Sources used include government agencies (e.g., Census Data, Bureau of Labor), trade associations, business publications (College Board), job outlook indicators, industry reports, news, industry blogs, etc.

  • Engagement includes interactions and display of interest by a potential student through physically engaging with an ad by clicking, liking, sharing or any other action with the ad or post.

  • Evergreen content is content that continues to provide value to readers regardless of when the content was created. Evergreen content can be referenced long after it was originally published and is still valuable to the reader.

  • Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.

  • The go-to-market strategy is the plan of the university/college/department, utilizing their resources, to deliver their unique offering to students and achieve a competitive advantage over other universities in the market.

  • An impression is a single display of a particular ad on a webpage. Some ad fees are based upon the number of impressions, while others are based upon the number of clicks (PPC). 

  • Keywords, also short and long tail keywords are the words or group of words that search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Firefox) crawl on webpages and then determine ranking of a particular page based on the keywords (and phrases) relative to the users search and intent.

  • A landing page is a website page specifically designed to convert visitors into leads. It is designed for one purpose – to capture a visitor’s information through a lead capture form. It’s where prospects “land” after clicking through on ad links and calls-to-action. 

  • A lead is person who has shown interest in an ad. They may have filled out a form through a lead generation ad, filled out a form on the landing page, or shared their contact information in some way.

  • A long-tail keyword is a very targeted search phrase that contains three or more words.

  • A market analysis in higher education studies the attractiveness and the dynamics of a degree program within the industry (and market). Through the analyses, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) can be identified. With the help of a SWOT analysis, adequate business strategies will be defined. 

  • Multichannel marketing is the blending of promotional channels for the purpose of  marketing. Multichannel marketing is about choice, and the objective is to make it easy for the target customer to engage with KSU.

  • Sometimes marketing strategy is confused with a marketing plan, but they are different. Your marketing strategy is the game plan you will use to attract prospects. The marketing plan details how you'll achieve those goals through tactics.

  • Marketing strategy has several meanings, which include “identifying target markets and the value proposition that will be offered based on an analysis of the best market opportunities” (Philip Kotler & Kevin Keller, Marketing Management, Pearson, 14th Edition); “A formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be and what policies will be needed to carry out these goals” (Michael Porter, Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, NY, Free Press, 1980); and “An explicit guide to future behavior” (Henry Mintzberg, “Crafting Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 1987 pp. 66–74).

    For KSU’s purposes, marketing strategy is the overall game plan for finding and attracting prospects.

  • Organic is holistically sourced content created by users and not paid or incentivized by a brand or other marketing organization.

  • PPC is the amount of money spent to get a digital ad clicked. PPC is an advertising technique where an advertiser puts an ad on an advertising site, such as Google AdWords, and only pays when a visitor clicks on the ad. 

  • Retargeting ads are a form of online targeting advertising served to people who have already visited our website. They could also be ads that go to contacts in our CRM database who have not yet applied.

  • ROI is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency and profitability of an investment, or to compare the efficiency and profitability of multiple investments. The formula for ROI is: (Gain from Investment minus Cost of Investment), divided by (Cost of Investment). 

  • SEM is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Firefox) results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid digital advertising[LP2].

  • SEO is the analysis and optimization of our website to enhance where the page appears in search results. By adjusting a webpage’s on-page SEO elements and influencing off-page SEO factors, you can improve where a webpage appears in search engine results. The goal is for page results to be on the first page, above the fold (on the results page before scrolling).

  • Social media are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Top social marketing sites include: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Snapchat.

  • A target audience is a defined group of people, identified as the intended recipient of an ad or message.

  • A third-party cookie is a cookie set up on the visitor hard drive by a domain or website distinct from the visited one. Third-party cookies are implemented by marketing vendors and partners of the visited website by the way of third-party tags.

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