Elliance CEO Talks Higher Education Marketing with Enrollment Management Executives at AMA Symposium

November 30, 2006; 03:07 AM
"We live in a paradoxical age," said Elliance Chief Executive Officer Abu Noaman to an audience of chief enrollment officers and directors of marketing at some of the nation's leading college and universities. "We have more and more marketing tools at our disposal. And, yet, we often take a helter-skelter approach, never distinguishing good information from bad, and hunch from hard evidence."

Noaman, along with Andrew Wasser, Associate Dean, Heinz School, Carnegie Mellon University presented at the 17th Annual Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, sponsored by the American Marketing Association. Their workshop, entitled Combining Data Driven Marketing & Search Engine Marketing to Increase Student Recruitment, drew a packed audience of Vice Presidents for Enrollment and other key decision makers.

The higher education marketing workshop grew from a multi-year, multi-tiered effort, led by Elliance, to increase enrollments in the Masters of Information Systems Management programs at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School of Public Policy. "Paradoxically, our reputation increases as we reject more students - and that can only happen if our applicant pool is large" said Andy Wasser.

"Elliance has shown that the advanced marketing practices applied in B-2-B and consumer goods sectors has relevance for the higher education market."

The Elliance Approach
Noaman and Wasser told how early research into the methods and messages that best matched and converted their target audience of degree seeking students served to guide every aspect of the school's web site design.

Anybody will offer to redesign a web site or run a pay-per-click campaign," said Wasser. "Elliance impressed us with their willingness to understand our needs and take an analytical approach to the website design and traffic flow".

Elliance combined new site architecture for Carnegie Mellon's Information Systems Management web site, and new messaging that matched what perspective students said they wanted most, career advancement. Elliance combined this website focus with a search engine marketing strategy to raise awareness.

Impact
Research showed that nearly 80 percent of perspective students used the web and search engines as their primary school search and decision making tool. It also showed that, above all, perspective students wanted reassurance that their decision and investment would lead to more and better career options.

Elliance conducted market research to identify key influencers among potential students, and integrated findings into site copy and features, emphasizing student's desire for corporate career placement. New site architecture aimed to increase recruitment conversion rates, and search engine optimization raised overall program visibility.

MISM program received a 21% increase in applications for the 2006 academic year. Average GRE and GMAT scores for students rose from year prior.

Revolutionary eMarketing practices are being applied in higher education marketing as America's universities intensify recruitment efforts in order to maintain a stream of quality applicants.

About Elliance
Elliance is an eMarketing firm specializing in results-driven, web site design, search marketing and outbound eMarketing campaigns. The firm is the creator of the revolutionary ennect online marketing toolkit.

Clients include Maps.com, Black Box, Mellon/Dreyfus, Diebold, Medrad, Carnegie Mellon University, Waterpik Technologies, Readers Digest and others. During its 12 + years of experience, Elliance has been honored by the eMarketing Association and others for its innovative use of technology to deliver search engine optimization (SEO), ecommerce and eMarketing solutions.

Elliance has been recognized as the Top Service Provider by the Pittsburgh Technology Council's Tech 50 Awards, and by Business 2.0, Inc. Magazine, the eMarketing Association and the Web Marketing Association amongst others for creation of outstanding interactive web experiences and smart search engine strategies.