Today, we’re excited to release the second white paper in our four-part series on social media in higher education. While the first paper focused on overarching strategy that could be applied to any social network, the second paper, “Is Your School Making the Most of Facebook? How to Stop Shouting to an Empty Room and Start Hosting the Party,” focuses strictly on Facebook.
If you’re like most schools or businesses, you already have a Facebook presence, but you’re not seeing the results that you’d like from your efforts. This paper is designed to help you get the most out of Facebook with proven strategies taken directly from some of the top schools in the U.S. Download your free copy to learn how to:
- Use groups to bolster enrollment
- Build a legitimate community through Facebook
- Deal with negativity before it turns into a PR nightmare
Also, by now, we hope you’ve had a chance to check out the first paper in our series, “Why Your School’s Social Media Strategy Is Falling Behind: Lessons from the Sports Guy, an Online Café and the Color Orange.” Throughout the last month, we’ve received a number of comments about how this paper has helped schools across the country with their social media campaigns. If you haven’t read it yet, we invite you to download it for free today.
To stay up-to-date on the latest news about Fathom’s white paper series, follow us on Twitter.
No Comments yet, your thoughts are welcome. »If you're serious about your email marketing, then you’re looking for new strategies to increase conversions. I’m willing to bet that you can increase response, and hopefully ROI, with the data you already have in your email lists. Here are some ways to use that data you may not have thought of yet or may have overlooked.
Use conversion history. Be aware of those who have converted in the past, and include related products or services in your emails to them. This will help strengthen your existing relationship and keep it active by maintaining relevance and ideally get repeat conversions for you. In addition, you can reward them for their business with special offers for related items.
Deliver on your promise. If a large chunk of your database is opening but not converting, consider the fact that you may not be following through with what you are offering in the subject. Be sure that the content of your email immediately supports the claim of your subject. Not delivering is an easy way to frustrate and lose your subscribers and your reputation.
Give them more of what they want and less of what they don’t. If you're sending emails with more than one call to action, consider replacing some of the weaker performing ones with the better performing ones. You’re wasting your time, and your subscribers', with links that aren't interesting and don't perform.
Recognize the failures. Document ”red flags” such as subject lines that decrease opens, calls to action that don’t work and strategies that repeatedly elicit complaints. You should develop a habit of recognizing these items and keeping them away from your campaigns.
If you don't have the data in place to do any of these, then your email marketing is stuck in the stone age. Consider upgrading to a new provider and implementing tracking code across all campaigns and landing page. After all, the best way to improve conversions and revenue is by testing and you can't do that effectively without tracking.
1 Comment »Recent media coverage from comScore, who bill themselves as "a global leader in measuring the digital world" and operate from disparate points around the globe such as America, Canada, Europe, Japan, India and Australia, indicate that the online video world is doing just fine and continues to grow nicely. Some of the stats comScore cites as evidence that Internet video continues to expand in reach and popularity include:
- Average daily unique viewers of web video grew from 67.3 million in December of 2009 to 88.6 million in December of 2010
- Average number of videos watched per viewer grew from 187 in December of 2009 to 201 in December of 2010
- Viewers spent an average of 12.7 hours watching videos in December of 2009, but watched 14.2 hours in December of 2010
Fathom Online Marketing recognized long ago that the ease of creation & use, sharing & access, and worldwide audiences would make Internet video production a very hot marketing tool in the 21st century. We're not sure if that makes us visionaries or mavericks, but we're surely 
prepared to help our clients grow their business with Internet video production & marketing expertise for branding, product & service sales, and industry awareness in the Information Economy. Contact us today to learn more about what online video can do for your business.
And watch this video from comScore about the state of online video currently. You'll be glad you did.
No Comments yet, your thoughts are welcome. »
You're not going to believe this, but I had a chance to speak with Charlie Sheen the other day. I asked him some questions about his personal life, email marketing lists, and a bunch of other random stuff. Here's the transcript from the call.
Tim Roman: Charlie, tell me about yourself?
Charlie Sheen: You can’t process me with a normal brain.
Tim Roman: What? That's all you've got for me about yourself? Are you addicted to drugs or something?
Charlie Sheen: The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning.
Tim Roman: Riiiiiight, I forgot that was your new thing. So tell me what do you know about email marketing?
Charlie Sheen: I will not believe that if I do something then I have to follow a certain path because it was written for normal people. People who aren’t special. People who don’t have tiger blood and Adonis DNA.
Tim Roman: Ok. So what you're saying is that to be a successful email marketer, you need to have tiger blood and Adonis DNA? I guess that's one way to look at it since successful email marketers ARE very unique people. After all, they need to be:
- Analytical when monitoring statistics, reports, and tests.
- Creative when designing templates, strategies, and content.
- Innovative to develop #winning strategies and produce statistically significant test results.
Charlie Sheen: C’mon bro, I won best picture at 20. I wasn’t even trying. I wasn’t even warm.
Tim Roman: Who could forget! You sound like you know a lot about email marketing and building lists for a celebrity.
Charlie Sheen: Look what I’m dealing with, man, I’m dealing with fools and trolls.
Tim Roman: Are you kidding me? If you keep looking at your million plus twitter followers that way, you'll be history in no time. You've got to value the relationship with your subscribers whether they are on Twitter or on your email list. You keep thinking they're fools and you'll lose their attention, their loyalty and more importantly, their conversions. I still think you're on some drug.
Charlie Sheen: I am on a drug, it's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.
Tim Roman: I'm on a drug too, it's called ROI. I've found the best way to get high is with email marketing since according to the DMA it generates the highest ROI of $43 for each dollar spent.
Charlie Sheen: I was banging seven-gram rocks, because that’s how I roll. I have one speed, I have one gear: Go.
Tim Roman: I'm banging millions in my email lists, hundreds of segments, dynamic content, transactional messages and I top it off everyday with a team of copywriters that produce the most exotic and engaging content. You can't top that.
Charlie Sheen: Winning.
Tim Roman: No you're not. I'm winning. I'm winning millions in revenue for my clients.
Charlie Sheen: I'm bi-winning.
Tim Roman: You keep thinking that.
Charlie Sheen: I’m sorry man, I got magic and I’ve got poetry in my fingertips, you know, most of the time, and this includes naps.
Tim Roman: Alright, fair enough. Great talking with you. Hurry up and bang out Major League 3 before something bad happens to you.
2 Comments »This week's Fathom Minute includes:
- Fathom Video's awesome new screen capture software
- Conference room demolition derby
- Canal Road flood
- Recording phone calls
- Search and Social Media
- Kool-Aid Man Mazzone
