Aha! :: Elliance Blog

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What is the value of your email marketing efforts?

Email is one of the most widely used digital marketing tools in the communications landscape, and every email marketing platforms has built-in tracking to report on metrics such as email delivery, bounce, open, click-thru and un-subscribe rates etc. However, this integrated email tracking systems can’t provide insight on activities and behaviors of email referrers on […]

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Focus on Bright Spots

Bringing about change is tough stuff. Chip and Dan Heath, in their recent book titled “How to Change Things When Change is Hard” talk about Bright Spots, or things that are working. They wisely posit that instead of focusing on things that are broken, it’s better to talk about bright spots that are not only […]

paid vs. inbound marketing investment
Investing in Higher Education Marketing: Paid vs. Inbound

What are some factors to keep in mind when making the decision to invest in higher education digital marketing channels?

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Students will decide whether colleges live or die

The question of whether MOOCs pose a threat of extinction to brick-and-mortar institutions is akin to the argument of whether digital music destroyed, is destroying, or will destroy the music industry. The answers to the latter questions are no, no and no, while the answer to the former is still no. MOOCs are goosing the […]

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PPC: Did you know there’s such a thing as ‘Negative’ keywords?!

When it comes to a paid search (PPC) campaign, it’s not just important to make sure that your ads are seen. It’s important to make sure that they’re seen by the right people. Your goal is to ensure that the people who see and click on your ads are likely to connect with you and […]

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In case you hadn’t heard: Pittsburgh User Experience Designers Meetup Group

If you’re a web professional, Pittsburgh is a great place to call “home.” For one, the city is stuffed with outstanding practitioners from a broad array of webby disciplines. With tech stalwart Carnegie Melon churning out batch after batch of HCI brainiacs and scrappy Pittsburgh Technical Institute (yes, I’m totally serious) minting successive generations of […]

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Quick tips on buying higher education brand work.

As a firm steadily building a reputation for higher education marketing and branding, we often receive phone calls and RFPs from colleges who quickly disclose a sense of urgency — “we need help” — without necessarily understanding what they want to buy or how a firm like Elliance can make a difference. Given the sandstorm […]

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Where is my Organic Search Traffic?

Comparing last four months of pre-launch and post-launch analytics data of recently launched responsive website for a client, revealed some interesting insights. Website traffic remained unchanged Share of Mobile traffic increased Share of Direct traffic increased Shift in Desktop traffic to Mobile Overall, for the new website, traffic visit numbers remained relatively unchanged. However, the […]

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Can higher education marketing pros marry non and for-profits?

In 2005, Jerome C. Weber wrote a journal piece entitled “Why Can’t Colleges and Universities Be Run More like Business?” The public outcry colleges sometimes receive when they are perceived as a business is one answer to Weber’s question. Take Thunderbird School of Global Management, who chose to partner with a for-profit in an attempt […]

higher education marketing for awareness and reputation
Higher education marketing: Awareness and Reputation

There are multiple approaches to building a successful brand for a college or university. I work with brand specialists, designers, writers and content marketers who all have different opinions on what is important to a higher education brand. But from a search marketing perspective, some of the things I consider most important include brand awareness […]