New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
12 Month Digital Marketing Plan
New College Swindon
December 2009
Word Count: 3145
Membership Number: 13240914
(Excludes contents, all headings and sub-headings, appendices
and overview of organisation’s digital marketing activity)
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Contents
1.
Executive Summary
3
2.
Evaluation of New College Swindon’s existing digital marketing activities
4
3.
Situation analysis
6
4.
Objectives
4.1.
Corporate and marketing objectives
4.2.
Digital marketing objectives
9
5.
Strategies
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
5.4.
5.5.
5.6.
6.
Tactics
6.1.
6.2.
10
Developing an online model strategy
Channel structure and integration with offline
Market and product development strategies
Online Value Proposition (OVP) strategy
Target market, positioning and differentiation strategies
Contact and relationship building strategies including CRM
11
Online marketing mix
Physical evidence, people and processes
7.
Actions
16
8.
Monitoring and Control
17
Appendices
Appendix One:
Brief description of New College
Appendix Two:
Online marketing audit
Appendix Three:
Tables and schedules
Appendix Four:
Bibliography and references
Appendix Five:
CIM Statement
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
1. Executive summary
New College Swindon (NC) recruits successfully to all courses, using traditional marketing
and media channels. It has ambitious plans to extend premises and course provision, and
increase learner numbers to meet future population increases within the Swindon area.
Currently the website provides information to assist prospective students in their course
decisions, and digital marketing activity is unsophisticated. Rapid increases in web usage,
technological developments, and use of social networking sites will all have a significant
effect on our recruitment and marketing activity.
2008-9 saw a 13% increase in website visits from the previous year, which also suggests
the need for investment in digital marketing activity.
This report contains a twelve-month digital marketing plan to improve New College’s online
presence and build long-term customer relationships. It is developed using the SOSTAC®
planning structure (P.R. Smith, 1993).
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
2. Evaluation of New College’s existing core digital marketing activities
2.1. Online revenue model
NC follows a “sales” online revenue model. No financial transactions are made online, but
the website generates leads, builds relationships and aids customers (B2C and B2B) in
making the purchase decision. Swindon College (SC) and Cirencester College (CC) also
follow this model, and CC also offers online payments. There is a standalone website for
the sub-brand Fast Forward (www.fastforwardonline.net) which is also accessible from the
main College website. The other two do not have separate business websites.
2.2. Website presence
Table 1, Appendix 3 shows Chaffey’s’ six stages in online adoption (Chaffey et al (2000) in
Gay et al, 2007:46) NC is between Level 2: Static informational site and Level 3: Simple
interactive site. Appendix 2 contains an overview of the three websites – NC’s website
presence (across both sites) is functional but dull and weaker than the others in
appearance, and sophistication. It lacks a site search, animation, podcasts or video
streams, and an online payment facility. The other two are run on a content management
system (Joomla!), whilst NC’s site is built and developed by one individual. It is beginning
to engage and interact with customers via feedback, suggestion and contact forms, and to
populate a CRM but these are recent developments.
2.3. Current online strategy
NC’s online strategies include customer acquisition strategies through improved search
marketing, and the development of a customer engagement strategy to increase
enrolments, aid understanding and improve the online experience.
2.4. Product
The products are courses which are sold and delivered offline. Like its two main
competitors, there is no clear online value proposition (OVP) as NC merely attempts to
transfer its offline brand to its website. Chaffey and Smith (2008:61) state that an OVP
“must somehow reinforce core brand values and clearly summarize what a customer can
get from you online that they cannot get elsewhere (including competitors and offline
offers).” NC needs to address this, utilising Chaffey’s Six Customer Cs as a model
(Chaffey 2004, in Chaffey and Smith (2008:143).
2.5. Price
Pricing for most courses is either free or set by government agencies. Pricing strategy is
only required for 19+ adult courses and some business training and is mainly costoriented. Prices are displayed online but no fees are collected. If an online payment facility
is developed, different pricing strategies should be considered, including price lining for
less popular courses.
2.6. Place
Sale and delivery of courses takes place at NC itself or on-site at businesses. However,
NC’s online reach extends beyond the website to intermediaries which help to (Gay et al,
2007:444):
 Identify and meet the prospective student’s need through course search mechanisms
 Link education suppliers - to provide students with comprehensive choice
 Provide and measure promotional activities
Some channels are free whilst others operate a freemium model, listing courses with paid
advertising opportunities. All channels are relevant, and co-operate well with no conflict.
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Chaffey’s e-marketplace map below (Chaffey and Smith 2008: 99) shows the flow of
audiences to NC/competitor sites.
Customer
segments
Search intermediaries
Customer profiles
16-18
Adult PT
Adult HE
Employer training
Google (39.8%)
Yahoo (1.91%)
Vertical search engines
Specialist directories
Yell.com
Intermediaries and
media sites
Destination sites
Horizontal portals &
mainstream media: e.g.
Swindon Advertiser
New College OVP
Niche media sites:
Hotcourses.co.uk
Futures4me.co.uk
Fejobs.com
Social network sites:
Facebook, Twitter
Partnership sites:
e.g. universities
Figure 1.Emarketplace map showing flow of audiences to
New College
Cirencester College
OVP
Swindon College
OVP
Other training
providers
2.7. Promotion
Table 1 below shows current use of the different online communications tools that make
up the promotional “re-mix” (Chaffey and Smith, 2008:50). Sales promotions, sponsorship,
exhibitions, selling, merchandising and packaging are not used by any of the Colleges.
Table 1: New College’s use of e-tools
Criteria
Advertising
On 3rd party sites
PPC campaigns
PR activity
Online PR activity
Blogging
Newsletters and e-zines
Viral marketing
Direct Mail
Opt in e-mail
Word of mouth (mouse)
Viral, affiliate marketing
NC
CC
SC
Comments/Evaluation
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
Limited to profiles and some static banner ads
NC uses Google Adwords for HE and business
audiences.
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes - mainly from individual students
No evidence for other Colleges– beginning to
be used frequently by NC
But used effectively by some universities
Yes
No
No
Probably used by others, but no evidence
Possibly
Possibly
Possibly
Via some online reviews
2.8. Use of social media
All three Colleges have a presence on Facebook and Twitter. Both SC and CC are using
FB and Twitter more effectively and more frequently. All have images and videos on Flickr
and YouTube, but many of these are not recent.
2.9. Online customer service and e-CRM
NC offers no real online customer service and whilst it is beginning to capture prospective
customer data online, it is not supported by any specific e-communications software. Data
is held in a back-end spreadsheet and emailed using Pure Messenger. A separate
student records system (EBS4) contains actual customer data and this contains a module
which is used as a CRM database for business customers and prospects but there is no
equivalent database for individual prospects and this system is not linked to the website.
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
3. Situation analysis
A full online marketing audit can be found at Appendix Two. A summary of key findings is
included below.
3.1. Internal analysis
New College’s online business model
NC delivers courses at its Swindon campus. The website (www.newcollege.ac.uk) follows
a “sales” online revenue model. Information about College life and courses helps
prospective students (B2C or B2B) in making the purchase decision. No online payments
are accepted, but the website generates leads, builds relationships, and accepts
applications. A sub-brand Fast Forward, delivering training to the business community, has
a stand-alone website (www.fastforwardonline.net) also accessible from the main website.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) for 1/9/08-31/08/09
Visits: 120,250.
Unique visitors: 78,017.
Duration of visit: 2 minutes and 30 seconds, average of 4.2 pages per visit.
New visits: 62.37% new visits.
Online applications: 487 full-time (FT) (from 2300) and 270 part-time (PT) applications.
Sales leads via feedback forms: 35.
Subscriptions to email lists: PT: 85, Higher Education (HE): 34.
Prospectus requests: Full-time 140.
Summary of New College’s digital marketing activity
A full version can be found in Section 2 above.
 The website is functional but dull with little customer engagement.
 There is limited online customer service and although customer data is captured online
there is no e-CRM.
 NC uses email marketing to some effect and is beginning to track click throughs.
 Use of social media is in its infancy.
 NC uses intermediary sites (mainly freemium models) to drive traffic to its website.
3.2. External analysis
Summary of PESTEL analysis
 Data Protection Act 1998 and UK Privacy and Electronic Communications regulations
affect storage and use of data.
 BOBBY and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0).
 Cost-savings from increased use of email and e-brochures.
 High internet usage amongst target audiences, especially 16-18.
 Trend for convergence on mobile devices means that marketing campaigns must be
able to work across different platforms and applications.
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 Increased technology ownership and usage.
 Growth in online delivery of courses.
 Growth in secure e-payment systems means that adult students will not understand
why they cannot pay online and may go elsewhere.
E-customers and their aspirations
 62.37% of visits were new.
 44.36% of visits came direct, 46.78% from search engines (mainly Google), 8.8%%
from referring sites (mainly fejobs.com or Hotcourses).
 Customers using search engines mainly typed in New College/New College Swindon.
 Customer visits came mainly from London (33,596 visits) and Swindon (27,212 visits).
 274 visits were made from iPhones.
 194,190 of over 505K page views were of PT pages which implies that the website is
used frequently by part-time audiences.
Table 2: Four main target groups for NC
Customers
16-18
Adult PT
Demographics; Psychographics; Usage
rates; Behavioural/
Motivations/Benefits
15-16, Male/Female, 10 mile radius of Swindon,
Y11, GCSEs, all races, all incomes
All social and tribe groups
One-off purchase
High web users
Want to be with friends, decision impacts
university or career future
30-44, Male/Female, live/ work 20 mile radius of
Swindon, all races, incomes, education levels
All social groups
One-off purchase, or repeat purchase
Learn new skill or interest, new career, make
new friends.
Occasional or prolific internet users
Adult HE
22-50, Female, live/work within 10 mile radius of
Swindon, A level/equivalent education
All social groups
One-off purchase for 1 or 2 years
Career reasons. Occasional or prolific internet
users
Business
Training/HR Manager, or Employer/Owner,
within South West, SMEs or 250+ employees.
Security, care, retail, manufacturing sectors
One-off purchase for employees OR repeat
contracts
Mainly use web, (not Care sector), need to
train/upskill staff, want onsite delivery or self –
learning via NVQs.
Aspirations/Expectations
16-19: “I need to study A levels,
and my school does not offer
them”
Expect to find information easily
and quickly, and apply online.
Want an insight into College life
Adult: “I would like to study a parttime course to learn something
new/begin or develop an
interest/meet people”
Expect to find information easily
and quickly, and apply, enrol and
pay online
Want secure payments and
reassurance about contact data
Adult: “I need to change my
career or job and need to retrain”.
Expect to find information easily
and quickly
Want reassurance about impact of
course on their future career.
Want to apply online and receive
rapid response to queries
Employer: “My staff need training
or upskilling”
Expect to find information easily
and quickly, enquire online and
quick responses
Expect quality, understanding of
business needs, professionalism
and efficiency
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e-Competitors
 The two main competitors are Swindon College and Cirencester College. Both have
more effective online presences than NC.
Summary of SWOT analysis
 NC has its own web developer, a strong brand and buoyant recruitment.
 CRMs for business and individual enquirers are limited.
 Brand confusion exists with Swindon College.
 There are opportunities to increase engagement with prospective customers, introduce
online payments, and develop online courses.
Privacy, personalisation and trust issues
 NC needs to be more transparent in its data usage and use it for engagement rather
than “selling” purposes.
 All application forms and email campaigns should carry appropriate statements and optin and out.
 Website needs to cater for all audiences and email campaigns to be more personalised.
 Website needs to provide reassurance to customer regarding privacy and customer
data.
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
4. Objectives
4.1. Corporate and marketing objectives
Objectives are set within the context of NC’s corporate and marketing objectives.
Corporate objectives: Achieve learner number targets.
 Maintain best practice Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) support.
Marketing objectives: Achieve recruitment and income targets for each customer group.
 Raise awareness of the College brand (currently 60% in a recent survey commissioned
by NC).
4.2. Digital marketing objectives
These have been formulated using Chaffey’s 5Ss (Chaffey et al, 2004, in Chaffey and
Smith 2008:451-2): Sell: Grow sales (applications to courses).
 Serve: Add value to customers’ online experience.
 Sizzle: Create a stronger online brand.
1. Achieve 10% increase in online applications from 16-18 audience (current base is 487)
2. Generate £35000 sales from online payments to part-time courses between August and
December 2010.
3. Retain 10% of current Adult PT customers (currently 7500) to next academic year
(2010-11)
4. Generate 10% increase in business leads to the Fast Forward website (85) by
December 2010
5. Implement two customer service improvements by September 2010
6. Improve local awareness of NC’s brand from 60% to 75% through online activity by end
of December 2010
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5. Strategies
1.
Online model strategy: NCS will move to a firm Level 3 position: “Simple
interactive site” from Chaffey’s six stages with some elements of the Level 4
position: “Interactive site, supporting transactions”.
2.
Integration with offline: Delivery of NC’s product is offline, with purchases made
by post, phone and in person. The online presence complements rather than
replaces other channels; however, it should take a stronger position.
3.
Market and product development strategies: Figure 2, Appendix 3 shows
Ansoff’s Matrix (adapted from Darby 2003 in Gay et al, 2008:45). Strategies are 1)
market penetration through improving the online experience 2) market
development through new customer acquisition.
4.
Online Value Proposition (OVP) strategy: NC has a strong offline brand (quality,
choice, support), but does not have a well-defined OVP. A stronger OVP will
be developed using Chaffey’s 6 Cs of customer motivation: content, customization,
community, convenience, choice and cost reduction (Chaffey 2004, in Chaffey and
Smith (2008:143).
5.
Target market, positioning and differentiation strategies: These need to reflect
the different target groups. As courses are free for 16-18 year olds, online payment
is unimportant. Adult PT students are charged course fees, and so online payment
is a priority. Strategies are: Development of website subsections with relevant content.
 Explore individual customer motivations through online research surveys.
 Engage and interact with each group using personalisation.
 Introduce an online payment mechanism for Adult PT students.
6.
Contact and CRM strategies:
Customer acquisition through:
 search marketing and widening of e-tools.
 improvements to website and user experience.
 population of business CRM.
 development and population of a simple customer CRM for PT adult courses.
The two CRM databases are separate from website processes and marketing
applications. Integration is an evolutionary stage beyond current capabilities and
resources. These focus on the student database (EBS4) which holds actual
enrolments not prospects or leads. An online payment facility will necessitate
integration from the website to EBS4 so that purchase results in automatic
updating. This is achievable through the development of a “real-time” online
prospectus module accessible via the website and fed from and through to EBS4.
Customer retention through:
 Implementation of an online contact strategy.
 Use of online surveys/customer research to improve our understanding.
 Use of customer engagement tactics to encourage “dynamic dialogue” (Chaffey
and Smith, 2008:134).
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6. Tactics
Table 3 below shows summarises the strategies, indicates which objectives they support, and identifies appropriate tactics.
Table 3: Objectives, strategies and supporting tactics for NC
Objectives
Strategy
Online model
1,2,3,4,5,6
Move to Level 4 site
Channel structure
1,2,3,4,5,6
Strengthen position of e-channel against other channels
Market & product development
1,2,3,4,5,6
Market penetration (through improvement of online
experience)
1,2,3,4,5,6
OVP
1,2,3,4,6
Market development (through customer acquisition using
improved customer research and wider online selling tactics)
Refine overarching OVP
Target market and differentiation
All
Develop and refine subsections of the website with relevant
content
All
Identify individual customer motivations through research
surveys
All
Engage and interact with groups using personalisation and
relevant online tactics
Tactics
 Develop and implement online payment facility
 Website improvements – see promotion e-tools and product
development below
 Divert marketing budget to online
 Increase investment from CIS/IT






Virtual campus tours
Video of Open Evening and other events
Add podcasts of support services, study skills
Development of Moodle
See promotional e-tools
Conduct one online research project with each group
 Use choice, content and participation
 Examine competitor OVPs and customer needs
 Launch and test different versions









Signpost by audience from homepage
Course search, case studies, news/events for each
Online sign-up forms to collect initial data
Conduct one online research project via email questionnaire for
each group
Develop bespoke newsletters
Use personalisation in email campaigns
Run tailored Google Adwords campaigns
Increase exposure on relevant lifestyle, education, social sites
See promotional e-tools
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Objectives
Strategy
2,3
Introduce online payment mechanism for adult PT students
Contact and CRM – Customer acquisition
1,2,3,4,6
Improvements to search marketing and widening of online
tactics
1,2,3,4,5,6
Improvements to website presence and user experience
4,5,6
Populate business CRM
2,3,5,6
Develop and populate simple customer CRM for PT adult courses
Contact and CRM – Customer retention
2,3,4,6
Implementation of a contact strategy using contact data gathered
via business CRM and PT CRM
1,2,3,4,6
1,2,3,4,5,6
Use of online surveys and customer research to improve our
customer understanding
Use of customer engagement tactics to encourage “dynamic
dialogue” (Chaffey and Smith)
Tactics
 Develop online prospectus module of EBS4
 See promotional e-tools
 See target markets strategies above
 Website improvements – see promotion e-tools and product
development above
 Develop online sign-up forms
 Purchase data by sector for email opt-in use in cold dm
campaigns
 Use current student data





Develop online sign-up forms
Solicit email address and opt/in from paper application forms
Purchase lifestyle data for email opt/in use for cold dm campaigns
Use current student data
Establish trust, permission and privacy from start













Send e-Xmas cards
Send bi-monthly newsletters
Email campaigns
See promotional e-tools
Use sign-up forms for simple research
Email questionnaires
Include customer reviews and case studies
Promote reviews through email campaigns
Provide links to presence on social media sites
Develop social media site content
Welcome emails
Allow incoming contacts through comment and feedback forms
See promotional e-tools
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6.1. Online marketing mix
Product
NC’s intangible product comprises the following (Kotler 2003, in Gay et al, 2007: 324): Core product = the benefit (e.g. qualifications, interest, skill).
 Actual product = a combination of tangible and intangible elements (e.g. reputation,
quality, brand promise, delivery mode).
 Augmented product = additional features that deliver customer delight e.g. career
advice.
Customers use the website to research and choose courses, and try and experience them
before buying. NC could deliver augmented product features to add value to the
“experience”, through activities such as virtual campus tours, and videos of Open Evening,
and providing podcast lectures of e.g. useful study skills, and development of Moodle (the
student portal accessible through the website).
Price
When online payments are introduced, different pricing tactics will be adopted including
discounts for less popular courses, early bird applications and loyal customers.
Place
No transactions or delivery take place at intermediaries’ sites and there is good cooperation. Tactics here include: Increased linking to relevant sites.
 Extending paid representation and strengthening partnerships, including joint
promotions.
Promotional Mix
The elements of the e-communications mix comprise five main categories; advertising,
personal selling, sales promotion, PR and direct marketing.
(Gay et al, 2007:392).
Communications will be integrated with offline tactics to help drive traffic to the website.
Rowley (2001) (in Gay et al, 2007:393) suggests that the stage of e-development will
affect the level of integration achieved with marketing communications. NC is not
particularly sophisticated in its e-development which means that the level of integration is
high and that there will be some e-tools which it is not able to use. The table below lists
the e-tools to be used.
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Online advertising
 Source and maximise free listings on educational sites e.g. university sites, Swindon
Borough Council, Futures4me, Swindon Floodlight.
 Paid for annual profiles on Hotcourses and Swindon Floodlight.
 Explore simple graphic advertising on 3rd party sites e.g. Business: Swindonbusiness.net, wiltshirebusinessonlione.co.uk, sector specific sites, Chamber of
Commerce Lifestyle: SwindonWeb, Theocelot.co.uk.
 Banner ads on NCS homepage to microsites for key initiatives e.g. Open Evening.
SEO




Improve SEO in-house to improve organic rankings in Google.
Use key phrase analysis (Google Keyword Tool and Google Traffic Estimator).
Improve linking strategy.
Improve use of document meta data.
SEM (PPC)
 Continue Google Adwords for HE/business sectors.
 Extend Google Adwords campaign into part-time sector, using top keywords from
course search.
 Continually review existing keywords, ad copy and landing pages.
E-mail campaigns











Encourage subscription to email lists.
Use house list and some cold e-mail campaigns to purchased lists.
Use plain text format, with unique landing pages.
Establish trust, permission and privacy from start.
Bi-monthly newsletters.
E-Xmas and Easter cards.
Announce launch of new brochures.
New course announcements.
Customer surveys.
Promotion of key events.
Check copy against CRITICAL checklist (Chaffey 2006).
Online PR




Create improved content.
Develop and run online surveys.
Create official blog and student blogs.
Monitor reviews/blogs from individuals and respond where possible on forum sites.
Social networking sites
 Create added-value content for Twitter and Facebook.
 Create presence on bebo and myspace (16-18) and LinkedIn for business audience.
 Planned programme of frequent postings/tweets – aim for 2 per week.
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Website design







Redesign website with improved sections for target audiences.
Develop a clear OVP.
Create customer reviews and case studies.
Virtual campus tours.
YouTube embedded videos of college events and open evenings.
Clear calls to action: - download, apply, subscribe, pay, email or phone.
Creation of an Amazon astore to sell recommended texts to students and generate
income.
6.2. Physical evidence, people and processes
NC need to reassure online customers about the quality and integrity of its service by
providing:





security icons on the online payment site.
images of buildings and people.
information on assessments and awards (OFSTED, Matrix).
student case studies and photos.
consistent branding across the website.
clear and repeated contact details.
It also needs to ensure the following: the balance of online and physical customer services e.g. FAQ pages to pre-empt
enquiries, automated responses to submission of application form or payment.
 that processes work efficiently and effectively. (e.g. updating number of course places
available).
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7. Actions
Actions are important, as they detail the tasks that require completion for the plan to be
implemented. Bossidy and Charan 2004 (in Chaffey and Smith 2008:469) state that
“execution is the missing link between aspirations and results.”
Each tactic itself will become a project and will require separate campaign and work
schedules. Our promotional campaigns schedule (Table 2, Appendix Three) shows some
typical actions and their timings.
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8. Monitoring and Control
The plan needs to be monitored and measured frequently to ensure that it is working.
Tactics can be changed or corrected on a daily or hourly basis if necessary. Competitor
activity requires monitoring.
Chaffey et al, 2003 (in Chaffey and Smith, 2008:474) have developed the WebinsightsTM
diagnostics framework. The table below follows this and shows the KPIs to be monitored.
Metric Area
Business
Contribution
Marketing
Outcomes
Customer
satisfaction
Customer
behaviour
(Web
Analytics)
Site promotion
Our metrics (KPIs)
Online revenue contribution:
Amount generated from online
payments
Costs of each campaign
Online sales to Adult PT courses
Subscriptions to PT and business
databases
Online FT applications
Leads/enquiries for business
Retention percentage of PT
visitors
Number of courses a PT student
enrols on
Response rates to surveys
Report findings (satisfaction rates)
Brand recognition (via annual
survey)
New visits to website
Most popular pages by target
groups
Increased average duration
Decreased bounce rate
Depth of visit
Downloads of brochures
Click through rates (CTR) from
banner ads
Prospectus requests
Direct visits
Referrer visits and source of traffic
Search engine rankings
PPC results
E-mail campaigns - open rates
and CTR
Responsibility Frequency
Marketing
Weekly/
Manager
Monthly/
Quarterly
Marcomms
Officer (input
from
Admissions)
Daily/weekly
Marketing
Research
Officer
Monthly
Web
Developer
Daily during
campaigns/weekly
Web
Developer and
Marcomms
officer
Weekly
8.1. Men, money and minutes
The increased focus on e-marketing and promotion will mainly be managed by diverting
existing offline workload on to online. NCS may require web-build support and some
specialist online copywriting.
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Area
Management
E-research
In-house
Marketing manager
Marketing research officer
Creative
Copywriting (SEO)
Graphic designer (offline and online)
Lacking – some provided by
Manager and PR officer
Web developer
PR Officer
Marketing officer
Web build
Online PR
Campaign coordination, media
buying,
Response
handling
Online applications
and payment
Outsourcing issues
None
Survey monkey sub
Annual perceptions survey
Some rich media design
Specialist offline copywriter
needed
May need additional support
None
Customer Services team
None
Admissions team
None
The percentage of the marketing budget spent on e-marketing will move from 4% to 2535% of budget:Online advertising:
SEO
SEM (PPC):
E-mail campaigns
Online PR:
Website design costs:
Design:
Market research
£20,000
£8,000
£15,000
£10,000
£10,000
In-house
£5,000
held elsewhere
TOTAL
£68,000
Staffing costs (2 extra posts)
£50,000
Sufficient lead times will be built into each campaign – customer and market research and
web re-design will take most time but having web development and design staff in-house
gives more flexibility.
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Appendix One: Brief description of New College - www.newcollege.ac.uk
New College Swindon is a general Further Education (FE) College which began in 1984
purely as a sixth-form college. The Standard Industrial Classification of Economic
Activities (SIC) classifies it as 8022 Further Education. It now has 3000 16-19 students
and over 10000 business and adult (19+) learners. It plans to expand the campus further
and increase student numbers across all programmes.
Product and service range:
 160 different A Level, Baccalaureate and vocational qualifications
 8 university and pre-degree (Access) courses run in partnership with local
universities
 150+ leisure and evening courses
 Bespoke training solutions and qualifications for businesses through a sub-brand,
Fast Forward Training and Development (www.fastforwardonline.net) also
accessible through the main college site
Most courses are delivered physically on-site, with some business training delivered offsite. A few IT courses are offered via the web.
Target audiences:
 Full-time (FT) 16 year olds (Year 11s) plus parents/influencers in schools within
Swindon and surrounding postcode areas
 Working adults and career changers within 30 mile radius for HE programmes
 Adults for part-time (PT) and community/leisure courses (referred to as Adult
Learner Responsive ALR)
 Business employers, and managers in organisations across the South West, but
increasingly nationally (referred to as Employer Responsive ER)
Pricing, turnover and Funding
In 2008/09 New College’s turnover was £17.2 million. 96% of this came from Government
funding via different agencies and quangos and 4% was directly generated by the College
itself. The only students that pay course fees are adult learners (19+) buying part-time
leisure courses, access or degree courses. Employers access government funding to
part-subsidise training costs of training, and also pay for bespoke training.
Funding body
LSC
LSC
Target Audience
16-18
19+
19+ employers
Other funding
19+
19+
Cross-college, external
Ballpark amount
£10,492,000
£2,500, 000
£1,456,000
£1,204,000
£860,000
£516,000
£170,000
%ge of turnover
61%
23%
LSC
7%
Other agency funding*
5%
Tuition fees
3%
Other income e.g. Lettings, bank
1%
interest
TOTALS
£17,198,000
100%
*including Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE), European Social Funding (ESF), Swindon Borough Council (SBC)
Competition
The main competitor for adult courses is Swindon College and for 16-18 courses,
Cirencester College. There are a few local schools with sixth forms offering competitor
programmes. For employer training and courses), competitors are public and private
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
training providers across the south-west region. This report will consider Swindon College
and Cirencester College to be the two key competitors.
New College Swindon’s unique selling points
 Widest range of qualification courses for 16-19 audience in Swindon
 Comprehensive programme of enrichment courses (eXtras) on offer
 Best success rates (combination of pass rates and retention rates) in Wiltshire
 Outstanding support for students (from OFSTED report, March 2009)
 Only Swindon centre offering the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme
Staff base, including Marketing
New College employs 500 staff, mainly teaching staff. The Marketing team is a service
department that develops and implements communications activity on behalf of individual
customer service managers e.g. Adult Learning Manager. The website is built and
maintained by one Web Developer who is based within the Marketing team. The remit is to
generate leads, enquiries and applications from prospective students, which are driven to
and dealt with by a separate Customer Services team by phone, email, post and face-toface visits.
The annual marketing communications budget is currently split across media/function as
follows:-
Breakdow n of m arketing budget by
m edia/function
Print Advert ising
9%
6%
4%
7%
Lit erat ure, including
prospect uses
37%
Direct market ing
E-market ing and websit e
9%
PR and Event s
4%
Market research
Out door and broadcast
24%
Promot ional it ems
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Appendix Two: Online Marketing Audit
1. New College’s online presence and revenue model
New College’s product is delivered at its physical site, making it a “bricks and mortar”
model (Gay et al, 2007:54). There are a couple of remote-learning IT courses which, if
developed, would turn it into “clicks and mortar”.
New College’s website is a “services-oriented relationship building web site” as identified
by Chaffey et al 2006. Information about College life and courses help prospective
students to make their applications. New College accepts online applications, but not
online payments. If an online application is viewed as a purchasing decision, then the
website could also be viewed as a “transactional e-commerce site”.
2. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The current KPIs for New College’s online activities are as follows (for academic year 1st
September 2008 – 31st August 2009) :Visits: 120,250
Unique visitors: 78,017
Duration of visit: 2 minutes and 30 seconds, average of 4.2 pages per visit
New visits: 62.37% new visits. Returning customers cannot be distinguished from current
staff and students visiting the website to access email or Moodle (student portal) remotely.
Online applications: 487 full-time (from approximately 2300) and 270 PT applications
Sales enquiries or leads via feedback forms: FastForward – 35 leads
Subscription to mailing list rates (from Mar 2009): PT: 85, parental e-mails: 387, HE 34
Prospectus requests: Full-time 140
3 . PESTEL analysis
The PESTEL analysis below is developed with reference to Gay et al, 2007: 20-27.
Political/Legal
1. Data Protection Act 1998 and UK Privacy and Electronic Communications
regulations affect the storage and use of data for marketing communications, especially
for pre-16s where parental contact details may need to be used instead.
3. BOBBY and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) need to be followed
4. Specific education requirements for web content: OFSTED requires a focus on
diversity and IAG provision as limiting factors for assessment so content has to reflect this.
Economic/ Environmental
1. Recession may limit communications services but only 10% of consumers are likely
to cut back on broadband compared to +40% on eating out, DIY and holidays (OFCOM)
2. Cost-savings to be achieved from increased use of email and e-brochures rather
than using paper-based versions, as well as being more environmentally friendly
Social
1. Internet usage amongst target audiences: 16+ audiences are avid web consumers
(digital natives rather than digital immigrants).
2. Fluctuations in use of social media –19 million (50%) of internet users visit Facebook
but use in the 15-24 age group of sites generally, declined from 55% in the first quarter of
2008 to 50% in 2009 (Source: OFCOM 2009).
3. Trend for convergence on mobile devices means that marketing campaigns must be
able to work across different platforms and applications otherwise brand may be damaged
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Technological
1. Increased technology ownership and usage
2. Experiments with online delivery of teaching and learning: Molenet projects are
piloting delivery to learners remotely via mobile devices plus growth of free learning
material via Open Learn from the Open University, iTunesU, and MIT Open CourseWare
site (attracts 1.2m visits a month).
3. Growth in secure e-payment systems as standard means that adult students will not
understand why they can apply online but cannot pay online and may go elsewhere
4. Online Customers
In 2008/9, New College had 3000 16-19 students and over 10,000 business and adult
(19+) learners. In terms of online customers, Google Analytics can provide the following
profile information
 78,017 visitors made 120,250 website visits - 62.37% of these visits were new.
 44.36% of visits came direct, 46.78% from search engines (mainly Google), 8.8%%
from referring sites (mainly fejobs.com or Hotcourses)
 Customers using search engines mainly typed in New College/New College Swindon
 Customers came from 129 countries (surprising as New College operates locally and
regionally) and mainly from London (33,596 visits) and Swindon (27,212 visits)
 Only 274 visits were made from iPhones
 There were 505,275 page views of which 194,190 were of pages within the part-time
section which implies that the website is used frequently by part-time audiences
 For HE, 9272 visitors made 12779 visits with 70.93% of these being new
Table A1 below shows the online buying decision process for College audiences whilst
Table A2 show online expectations by segmented customer group.
Table A1: Consumer online buying decision process model by customer group adapted for New College Swindon
1. Problem or Need
16-19: “I need to study A levels, and my school does not offer them”
recognition
Adult: “I would like to study a part-time course to learn something new/begin or develop an
“What courses can
interest/meet people”
Adult: “I need to change my career or job and need to retrain”
I take or do I need
Employer: “My staff need training or upskilling”
and who offers
them?”
2. Information
Search engines, courses search and institutional profile from 3rd party sites e.g. futures4me,
search
Hotcourses, Floodlight, industry sites by sector
3. Evaluation of
Open Evenings & taster days to get the closest thing to actual physical experience
alternatives
Virtual experience – podcasts
Reviews of New College and “word-of-mouse”: online communities, social media
From website: Prospectuses, brochures and course information, pricing, timing, online plus
information on College itself
Augmented product/experience information e.g. case studies, support services
4. Purchase
Download or access e-brochures
decision (often
Sign up to newsletter or future emails
long lead times)
Online application
Enrolment – is the actual sales transaction
Enquiry via contact form
5. Post-purchase
Ongoing attendance at College or drop-out – loss of funding
behaviour
Evaluation via satisfaction surveys, feedback and reviews on social networking sites
Engagement with current students to ensure high retention rates
Repeat purchase
Table A2: Consumer online expectations by main customer group
Customer
16-19 – (one off
purchase for 2 years)
Expectations
Expect to find information easily and quickly, and be able to apply online.
Want choice, an insight into what College life would be like and the type of
person they will be meeting.
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Adult part-time (may be
repeat customers)
Adult HE(one off
purchase for 1-2 years)
Employers (may be
repeat customer on
behalf of staff)
Parents want to know about quality, reliability, and security.
Aged 30-44, female or male, often working
Expect to find information easily and quickly, and be able to apply, enrol and
pay online
Want secure payments and reassurance about contact data
Adult returners who have taken a long time to get to purchase point.
Expect to find information easily and quickly, especially key logistical
information
Want reassurance about impact of course on their future career.
Want to apply online and receive rapid response to queries
Expect to find information easily and quickly, be able to enquire online and
quick responses
Expect quality, understanding of business needs, professionalism and
efficiency.
The only online survey method that New College uses is via email questionnaires with
links to surveys set up on Survey Monkey. The questionnaires are focused on evaluating
events such as Open Evenings and whilst findings do offer some geodemographic
information on customers, need to be extended or improved to give us more valuable
information about motivations, expectations and preferences. Likewise we could also
explore the use of online focus groups and web questionnaires
5. Approach to Privacy, Personalisation and Trust
Evans (2003) (in Gay et al, 2007:258) refers to the “Privacy Paradox” where customers are
believed to want personalised communications and product, but the organisation requires
customer data to deliver this, that may be viewed as intrusive. The College needs to be
transparent in its data usage, and use it for engagement rather than “selling” purposes. As
a public sector organisation undergoing continuous inspection by agencies. New College
is fairly good in its use of consumer data. The Director of HR is nominated as the Data
Protection champion. All application forms and email campaigns carry appropriate
statements and opt-in and out.
The website caters for all audiences, but the front page is too 16-19 focused which could
turn adults and employers off, as indicated by research from FE Marketing.co.uk showing
a high exit rate by employers. Our e-mail campaigns enable us to offer simple
personalisation by customer type, customer status (e.g. currently attending, attended a
course in the last 12 months, attended a course in the previous academic year,) and by
name and title. For business employers, personalisation includes name, job title,
geographic location, and industry sector. Our approach to personalisation has been
group-characterisation as shown in the table below (Chaffey and Smith, 2008:376)
Approach
Customization
Individualization
Group-characterization
Explanation
Visitor selects and sets up specific preferences using
preference menus
Beyond the above: uses patterns of visitor’s own behaviour
to deliver specific content via log-in and password
Recommendations based on preference of “people like you”
Does New College offer this?
Could offer this via sign-up
forms on website
Limited resources and use of
database
Already does this
New College does not yet currently offer online financial transactions but still needs to gain
and build trust with its customers, by providing website elements that provide reassurance.
Einwiller (2003) (in Gay et al, 2007:261) considers three key trust elements for online
shopping vendor trust, system trust and self attitudes. We use images of the physical
building and people which help but do not provide sufficient privacy and customer data
statements.
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
6. Competitor Analysis
New College’s two main competitors are Swindon College and Cirencester College. The
former has 2500 full time 16-18 year olds, 500 Higher Education students and 11,000 part
time adult (19+) students. Cirencester College is a tertiary college based 20 miles away
with circa 1700 16-18 students and 5000 adult and part-time students. It also offers HE
programmes and some training for business. An analysis of the three websites is below
using a 12 step process developed by the BBC’s training and development section.
Criteria
Number of clicks to a phone
number from home page
Opportunity to give
feedback/pose questions.
How?
Animation? Is this useful?
New College Swindon
No clicks
Cirencester College
No clicks
Swindon College
1 click
Yes, via email addresses
and via contact/feedback
forms
No animation
Yes, via e-mail
addressed. No
contact/feedback forms
Yes, animated banners.
Fussy backgrounds that
distract
Typing errors/spelling mistakes
Dead or broken links
Misleading links that don’t
correspond to pages
Orphan pages?
Home page with fast (under 5
seconds) download time?
Links on home page -one way?
Pop-up windows that appear
without user’s request?
Internal search engine?
No
Yes
No
No
No. Joomla! CMS
template
No
No
No
Yes, via e-mail addresses.
No contact/feedback forms
found
Yes, animated banner on
home page, running
dateline, embedded videos
No. Joomla! CMS template
No
Yes
No
No – over 5 seconds
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No – only a course search
Yes
No –only a course search.
Very occasionally
No
No
The table below also shows a comparison of the three organisations’ other website activity
Criteria
New College Swindon
Online payment available
Downloadable e-brochures and pdfs
Ability to sign-up online to databases/e-CRM
Banner ads on home site
Podcasts
Video streams
RSS feeds
No
Yes
Yes for PT and HE
Yes
No
No
No
Cirencester
College
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Swindon College
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
7. Online intermediaries
Website traffic is driven to the New College website by a range of online intermediaries,
which essentially act as “online brokers” (Millennium Groups classification) although not all
are paid by New College, as some are government funded. Google Analytics cite 8.85%
of visits from 387 referral sources, with the top ones being fejobs.com, hotcourses.co.uk,
fish4.co.uk, tes.co.uk, bing.com and wiltshire.gov.uk.
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
8. SWOT analysis (using model from Chaffey and Smith, 2008:443)
The organisation
Opportunities – O
1. Widening geographical and
demographic markets
2. Increased engagement with
current students and
prospects
3. New “taster”
products/services
4. Market research
opportunities with customers
Threats – T
1. Increase in and pace of
social networks
2. Improving brand
perceptions and sophisticated
presence of current
competitors
3. New entrants for business
training
Strengths - S
Weaknesses - W
1.Strong existing offline brand and
reputation
2.Strong recruitment using
integrated offline marketing mix
3.Open evening and other physical
events leading to high conversion
rates
4. Own Web Developer
1. Brand confusion between New
College Swindon & Swindon College
2. Current student database (EBS 4)
very large and unwieldy
3. No mechanism for capturing
individual enquiry data
4. No online payment mechanism
5. Fledgling CRM only for business
customers/prospects
6. Lack of support from IT dept and
limited communication channels with
CIS
7. Web skills and resources are
concentrated in one individual
SO strategies: leverage strengths
to maximise opportunities =
attacking strategy
WO strategies: counter
weaknesses through exploiting
opportunities= build strengths for
attacking strategy
1. Migrate prospects to web
strategy
2. Develop contact strategy across
decision-making process
3. Develop customer contact
strategy as part of retention
4. Improve web and online
experience
5. Develop feedback and market
research opportunities to aid
understanding
1. Develop each marketing strategy
for customer acquisition for
population of e-CRM esp. part-time
2. Develop online payment
mechanism for PT customer
acquisition
3. Develop contact strategy as part
of conversion strategy from prospect
to enrolment
ST strategies: leverage strengths
to minimize threats = defensive
strategy
WT strategies counter weaknesses
and threats = build strengths for
defensive strategy
1. Social marketing strategies:
Create and develop own social
network presence
2. Increase sophistication of web
presence by refining and improving
website appearance and content
3. Add value to web services –
virtual tours and experiences
1. Utilise social marketing strategy
for brand-building purposes
2. Optimise population of PT and
business customer CRMs
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Appendix Three: Tables and Schedules
Table 1: Chaffey’s six stages in online adoption
Level
Level 0
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Website presence
No website or presence on web
Basic web presence – domain name or yell listing
Static informational site – often transfer brochure online
Simple interactive site = email form – rely on traditional methods to
sell
Interactive site supporting transactions – FAQs, online buying +
interactive helpdesk
Fully interactive site supporting whole buying process – full
integration of ebusiness. Offers relationship marketing with clients
New College
New College
Figure 2: Use of Ansoff’s Matrix (Growth Vector Strategies) to shows market and product development
growth (Darby et al, 2003 in Gay et al, 2008)
Existing Courses
Existing markets
New markets
New courses
Market penetration
Product development
Improved online experience
esp. online payments
Repeat purchase but of new
course variants e.g.
landscape photography to
photography course
purchasers
Market development
Diversification
Online customer acquisition
and online selling
Online customer acquisition
and online selling
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Table 2: Promotional campaigns and actions schedule
Promotional
Campaigns
Online Advertising
Explore and set up free
listings
Implement paid-for
advertising
Design and build
banner ads on home
page
SEO
Improve key phrase
analysis
Develop linking
strategy
Identify and approach
other sites
SEM (PPC)
Google Adwords
campaigns:
Run HE campaign
Run Business
campaign
Run Part-time
campaign
Email campaigns
Send Bi-monthly
newsletters
Xmas e-card
Easter e-card
Prospectus and
brochure launches
Key event promotion
J
F
M
Open
Evening
New PT
brochure
out
A
M
J
HE Open
Evening
Summer
PT
HE Open
Evening
J
A
S
O
N
D
New PT
brochure
out
New Ft
prospectu
s
Open
Evening
New PT
brochure
out
Autumn PT
FT 16-18
prospect
HE
prospect
Spring PT
PT Open
Evening
Social networking
sites
Online PR
- Principal’s blog
- Student Blogs
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Promotional
Campaigns
Online press releases
Website design
Customer reviews
Interview students for
case studies
Film virtual campus
tour
YouTube videos of
college events and
open evenings
Develop
Amazon
astore
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Appendix Four: References and Bibliography
Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R. (2008) eMarketing eXcellence; planning and optimizing your
digital marketing, 3rd edition, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann
FE College Homepage Best Practice Report, FEmarketing.co.uk, November 2009
Gay, R., Charlesworth, A. and Esen, R. (2007) Online Marketing: A Customer-Led
Approach, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
OFCOM: Recession affecting communications spend: 6th Communications Market Report
into TV, Radio, Broadband, telecoms and mobile industries
OFSTED: Inspection report for Cirencester College, www.ofsted.gov.uk
Penna Barkers, Perceptions Survey with New College Swindon’s Publics, August 2009
The Sunday Times, October 11th 2009, “Self-learners” creating university of online”
Taylor, G (2009), “Where New College Swindon Gets its money from”
presentation
BBC training and development section’s 12 step process.
Marketing and tutor’s notes (Oct 2009).
PowerPoint
Featured in Online Digital
Millennium Groups online intermediaries classifications, tutors’ notes, October 5th 2009-1116
Websites:
New College Swindon – www.newcollege.ac.uk
Cirencester College - www.cirencester.ac.uk
Swindon College - www.swindon-college.ac.uk
Hotcourses - www.hotcourses.com
Facebook - www.facebook.com
Twitter - www.twitter.com
Bebo - www.bebo.com
Futures4me.co.uk - www.futures4me.co.uk
Floodlight - www.floodlight.co.uk
Google Analytics: www.google/com/analytics
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New College Swindon Digital Marketing Plan
Appendix Five: CIM statement
I confirm that in forwarding the assessment for marking, I understand and have applied the
CIM policies relating to word count, plagiarism and collusion for all tasks. This assignment
is the result of my own independent work/investigation except where otherwise stated.
Other sources are acknowledged in the body of the text and/or a bibliography is appended.
The work that I have submitted has not previously been accepted in substance for any
other award and is not concurrently submitted in candidature for any other award.
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