PS&L Blog

This is some of what Bob Johnson, a college marketing consultant said after speaking at the American Marketing Association’s Capital Region chapter last week.

• Mobile marketing really is here. If you have to make the choice, spend time and resources to develop a mobile-friendly version of your regular website rather than apps. Plan now to have a mobile-friendly site up and running by next summer.
• If you want your mobile site to have strong impact on potential students, make “academic programs” a top link right from the mobile home page. The “top task” for potential students when they visit your site is to find out what academic programs you offer. Make it easy for them to do that.

When I was done reading his post my first reaction was to quickly ask our developers and programmers how hard is it to make a school’s site mobile and how long would it take.  Then along came Ad Age’s article, Mobile Myths Debunked, which slowed me in my track and probably should slow you too.  (Whoa !  Too fast, read to the end.)  I  totally agree though with Bob, if you have a mobile site Academics should be really accessible.

Some interesting facts, while Apple gets all the press it only has 4% of the mobile phone market and 25% of the smart phone market.  Smart phone users, for the most part, are over 24 years of age because younger people can’t afford the phone or the data plan.

Still, depending upon what research firm’s numbers you use that means a bit more than 40 million people have smart phones as of January 2010.  Bob Johnson is correct in his post, smart phone use is growing. According to Ad Age by 2011 the number of smart phone users is predicted to be half of the total cell phone market of about 400 million phone.

So today that means there are about 10M iPhones, 17M Blackberries and Android is really catching on and taking more and more market share.   Sometime in 2011 you can expect 50M iPhones, 90M Blackberries and a big bunch of Android style phones.

If your school recruits adult students, and who doesn’t, mobile can be a gigantic opportunity for you.  People over 24 are using their smart phone while they wait for the train to work, or at the airport or hanging out at Starbucks just killing time.  This is when they are exploring for opportunities to enroll in your school.  So what does this mean for your recruiting strategies?  How can you best respond to someone who is reaching you via mobile?  That’s for another post.  For now you just need to know, mobile as a part of your higher education marketing strategies is a happening thing.

I’m going back to talk with our designers and programmers about how fast can a school build out a mobile site.