Digital Marketing

According to its website,

“Stamats is the nation's leading provider of marketing solutions for higher education institutions, offering a full array of marketing services, including advertising, brand marketing, direct marketing, interactive media, planning and consulting, print media, and marketing research.”

Although Stamats focuses on higher education, many of their recommendations and observations are also applicable to other levels of educational institutions, as well as other types of nonprofits.

“QuickTakes” is Stamats enewsletter providing insights into topics such as organizational leadership, strategy and integrated marketing. The current issue of QuickTakes, includes a discussion of the “Top 10 Digital Promises for 2009.” Here are the suggested promises:

1. I will work from a clearly defined strategy.

2. I will focus on people first and then technology.

3. I will improve my content.

4. I will focus on simplicity.

5. I will make usability my first priority.

6. I will provide an experience.

7. I will move my Web site to the center of my marketing communications.

8. I will measure what I do.

9. I will engage social media in a strategic way.

10. I will take integration seriously.

To read the discussion related to each promise, just click on the title to this post.

Communications and Marketing- Podcasts

Podcasts are a great, inexpensive way for your organization to spread its message and news. To learn how podcasts work, here’s a video from Common Craft:





If you would like to learn how to create a podcast, here's another video:





For more guidance, click on the title to this post.

Your Website- An Easier Way to Keep it Up to Date

If you are having problems keeping your organization’s website up to date, you may want to consider using a web content management system program. According to Wikipedia,

“usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use. …

Unlike Web-site builders like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver, a WCMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. A WCMS typically requires an experienced coder to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators.”

For more information, click on the title to this post. Be sure to scroll all the way down the page for links to some of the available open source software.

Music

Would the addition of music enhance your organization's website or blog? If so, here's an example of a free service called Project Playlist that may be useful:

You can explore this service more by clicking on the title to this post.