As we head into our 5th Back-To-School season, we're very excited to launch our biggest promotional campaign yet. Here are some of the highlights:
**5th Annual Back-to-school sweepstakes - This year's sweepstakes promises to be the biggest and best yet. This year's grand prize includes a four week summer study program in Paris, round-trip airfare from the U.S., and a 2 week Eurail Pass. We'll also be throwing in a bunch of Studyabroad.com t-shirts as consolation prizes. This years sweepstakes is being co-sponsored by Cultural Experiences Abroad (http://www.travelabroad.com) and Discount-Airfare.com (http://www.discount-airfare.com).
**Advisors Kits - We've just completed our mailing of study abroad advisor kits. Thanks to all of the advisors who signed up to request the kits at the NAFSA conference in Denver, this will be our biggest mailing ever. The kits include Studyabroad.com mouse pads, user guides, holders, post cards, posters and a copy of the Studyabroad.com Handbook. The advisors on our list use these materials to direct students to Studyabroad.com.
**Poster Campaign - Once again we will be launching an extensive poster placement campaign on college campuses throughout the U.S. Our new poster theme this year (as many of you saw on our t-shirts at the NAFSA conference) is 'Expose Yourself to the World.' Posters are hung by professional services at schools in all 50 states.
**Post Cards - One of the hottest new marketing tools to reach young people is the distribution of free post cards. Post cards are mailed to friends, displayed on dorm room walls, and collected. We'll be distributing through the same network which distributes our posters, as well as through study abroad offices.
**Studyabroad.com 'Book Store' Bags - We're giving away thousands of 'book store-type' plastic bags to organizations running Study Abroad fairs. These bags will be distributed at the door for participants to use for collecting materials. If you are running a study abroad fair and you would like to have some free bags, contact Lori Faunce at lori@gradschools.com.
**Targeted Print Media - Look for our ads in Transitions Abroad magazine (we also have a banner on the Transitions Abroad home page) as well as in other specialized publications.
**Search Engine Promotion - We currently receive in excess of 5,000 referrals per week from the major search engines (i.e. Altavista, Yahoo, Infoseek, Lycos, and others). We constantly monitor our positioning, and watch our content and meta-tags in order to maintain our positioning. In addition, we have purchased many key-words on the Goto.com site.
**Affiliates Program - Studyabroad.com has an affiliates program through ClickTrade. This program is designed so that we pay webmasters who link to our site for each click-through to Studyabroad.com. We currently have 642 affiliate sites through this program. If you are responsible for a website and would like to generate some extra income for your organization, you can become an affiliate. You can learn how by following the link from http://www.studyabroad.com/linkbanners/linkus.html
**Studyabroadworldwide.com - We have recently taken over management of the cooperative advertising website Studyabroadworldwide.com. This is a cooperative of 6 study abroad programs which pool their resources to purchase banner advertising on major search engines (i.e. Lycos, Excite, Webcrawler). The banners link to a common page, which in turn links to each of the program websites. In exchange for our managing this program, there is now a Studyabroad.com banner on the common page.
We spend a lot of time and money building and maintaining Studyabroad.com. We know that this is all for nothing if we don't drive traffic to our site. As the Internet gets bigger and more congested, it is more important than ever that we promote our site heavily. We believe that our fall campaign, outlined above, will keep us in our position as the leading online study abroad information site.
Please note that there will be no change in the name of our service, Studyabroad.com. We will continue to operate and market the Studyabroad.com product and the address: http://www.studyabroad.com, as we always have.
In addition to Studyabroad.com, EDU also operates the popular Gradschools.com website (http://www.gradschools.com). The EDU corporate web site is accessible at http://www.edudirectories.com/
**Software/Hardware Upgrades - We've also been busy installing new servers (the Apple blue & white G3 Power PCs) and the latest server software in order to make sure we're up to the task of handling the fall traffic rush.
Academia de Espanol - Sureuropa
Accademia del Giglio
American University in Bulgaria
American University of Rome
Anglo American Educational Services
Argonauta Vat
Benefit Concepts
Buendia Spanish Language School
Central European Education and Cultural Exchange
Centro Mexicano Internacional
Churchill House School of English Language
Coined Argentina
College of St. Scholastica
Curtin University of Technology
Deutsche Sommerschule am Atlantikv
GAP Adventures
Germalingua
ICI Langue
Institute of International Studies
Intercontinental Recruitment and Support Services
International Summer Program at the University of Vienna
Internships in Francophone Europe
Langara College
Living Spanish
Marquette University, Study Center in Madrid
Minnesota State University-Akita, Japan
Programs Abroad Travel Alternatives (PATA)
Rail Connection
Ramapo College of New Jersey, Study Abroad Office
Renaissance Agencies, Inc.
Sea Education Association
Seven Corners (Insurance Provider)
Solexico Language and Cultural Center
Suffolk University, Madrid Campus
Tufts University, Programs Abroad Office
University of Haifa Overseas Student Program
University of Rochester - Internships in Europe
August 1999: 66,151 (estimated)
August 1998: 39,209
July 1999: 60,520
July 1998: 49,774
June 1999: 56,408
June 1998: 37,692
May 1999: 53,824
May 1998: 51,974
April 1999: 61,277
April 1998: 47,279
March 1999: 64,205
March 1998: 49,649
February 1999: 63,855
February 1998: 53,783
January 1999: 66,263
January 1998: 53,325
December 1998: 27,121
December 1997: 31,424
November 1998: 32,156
November 1997: 40,356
October 1998: 72,774
October 1997: 54,096
September 1998: 52,416
September 1997: 41,789
Percentage of Total Traffic by Day of Week:
Sunday 11%
Monday 16%
Tuesday: 17%
Wednesday: 16%
Thursday: 16%
Friday: 13%
Saturday: 11%
Percentage of Total Traffic by Hour of Day:
Midnight: 3.84%
1 am: 3.27%
2 am: 2.76%
3 am: 2.57%
4 am: 2.50%
5 am: 2.37%
6 am: 2.27%
7 am: 2.35%
8 am: 3.04%
9 am: 4.04%
10 am: 4.88%
11 am: 5.32%
Noon: 5.68%
1 pm: 5.84%
2 pm: 6.29%
3 pm: 6.21%
4 pm: 6.17%
5 pm: 5.41%
6 pm: 4.61%
7 pm: 4.21%
8 pm: 3.91%
9 pm: 4.11%
10 pm: 4.22%
11 pm: 4.12%
(610) 364-0400
http://www.studyabroad.com
