Grand Opening Sweepstakes
Our Grand Opening Sweepstakes which was announced in our last newsletter, is now underway. Entries are being accepted online and the Grand Prize winner will receive a round-trip airfare to anywhere that British Airways flies. Students who enter the sweepstakes are given the option of providing information about their intentions to study abroad, including name, address and e-mail address. We ask if we can share this information with study abroad program providers who may send information about appropriate programs. To date we have received about 135 such leads which are being distributed to studyabroad.com clients.The sweepstakes runs through December 31, 1995.
Consumer Information
At the suggestion of several clients and interested parties, we have included a screen of information which advises students to consult with their study abroad advisors before committing to any study abroad program and to verify that credits can be transferred.
Posters on Campus- 40%
40% of the respondents found us via a poster on campus. In the past 3 weeks, we have distributed 2000 posters to key campuses around the country via professional campus representatives. We will begin shipping an additional 5000 posters by the end of the month. These posters should all be in place by the beginning of the spring semester.
Newspaper Referrals-20%
Several weeks ago we faxed a press release announcing our service to more than 900 student newspapers. To date we have been contacted by student reporters from 9 papers which have published stories about us (Central Oklahoma State University, Lehigh University, Texas Christian University, University of Illinois, Cornell University, Kansas State University, University of Indiana, University of California-Sacramento, Tufts University). We have also learned that our release was printed in at least 6 additional school papers (Winthrop University, University of Northern Arizona, Northeast Louisiana State University, University of Nevada-Reno, Tarrant County Junior College, Providence College). Some of the articles can be viewed on our Study Abroad Forum page.
Internet/Web Search Tools-20%
While only a handful of the respondents named the specific search tool, we know from our server logs that most of our online referrals come from Yahoo, Webcrawler, Lycos and InfoSeek. Being found by these search tools is a trick in itself. When a user searches on a broad reaching topic like ╥study abroad╙ they can get back thousands of possible links to follow, some may be useful and others not. Studyabroad.com has been very successful in being listed with the major search engines and in coming up high on the list when "study abroad" is searched on.
If you have your own web site and are counting on these search tools to allow students to find you, give it a try. Go to your favorite search page, do the search and see if you can find your program. Odds are it is pretty tough...a good argument for taking out a standard listing which links from studyabroad.com to your site. Feel free to write for more information.
Browsing/Surfing The Web-4%
Referred by Friend -4%
Referred by Professor/Study Abroad Advisor -2%
Other-7%
September (whole month) -- 2115
Week Ending:
10/6/95 -- 2181
10/13/95 -- 3113
10/20/95 -- 3090
10/27/95 -- 4559
11/3/95 -- 5154
11/10/95 -- 5382
Total: -- 25,594
As you can see, the numbers have been growing consistently.
Here's some interesting numbers pulled from our Server Logs. All of this information pertains to the 2 Week Period ending 11/10/95:
Top Ten Educational Domains Visiting our Site:
1. tufts.edu Tufts University
2. u.penn.edu University of Pennsylvania
3. psu.edu Penn State University
4. csus.edu Cal State-Sacramento
5. temple.edu Temple University
6. bc.edu Boston College
7. princeton.edu Princeton University
8. brown.edu Brown University
9. nwu.edu Northwestern University
10. udel.edu University of Delaware
Our home page was visited once every 10 minutes on average
We received 248 referrals from Webcrawler, 222 from Yahoo and 114 from InfoSeek
(610) 364-0400
http://www.studyabroad.com
