1 Internet Collaboration versus Competition How Education Providers and Agents Can Help Each Other Recruit More International Students via the Internet Rod Hearps ICEF Online - Director Hyperstudy.com - Director EdMedia Student Recruitment - Director The ICEF Middle East Workshop February 3, 2007

2 Background 17 years in International Education industry Owned and ran an Agency with offices in Japan and Australia for 7 years Recruited students via internet since1994 Helped set-up 3 schools for international students in Australia + worked as Principal, Marketing Manager, Teacher Owner / manager of 10 Education related websites for students, agents and schools Creator of ICEF Online

3 Collaborative Roots versus Modern Day Competition Internet originally created for collaboration Now businesses have created massive competition WWW gatekeepers like Google make billions of $’s by encouraging competition He who bids highest and spends the most gets promoted the most e-learning Providers like Uni of Phoenix (USA) spend US$ millions per month How high will bidding go? How high can you afford to bid ? For how long?

4 How to increase your visibility Online PPC Marketing Google AdWords Search field Search result AdWords

5 Characteristics of the internet Today’s billion internet users are expected to double by 2015 Of these 1 billion, 300 million speak English, 128 M Chinese and 80 M Japanese English are speakers already a minority on the internet (<30%) This will drop to 25% by 2010 Chinese, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese are on the increase Chinese will grow fastest, doubling over the next 5 years

6 Internet Usage by Language Used with permission of USjournal.com

7 Internet impact for Providers How many and which languages should I translate my website into ? Does the internet mean I can recruit more students directly without paying commissions to Agents ? Should I list my authorized Agents on my website ? Should I provide links to the websites of my authorized Agents ? How can I best manage my brand and presence on the internet with such a proliferation of websites ?

8 Internet impact for Agents Will I make less enrolments as students can now more easily contact Providers directly ? Will I make more enrolments because I can now recruit students from every country ? Should I translate my website ? Should I list Providers ? And their prices ? How can I compel students to contact me rather than contacting Providers directly ? What’s my USP or value proposition, and how can I make it more attractive ? Don’t attempt to compete on price Do attempt to compete on service levels

9 Question: Do Providers have the internal language resources to effectively handle student enquiries in all languages ? Eg. website translations and Search Engine Optimization, understanding and responding effectively to all enquiries in the prospective student’s native language ? Or would they get more enrolments if they out-sourced some of these tasks to better resourced partners, including their Agents ?

10 Types of internet collaboration Agent login areas on Provider websites Pay Per Action (Affiliate) Marketing models Linking – one way and reciprocal Enquiry generation, management and sharing White-label solutions

11 Agent login areas Most commonly feature a simple document download area – brochures, application and enrolment forms, agent manuals, image galleries, videos etc Please allow agents to choose their own log-in details

12 Example Agent login area

13 Agent login areas - less common features Enrolment form with embedded Agency ID Fee calculator Reports for Agents on: numbers of students enrolled student progress - course start and end dates, holiday dates, attendance, results, course renewal details tuition fee reports – fees due and paid commission reports – due and paid

14 Example Agent Support area

15 Pay Per Action (Affiliate) Marketing models Merchant = Supplier = Provider Affiliate = Referrer = Agent Pay Per Click – US 1 cent to US 10 cents per click through Pay Per Enquiry / Lead – US$1 to US$50 per enquiry (depending upon how well the leads are “qualified”) Pay Per Enrolment – 5% to 10% of tuition fees paid per enrollment

16 Why are PPA (Affiliate) models not widely used in Education ? Typically the Merchant = the Provider benefits the most Can be costly to implement Employ a resource or outsource ? Questionable likelihood of uptake by Agents (who likely prefer commission model) Questionable likelihood of results Why not stick to tried and tested agent based recruitment methods?

17 Linking for Agents For Agents, links to Provider websites = “leakage”. Why would they do it ? Will they do it for SEO purposes ? Or is it just “too risky” / not worth it ? If Agents link to Provider websites, it’s most likely to be from low PR (page rank) pages that are of little value to the Provider. Not all links are equal in value 1 x PR6 link = 70 x PR3 links

18 Linking for Providers Providers wishing to increase their SE rankings via link exchange might focus on exchanging links with websites other than Agency websites eg. Travel industry websites Links from Provider websites to Agent websites are more common than vice versa See Reciprocal Linking example at Get this link exchange software for free at

19 Link exchange example

20 Providers linking to their Agents / Representatives Should Providers offer prospective students links to their Agents / Representatives? Students want CHOICE - to enrol directly or via an approved in-country Representative Consumers appreciate not being limited in their choices A Provider who links to many Agents / Representatives may even be viewed more favourably by prospective students

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25 Enquiry generation, management and sharing Via Agent websites - handled by Agents Via Provider websites - handled by Providers or sent to Agents? Via 3rd party websites - handled by Providers or sent to Agents? How to decide ?

26 Providers - how to decide who handles enquiries? Country by country - visa conditions, prevailing cultural preferences etc Enquiry volume vs marketing staff workload Which Agent/s to forward enquiries to? Those who are more ‘web savvy’ Reward loyal / high producing agents Monitor success of receiving agents & change if unsuccessful Please send 1 enquiry to 1 Agent only

27 Enquiry Management Providers need a good Enquiry Management System (EMS) that helps them easily forward enquiries to Agents Ideally Agents also need a good EMS in order to professionally manage enquiries on behalf of their Provider partners who send them

28 White-label solutions Common in more commercially (especially e-commercially) mature industries eg Travel Instant Provider approved, maintained and hosted content streamed to host websites Hosts (Agents) need not update the content Customized with host website header and footer to look like part of their website See an Education white-label example at php?id=27&lang=1&page=intro

29 Travel Industry example

30 Education Industry example

31 In conclusion Why are many of the types of internet collaboration presented not more commonly embraced by the Study Abroad industry? Are they simply inappropriate for this (high level of service) industry? I suggest white-labelling is a more viable and sustainable solution for the international education industry. See details at Ultimately the industry will decide the answers to the questions and issues raised

32 Thank you for your time Feel free to me any questions via Or meet me at the ICEF Online stand in the foyer Warm regards Rod Hearps