K-12 Market Data and Analysis Trends

1. K-12 Market Data and Analysis Trends Moderator: Susan Meell, Chief Executive Officer, MMS Education Panelists: Sandra Fivecoat, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, WeAreTeachers John Richards, President, Consulting Services for Education

2. U.S. Education Technology Industry Market Watch: Pre-K-12 Survey The “Software Industry Market Watch: pre-K-12” annual survey provides comprehensive, accurate sales data and trends for the education technology market. The survey will inform members and the investment community, enabling them to make more accurate predictions and plans, and to report accurate data. Final data will be available in July of 2011. John Richards, Ph. D. richards@cs4ed.com

3. K-12 Market Data Analysis and Trends:Email Marketing. Meet Social Media. Sandy Fivecoat Founder, WeAreTeachers.com, LLC An MDR/D & B Company

4. Topics . . . • 2011 Email report from MDR, Other industry reports • Lessons learned from Social Media Marketing at WeAreTeachers • Suggested best practices

5. Response Rates Day of Week/Time of Day Tuesday is the most popular day for deployment (30%) for the past 3 years. Response rates across of weekdays was extremely close, Friday coming the highest even thought there was only 8% of campaigns sent . The most popular time for deployment is the three time slots between 8:00 AM to 10:59 AM EST. The 10AM hour was the time block with the highest recorded Open rate (10.4%) and the highest Click-Through rate (3.4%).

6. Purchases Because of Email: Teachers Experienced teachers are much more likely to have made such a purchase than their less experienced colleagues.

7. Purchases Because of Email: Administrators District personnel that have made a purchase due to receiving a educational related email offer continues to grow

8. Access to and Frequency of Checking School Email When Not at School • Virtually all teachers (98%) have the ability to access their school-based email from home (via laptop, mobile, VPN, or web-based access.) • More than two thirds (68%) check their school email at night and on holidays/professional development days. Seven out of ten teachers report checking their email on the weekends. • Most (95%) teachers also check their school email during the summer break. • 21% check it on a daily basis • 34% checking it multiple times per week • 22% checking it once per week

9. Viewing Email on a Mobile Device Handheld email access (such as BlackBerry/ iPhone) jumped dramatically for teachers in 2010. Need to start thinking about how your email may render on such devices. Prospecting Best Practices will also help mobile rendering.

10. Follow-up campaigns to responders can yield dramatic results Follow-up to responders Initial Campaign

11. What teachers value from online sites

12. Why add ‘Social’ to email? • LEVERAGE for your email/direct marketing spend • Viral ‘uptick’ with sponsored programs, content • Longer shelf life for campaigns and programs • User-generated content has value, can be re-purposed • Best Practice sharing, reference sites are important social outcomes • Customer conversations = guidance for support, • product development, marketing message improvement

13. Positive findings from recent reports, surveys of marketers* • 90% indicate importance of SM in overall marketing plan • 72% with 3 yr+ experience report impact on closed business • 52% see increases in lead gen with only 6 hrs/week • 70% say overall marketing costs decrease with SM • 73% report significant rise in SMO rankings • 78% report increased web traffic from SM efforts • *2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, • Michael Stelzner (Social Media Examiner)

14. Benefits of SM Marketing* *2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report

15. What we have learned. . . • Teachers respond well to “grants” and answering questions • Video is good content, but hard to get from participants • E-mail is viral, if the offer is valued • Email augmented by social programs • (contests, reviews, grants, etc) is especially viral

16. What we have learned (con’t). . . • “Heart and Head” programs work best, are most viral • Each program should inform follow on programs, • and leads are more valuable with multiple programs • (brand awareness to best practice to advocacy) • Teachers really value FREE, and will respond well • to sponsored promotions • Programs work best when application from users is text, • and takes no more than 15 min. to complete

17. MDR Email Outreach – Average performance by job category w/ WAT Programs Table showing open & click counts & percentage by educator segment across seven WeAreTeachers grant programs targeting over 776,000 emails in the MDR database. Programs included in the averages were completed between October 2010-January 2011 and used the WeAreTeachers recommended list approach. Programs where specialized lists were requested were not included in the averages.

18. Optimizing email for SM Marketing • Move from FTAF (forward to a friend) to SWYN (share with your network) • Group viral features in all email communication • Design emails with ‘share’ function more prominent (not just at bottom) • Have a social plan and landing page to accompany email campaigns • Include UGC and viral components when you can • Design e-newsletters to include content from social programs, ‘you asked for it,’ or forum content • Send emails to invite SM program participation, ‘sneak peak’ at new products, participation in forums, best practice sharing

19. Optimizing SM programs to grow your email list, lead generation • Always include ‘opt in’ at each program step to grow your email/lead database • Use twitter to promote e-newsletter content and track results • Post a sign up on your FB fan page to invite participation in your e-newsletter • Make web form for email sign up clear, visible, simple • Track chit-chat (TwitterSearch, FB Search, DeliciousSearch,#edchat etc) and write articles for e-newsletter about what you find • Repurpose user generated content (ie., WAT teaching ideas) as content for your e-newsletter