We ran a webinar on May 14 called “How To Take Control of Your Online Lead Generation”. We discussed how marketers in higher education can utilize software to automate lead delivery and gain business intelligence across all of their online and offline marketing channels, and covered best practices for developing media plans, managing vendors, and evaluating performance.

Thanks to all those who participated. If anyone would like to listen to a recording of the webinar, simply email us at events@sparkroom.com and we will reply with a link.

I spent last Tuesday at BMO’s Marketing and Advertising Thought Leaders conference. Thanks to Pete Stack and Jeff Silber from BMO Capital Markets for the invitation to attend and sit on the EDU panel. Anna Maria Virzi from ClickZ covered the day here.

I shared the stage on the EDU marketing panel with some of the smartest folks in EDU lead gen. The panel was moderated by Jeff Silber and included Michael Platt from Plattform, Doug Brown from All-Star, Greg O’Brien from CollegeBound, and Steve Isaac from Education Dynamics. My notes from the panel:

* for-profit education is counter-cyclical as all of the companies on the panel talked about growing budgets

* there will be a flight to quality as schools increasingly choose the larger, better converting lead providers. Sparkroom tends to agree with this conclusion and hopes that Lead IQ is part of every school’s plan to get smarter about marketing and enrollment

* the not-for-profit universities are going to start marketing more like the career colleges over the next decade; I am not sure about this one — someone on the panel mentioned that Penn State, UMass and University of Maryland have all built large and successful online education divisions — I think it is going to take more than 10 years for a marketing and customer acquisition ethos to permeate the culture of the not-for-profit university

* all the panelists talked about regulation risk — particularly as it relates to the Department of Education regulating marketing education to potential students. One of the panelists did the quick math – $40B in for-profit EDU revenue, 25% of revenue spend on sales & marketing and 80% of the revenue comes from Title IV funding. Ergo, the Department of Education is spending $8B every year (through career colleges) marketing education.

I learned a ton over the course of the day and met some great digital marketing companies. Thanks again BMO for the invite.

We will be exhibiting at the Career College Association 2009 Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida. The show looks great and we are excited to be part of it this year. Come by and visit us in booth #114 to meet the team and see our products in action. We hope to see you there.