USjournal of Academics (Mobile: USAcademics.com)
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Contact pamela@bartoncarlyle.com for a consultation.

FAQs about USjournal.com's Services

How long have you been in business?

USjournal.com, LLC evolved from a glossy print publication in the early 1990s to a much more efficient online approach in April 1996. From the very beginning, we've focused on one audience: qualified prospective international students. We concentrate on the quality of leads from prospective students worldwide, and not the quantity. USjournal.com is not a simple, comprehensive directory of U.S. academic options; our sponsors specifically seek to enroll non-U.S. students. We'll work with our advertisers to filter inquiries according to their individual specifications. We feature a rolling deadline so you can see results promptly.

USjournal.com C.I.E.O. Cheryl Darrup-Boychuck has been an active NAFSA (Association for International Educators) member for years:

  • Consistently chairs and co-presents popular sessions at NAFSA Annual and Regional Conferences
  • Regularly addresses non-U.S. student questions on Voice of America
  • Routinely contributes to industry publications, such as the IIE Networker Magazine and Advising Quarterly
  • Accepted the distinguished award of Education Site of the Year from Yahoo! en Espaņol for EstudiosUSA.com, the Spanish sister site of USjournal.com.
  • Continues to lead the way in this dynamic industry of online international student recruitment.

What do you do, exactly?

USjournal.com is solely dedicated to encouraging non-U.S. students to learn more about U.S. educational opportunities. While our web-based services provide a firm foundation, we also feature many additional perks that are included in our very reasonable prices, such as customized eMail campaigns to specific populations of our ever-increasing student database, and cross-promotions with a number of respected organizations dedicated to international education.

We work to complement our clients' other promotional initiatives. For example, we recognized that our fair schedule is one of the most popular pages in our site, for both prospective students as well as the US-based colleagues who serve them. So we began offering an additional service (for no additional cost to our clients) to send customized invitations to the recruitment events in which they participate -- providing students with the opportunity to schedule individual appointments in advance of the event.

The primary audience of USjournal.com includes students from around the world who are eager to learn more about academic options offered in the States. We provide valuable information about the often-complicated process of U.S. admissions. Our site is constantly evolving to accommodate the latest technologies, including a pending partnership with FundsV that would empower students (and their sponsors) to point their online banking data to the authority who requested it -- thus elevating their status from generic inquiry to financially-qualified applicant.

Our objective is a high conversion rate of inquiries to actual enrollees, so sponsors don't waste valuable resources on candidates not likely to enroll. The limited number of advertisers on our site fosters a more exclusive representation of featured programs, when compared to other recruitment venues. Given our consistently high renewal rates, it's obvious that our sponsors truly appreciate our philosophy of quality-over-quantity.

What kinds of support services do you offer?

Our support services are quite comprehensive, as we're always seeking new ways to enhance our advertisers' campaigns. That's why we never charge additional fees to modify campaigns at any point throughout an advertiser's 12-month contract. We work to enhance your marketing plan in general.

How much does it cost? Are your prices negotiable?

Firstly, no, our prices are not negotiable. We do not discount our English campaigns, as our prices are already extremely competitive given our attention to detail and personalized follow-up. We offer a 30 percent discount for campaigns with four or more language translations.

Regarding costs: Our comprehensive, 12-month English campaign costs just $1,295. Please keep in mind that you're welcome to suggest modifications to any element of your USjournal.com ad campaign at any time, for no additional charge throughout our 12-month contract; just e-mail us with your revisions, and we'll upload them into our system.

Our non-English campaigns are also gaining greatly in popularity. We currently feature 16 different independent domains:

Our 12-month Latin-character language campaigns cost $1,795 each; and other languages cost $2,095 each. Of course, you may choose any combination of languages. For more info, contact us by phone (570-205-4020) or eMail.

I represent a small English Language Program. How can I effectively utilize your services?

There are many opportunities with us, depending on your own individual variables. Multi-lingual Campaigns provide one option. The advantage of supplementing your English campaign with non-English campaigns is that you're pretty well assured that the inquiries generated indeed need English language training. Not surprisingly, Spanish has traditionally been our strongest non-English language, in terms of inquiry generation, while other languages are coming on strong. Advertisers may promote as many programs as you'd like, including certificate and degree-granting programs at your institution. We can customize our services for each program listed; for example, we can forward undergraduate inquiries to undergrad@xyz.edu, and graduate inquiries to grad@xyz.edu or whatever, and forward ESL inquiries to esl@xyz.edu. We can also customize our Automated Responses for each program.

All marketing and recruitment for our college is done by me, and I am a 1/2-time professional employee... Time is very tight, and time does not permit me to become engaged in interesting, but time-consuming marketing projects. Further, our budget is tight as well. So those are our practical realities. We look for partnerships / associations / advertising that involve minimal staff time for monitoring and response. We would not want to become engaged with a partner if we did not have the staff time to provide for effective and timely follow-up... Can you provide promotional services that are easy on our own staff time? Can you simplify your program for us, so that we are getting just the core inquiries that we seek?

Actually, our campaigns are structured specifically for colleagues in that type of situation:

  • Once we receive your Space Reservation Form, we'll generate an invoice which will be due in 30 days.
  • During that time, you may send me content (unlimited text, images, links, videos...) to post on your Profile. We'll send you a draft, so you can review and edit it.
  • We'll also structure your Automated Responses to emulate successful campaigns we've seen in the past. I'll include text and links that explain in simple terms what the student needs to do next in the enrollment process. There's no limit to the number of words or links in our customized Automated Responses.
  • Some students needs more nurturing than others, so we'll send you weekly or monthly Excel Reports which compile all student inquiry activity generated by your USjournal.com campaign. The Report is in addition to the single-messages you'll receive a few minutes after the student expresses interest in your program, so you can quickly browse their Comments to see if that particular inquiry warrants more attention than others.

We truly understand the situation of over-worked, under-paid colleagues whose first priority is abiding by federal law. In a perfect world, marketers / recruiters would respond-on-demand to every prospective student inquiry. That's simply not possible on many campuses, particularly those challenged in this dynamic world of international recruitment. We're here to help you help the student through your own specific enrollment funnel, so you spend time on those students at the narrow, yield end of the funnel -- those who are likely to enroll in your particular program.

The inquiries we send you are already filtered; students who use USjournal.com must select specific U.S. campuses from which to inquire: There is no one-click method to request info about hundreds of campuses. As a matter of fact, about 35 percent of our student traffic inquire about just one campus.

We've always focused on quality more than quantity of inquiries, and we realize that type of approach is more important now than ever before. Our staff is readily available to discuss any of these dynamic (but ultimately simple for you) mechanisms.

How many hits does your site get?

We actually get thousands of impressions per day, but we're much more interested in the number of qualified student inquiries we forward to our advertisers. About 35 percent of our student traffic inquire about just one advertising campus; we do not mass-distribute our student data to all of our advertisers. In marketing terms, we believe that the pull method is much more effective than the push method.

Please review our current sponsor listing. You're welcome to contact any of our current advertisers yourself, to inquire about their level of satisfaction with our services.

How would prospective students find us within your site?

Students browse our site, and inquire about individual programs in one of several ways:

  • We encourage students to select their specific preferences via our simple selection function on our home page.
  • Students may click directly to an advertiser's Profile Page via a rotating banner in the left column of our home page (additional $450 per year)
  • Students may go directly to an advertiser's independent domain outside of USjournal.com, via a rotating banner in the right column of our home page (additional $750 per year)
  • Students may identify an advertising campus geographically, via our current sponsor listing

A prospective student must specify their academic and degree preferences at a particular campus that interests him / her, and complete the data fields on our inquiry form in order for their inquiry to be forwarded on to our advertiser. That info is forwarded in two ways:

  • Within five minutes after the student clicks our submit button, a simple e-message with that data is automatically forwarded to the advertiser's specified forwarding e-address (we can customize the forwarding e-address and Auto-Response for each one of the advertiser's academic programs).
  • That same data is automatically fed into our database, which generates specific advertiser Excel Reports (sent as e-attachments to a specified e-address) a few minutes after midnight on the last day of each week, month or quarter (according to advertiser preference). These reports compile all prospective student inquiry activity specifically for that advertiser.

How do I sign up? What are my responsibilities for launching a campaign with you?

To become a USjournal.com advertiser, send a completed Space Reservation Form to cheryl@USjournal.com, and we will begin working on your campaign.

The objective of the USjournal.com is to provide you with qualified student inquiries -- candidates likely to enroll in your particular programs. We are very interested in knowing the ratio of our prospective students to your actual enrollees.

For a complete explanation of our value-added services, please review our Sponsorship Page. Stay tuned to that page for updates, as we continue to lead the way in this dynamic industry of international student recruitment.