The Case for Landing Pages in Higher Education Marketing

Traditional programme pages have long been the cornerstone of university websites, offering detailed information about degrees, faculty, and curriculum. However, a shift towards using landing pages in your student recruitment and marketing efforts could yield significant benefits. Today we explore why higher education institutions should consider this approach.

What Are Landing Pages?

A landing page is a standalone web page designed specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. Unlike typical web pages, which can serve multiple purposes, a landing page focuses on a single objective, known as a call to action (CTA).

Landing pages are designed with one primary goal in mind: conversion. They aim to convert visitors into leads or leads into customers by providing relevant information and prompting immediate action. The effectiveness of a landing page lies in its ability to reduce distractions, focusing the visitor’s attention solely on the intended action.

Why Using Landing Pages is Better Than Programme Pages?

While landing pages are created with a single goal or CTA, your programme pages are made to increase awareness to a larger audience. Typically, with campaigns in higher education marketing, we’d like to target specific groups of prospective students. Each of these groups has a specific problem (i.e. finding a bachelor’s degree in architecture) and we try to offer them a specific solution (in this case, a landing page listing the university’s bachelor’s degrees with a topic in/relating to architecture).

Depending on your university’s variety of programmes and programme topics, you can have as many landing pages as you deem necessary for your marketing efforts. Some more examples include using separate landing pages for bachelor’s and master’s degrees, separate programme topics that could showcase at least 2 degrees per topic, separate countries if you’d like to test specific countries where you change and/or translate communication, etc.

What Content Should Landing Pages Have?

Landing pages play a pivotal role in shaping first impressions and guiding visitors to the information they need. Here are some key elements that make a university landing page effective and engaging.

Clear and Compelling Key Message

Your hero section, which is the first thing visitors see, should feature a high-quality image or video that encapsulates the university’s spirit and environment. Accompany this with a concise, impactful headline that conveys your school’s unique selling points (USPs). For example, a key message like “Your Degree in Architecture in the Heart of Lisbon, Portugal” can resonate strongly.

Unique Selling Points

This may be considered the most important section – your USPs. Tell prospective students what sets your university apart from others. Include specific points and key information that encourage prospects to take action on your landing page. For example, you can include the location of studies or any teaching concepts that set you apart from others. And don’t forget to add a deadline to apply to create a sense of urgency.

Programme Information

Your next section should be about the different degrees your university offers. Include short details about each one, including their duration and tuition fees. If you’d like, you can use this section to also add any admissions information like the entry requirements, scholarships and the application process. But keep it short!

Information About Your University

Towards the end of your landing page, don’t forget to include a ‘About Us’ or ‘Welcome to [University]’ section where you give the visitor a short introduction about your school. Here, you can talk about your offerings, faculty and mission. You can also include accreditation logos to build authenticity and credibility.

Student and Alumni Testimonials

To further establish your trust and credibility with the visitor, you should collect some written (or recorded) testimonials from current and past students at your university. Whether in text or media format, make sure to include student testimonials on your landing pages, along with the person’s name and degree.

Contact Form

Make it easy for visitors to get in touch. Under each section include a ‘Learn more’ button which links to your contact form. Your contact form can be placed on the top and/or bottom of the landing page. Make sure your form collects the data you need to get in touch with the prospective students, such as name, email, phone number, degree, and country (if targeting internationally).

Different Types of CTAs for Different Goals

A well-crafted CTA can be the difference between a bounce and a conversion. However, not all CTAs are created equal. Different goals require different types of CTAs:

• Click-Through: Direct visitors to another page or website, these CTAs are common in e-commerce and are used to guide the visitor to another step in the sales funnel. In higher education marketing, this would be the application.
• Social Sharing: Encourage visitors to share content on social media, particularly effective on blogs and content-heavy pages.
• Subscription: Get visitors to subscribe to newsletters or updates, this CTA aims to build a long-term relationship with visitors by adding them to a mailing list.
• Event Registration: Used to promote webinars, conferences, workshops, or any other events. They are crucial for building attendance and engagement.
• Free Trial: Highly effective for SaaS companies but in higher education, these CTAs can be used for attending a free lecture as part of a programme curriculum. They let the prospect experience the faculty firsthand before deciding to apply.
• Contact: The most commonly used CTA in higher education marketing, which encourages visitors to get in touch. It prompts visitors to reach out for more information or a consultation.
• Download: When you offer downloadable content such as a programme brochure, eBook or a whitepaper.
• Limited Time Offers: Another common CTA is higher education marketing to create urgency to prompt quick action. These are particularly effective when you offer any type of discount on tuition fees.

Setting Up Tracking on Landing Pages

The ability to track and analyse visitor interactions on landing pages is not just a luxury – it’s a necessity. Landing pages are critical touchpoints in the student recruitment funnel, and optimising them through effective tracking can lead to higher conversion rates and a better understanding of prospective students’ behaviours and preferences.

Define Your Goals

Start by identifying what you want to achieve with your landing page. Common goals in higher education marketing include:

• Collecting prospective student information (i.e. through form submissions)
• Encouraging event registrations (i.e. for open houses or webinars)
• Driving applications

Choose the Right Tools

There are several tools that can help you track landing page performance:

• Google Analytics: A versatile and powerful tool that provides comprehensive insights into visitor behaviour.
• Google Tag Manager (GTM): Simplifies the process of adding and managing tracking tags.
• Marketing Automation Platforms (i.e. HubSpot, Salesforce): Offer integrated tracking and lead nurturing capabilities.

Implement Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a cornerstone for tracking landing page performance. Here’s how to set it up:

• Set Up a Google Analytics Account: If you don’t have one already, create a free account.
• Add the Tracking Code: Embed the Google Analytics tracking code in the HTML of your landing page. If you’re using a platform like WordPress, there are plugins available to simplify this step.
• Create Conversion Events: In Google Analytics, set up conversion events that align with your landing page objectives, such as form submissions or button clicks.

Monitor and Optimize

Once your tracking is in place, it’s crucial to continuously monitor the data and make adjustments:

• Regularly Review Analytics Reports: Look for trends, such as high bounce rates or low conversion rates, and investigate the underlying causes.
• A/B Testing: One of my favourite tools, A/B testing is used to experiment with different versions of your landing page. Track the performance of each variation to determine what works best.
• Iterate and Improve: Based on your findings, make iterative improvements to your landing pages to enhance user experience and increase conversions.

Creating Landing Pages in Different Platforms

There is a plethora of different platforms you can use to create landing pages. You can create them through the content management system (CMS) you’re using, like WordPress, or through a customer relationship management software (CRM), like HubSpot.

CMS Landing Pages

Creating landing pages in WordPress may seem like a long and complicated process, especially if you’re not a web designer or someone who knows HTML code. But not to worry, there are plenty of themes and visual page builders, like Divi or Elementor, that can help you. With their drag-and-drop functionality, you can use these page builders to create visually stunning landing pages in a matter of minutes, without coding.

CRM Landing Pages

If you’re using a CRM, you most likely have your website linked and are, at the very least, sending newsletters to your contacts. Well, most CRMs (if not all) have the landing pages feature. They often have drag-and-drop functionality and work very similarly to visual page builders.

Conclusion

Incorporating landing pages into higher education marketing strategies offers numerous advantages over traditional program pages. From targeted marketing and improved conversion rates to enhanced data collection and performance analysis, landing pages provide a versatile and effective way to engage prospective students. By using dedicated landing pages, universities can improve their marketing efforts, attract more qualified applicants, and ultimately achieve their enrollment goals.

Landing Pages Services at Next Level Marketing

If you’re looking to elevate your student recruitment strategy and digital marketing efforts, we’re here to help you set up landing pages for your campaigns. We typically do this with direct access to the CMS you’re using where we install a visual page builder. However, if you’d prefer a more in-house approach where we don’t have access to your CMS, we can also create the landing page visually (i.e. in a PDF format) and upon feedback, send you the HTML code for the approved design and content.

Contact us at hello@nextlevelmkt.net to find out more about this service.