Sure, there are a million things you need to do in 2013 to improve your admissions marketing for recruitment. Lucky for you, we narrowed your “to-do” list down to these two important areas on your website. Focus on these two steps and leave your competition in the dust.
1 Don’t ignore the analytics
99% of your web traffic leaves every day without making contact. Modern analytics can provide data about everything from lead identification to user demographics; meaning you can immediately start making great use of analytics from online tracking.
With low conversion rates being the norm for most colleges’ websites, it is absolutely necessary for a college to pay attention to the number of prospects and followers they have online and identify who they are. Analytics, used properly, help colleges find future students in all areas of the decision funnel, and nurture those followers into future students.
The analytics that are of particular interest to us are the topics that the prospects are interested in, thus identifying the content. In our content planning for colleges, we segment content into the three areas of the decision funnel and then use that to measure prospect interest. From that analytical information, we segment and build our email lists. We call these smart lists, as they consistently get higher open and click rates-all from properly using analytics. Most colleges use Google Analytics (a great tool). But the world of analytics can be complicated, if you do not know how to use it properly. To help simplify this complicated process, we use analytical tools that are more user-friendly and can help you quickly focus on what key performance indicators are most important to your recruitment efforts.
2 Have a content strategy
Most colleges have Facebook and twitter in place, but if your interest is in future students and recruitment, a different strategy may be called for. Start by focusing on an admissions blog. To build that out, a content strategy is paramount to attracting the right prospects to your college. First, you need to understand the decision funnel and what content fits into each of the three decision categories. Once you have that mapped out, focus on what makes your college and campus unique. What types of students do you want? Write to them. Once you get the blog established it is time to expand that content strategy to your other social media platforms. A good content strategy combined with the proper online forums is an important step in getting ahead of your peer competition.
