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Yesterday’s theories no longer apply in today’s higher education marketing reality. You need practical strategies you can use now — whether you’re up against demographic shifts, rising competition, shrinking budgets, federal student aid decreases, rapidly changing prospective student behaviors, or all of the above. Our hosts from VitalEDU break down everything from innovative paid ad strategies to creative approaches to stopping the scroll and boosting conversions. You’ll come away from each episode with at least one practical change you can implement immediately to drive results, or your money back. Just kidding, it’s free. (And it works.)
This is huge. Yeah.
Tuition is mentioned on 16
percent of pages. That's it.
Welcome to Apply Now,
the podcast where higher
education marketers
explore strategies and insights
they can put to work today.
Each week, we cover everything
from innovative
approaches to paid media,
to the ways to reach the right
students more effectively,
so you can make smarter
marketing decisions and drive
measurable results.
Hi, Chris.
Hey.
We haven't seen each other.
For a whole week.
How's it going?
Awesome. You and I are both
just back from vacation.
Yes. How was your break?
It was great. Just hung out on
the beach for a week.
Okay.
Lots of family and just boogie
board and walking the beach.
Boogie board.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, kids.
You on boogie board?
Yeah.
Nice.
Absolutely. Yeah. I was out
there with all the kids and
cousins and stuff.
Would you say you had control
over your boogie board?
I almost got taken
out by a gentleman,
probably even a little older
than you at Short Sands Beach.
I was like, "This, you
shouldn't be riding it if you
can't control it."
I felt like I could
control it very well.
Okay.
Yeah. I could turn on it.
Also, you can just bail before
you hit somebody.
Exactly.
You need to.
Exactly.
I feel like last year,
there was an air conditioning
debacle in the house.
Were ACs being moved around or
were there not enough?
Yeah. All of those.
Yeah. Normal beach house fun.
Okay.
Does this even have AC and
who's bringing one
and moving around?
Yeah. ACs at a premium at a
beach house for you,
cramming four families.
Were you covered or no?
This year we were.
Nice.
This year we were.
Yeah. We were
all set this year.
Made the cut.
Yeah. Your vacation,
we talked about this
on the last podcast.
We and I flipped and you're
doing the very different thing
than you've ever done.
I'm doing the
thing I always did.
Same beach house, same beach,
doing it for 20
years, very normal.
You flipped it and said,
"We're going to do something
completely different."
Yes.
How did your
grand experiment go?
I convinced 22 people to come
to Portsmouth and Kittery.
People were here
for eight days total,
which was a very long time and
it went so well.
The Google Doc itinerary,
we hit it beat for beat.
People were referencing it.
People like uncles who I didn't
think even knew how Google Docs
worked were like,
"Hey, I saw Bullet 12 of the
Google Doc and I was
so happy about that."
All right. It worked.
Yes.
That's awesome.
You did a lot of prep for that.
A lot of prep completely worked
and it was so worth it.
But I texted you Friday of our
vacations and I
gave you a homework assignment
for this recording
today and I said,
"Your goal is to tell me
something that happened on
your family vacation and tie it
back to higher
education marketing."
Right. I know.
That's a challenging homework
assignment for sure.
You have to answer this too.
Yes.
You'll go second?
Yeah.
All right. What I noticed or
the lesson or the trend that I
was able to pull back,
was just build how change
happens and how
adopting change happens.
The story
essentially is like two,
three years ago on the beach
started noticing people
using what are called cabanas
instead of umbrellas.
Okay.
I'm not familiar with this.
I'm not.
It's like I know a sunshade is
that different.
I don't know
what a sunshade is.
Okay.
Well, I think so cabana is
basically square.
Okay.
It's a bigger, it's basically a
bigger umbrella.
It's square but then it has
four legs that come off the
ends of it that make it feel
like cabana-ish.
But those four legs you
actually fill with sand and it
anchors it down.
It's actually a
lot more stable.
So like two, three years ago,
I started seeing those pop up.
Before that, it's like an
umbrella beach.
So then you start seeing the
cool cabanas pop up.
That's the brand name.
Yeah.
Oh, oh, oh.
That's the brand name.
Cool Cabana.
Cool Cabanas is the brand name.
That's like the high-end brand.
Anyhow, start
seeing those pop up.
I'm like, that's odd.
It sticks out just because you
haven't seen them before.
And the next year, a couple
more next year, this year,
tipping point, all of them.
Cool Cabanas, wall to wall.
Wall to wall Cabanas.
The umbrellas are now the
exception and
Cabanas are everywhere.
And so I think it was just
interesting to watch how that
happened because
there's always this,
people talking about the idea
of change and how
does change happen.
And especially like running a
marketing agency or running
marketing for anybody,
it's like change happens
gradually, then suddenly.
It's happening slowly.
And then one day you turn
around and boom, it's there.
And it feels like, wow, that
happened all at once.
And so if I took a couple of
years off and I
just went to the beach,
I'd be like, wow, overnight,
everyone flipped to Cabanas.
They didn't.
It was happening gradually.
And then it tipped.
And the tipping part is
actually, if I want
to bring even more,
is the social proof part of it.
You start seeing more social
proof out there.
Okay.
My neighbor's using these.
Everyone else is using these.
I guess I'm going to use these.
These seem good.
And the social proof tips it.
Anyhow, it's the same thing
that happens in
marketing where like,
some people are starting to do,
let's say, answer
engine optimization.
They're starting to optimize
for search
engines or not search,
or they're starting to optimize
for LLMs and AI search engines
and things like that.
Eventually, that'll tip and
that'll become
everyone's doing it.
Right now is the kind of
beginning where one or two
people are doing it.
That's interesting.
I wonder how that will go.
We can tell you how
that's going to go.
It'll tip eventually.
So that was my kind of like
looking up and down the beach
and being like,
that's interesting.
These showed up and they were
never here before.
And it feels like overnight,
but it definitely wasn't.
So that's mine.
What was yours?
Chris, first of
all, that was so good.
And I think you
did better than me.
But I'm going to try to tell it
with the eloquence
that you just did.
I was thinking about, I was
really nervous to
plan the whole trip.
So I am the youngest
cousin of the family.
And so my role in the family is
not typically like organizer.
I am the baby.
There are dozens of people
above me who I would defer to
decision making more.
So it's not my typical role.
And I was very scared to make
decisions for 20
adults and a couple babies.
And I was really scared of
stepping on toes.
And so I tried to plan enough
and then leave some
small openings for
decisions as we go.
So there was a night where it
was like, hey, we
have dinner tonight.
There's two options.
Here are the two options.
Let me explain to you the pros
and cons of both of those.
And again, all the while I'm
very nervous inside my head.
Every time I am sending a
message to the group update,
letting people know what the
next plan is or what the next
options for plan are.
I'm like, okay, this is going
to be the one
where it blows up.
And I was sitting on the beach,
one of my cousins, and she
looked at me and was
like, this has been the easiest
family vacation.
There has been no
tension or fighting.
I think maybe one person should
always just decide
everything for us.
And so I was thinking everybody
wanted all of the choices to
build their own
fun, exciting Portsmouth summer
adventure, but
really people just wanted
an awesome adventure and they
didn't actually want
that much choice in it.
And so that got me thinking
about higher ed marketing of
how there are so
many things to explore and
investigate and uncover.
And there's info sessions and
there's program brochures and
there's blog posts
and there's the degree page and
there's faculty bios.
There are all of these things.
And so how can we try to
actually sometimes limit
people's choices so
they don't just get totally
overwhelmed and burnt out by
the number of choices.
And so I was thinking about
lead nurturing and nurturing
prospective students
through both email and texting
more and more so.
I feel like there's the
inclination to like, okay, we
got their info.
We got them, we're emailing
them, like let's put it all in.
Like who knows what's going to
be interesting to them.
Let's link to the degree page.
Let's send them
scholarship options.
We definitely want to
plug this YouTube video.
And then that can just be like
burnout overwhelm.
I don't know what to do.
And so just distilling things
as much as possible into this
is the one action I
want you to take.
This is the one thing I want
you to focus on.
I've done all the
choosing for you.
I've eliminated the friction.
This is your journey today.
And that's my time.
I love that.
That's great.
Okay.
All right.
Less choice.
Yes.
Less choice
makes people happier.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Yeah.
No, here.
I mean, I think there's
actually a lot of
studies that show that.
Yeah.
And also you went to you
actually use the tension ratio,
which we talked about on
the last podcast of how many
things do I want people to do
versus how many things
am I going to ask
them to look at?
Tell me what to do.
Which is a perfect segue.
So we stopped recording our
last episode and we sit up and
we said next episode
is landing pages part two, like
there is way too much
for us to talk about.
Um, so I think
we're going to start.
We'll do a quick recap of
landing pages, part one.
So the last episode we recorded
just to kind of set the scene.
And then you have a proprietary
study that you're
going to walk me through.
I do.
Um, so Chris, I came up with,
um, an acrostic for us last
episode to describe
what all landing pages need.
Do you want to say
it for the audience?
Oh, sure.
I would love to.
Yeah.
Focus.
Focus is the acrostic, which is
also a new word I learned.
Acrostic.
I know.
And it's the A is
attached to the word.
It is N acrostic.
It's not a cross stick.
Why can't it just be acrostic?
Um, I think that's different.
That's like NASA.
Oh, okay.
Cause they stand for, okay.
Yeah.
All right.
I don't know.
It's forwards and backwards.
All right.
Um, but focus, which is what we
need right now as well.
Um, so the F in focus
is first impression.
And this is the one that's
probably the one I am most
passionate about
of all of our focus letters.
Um, we want the page to be a
direct one-to-one
match to the user's query.
Um, everybody has had the
feeling of even just clicking
on a regular blue
surf link, um, and looking at
that title tag and
then seeing the H one and
feeling a mismatch and being
like, I was just lied to.
Um, and the same thing goes for
paid landing pages.
We want that query to exactly
match what the headline and
what the kind of first
couple words are on that page
so that it feels
like a true match.
Um, and we talked a little bit
about landing
page quality score.
So that's a Google ads metric,
um, where your
landing pages are
evaluated against your keywords
and they give you
a grade of if they
think it's a good match or not.
So that's F.
All right.
Awesome.
So the second one, uh,
letter O is for offer.
And so that has to do with once
I get onto the landing page,
what is the offer?
What am I promoting?
What is, what is the action I
want people to take
on a landing page?
And we had talked before about
attention ratio being very
important in this
scenario where, um, of all the
things I'm going to ask
somebody to do, how many
other things am I also wanting?
Like if I have a goal and it's
to get them to fill out the
form, I'm asking them
to do like 25 other things.
And so offer is, do
I have a good offer?
And ideally is that the only
offer on the page?
Because it can get real
confusing when like, I have
four offers on the page.
Like, how do I even build a
page to push towards four
different, different
goals, four different things.
So the offer is important in
that I only want to have one on
the page, but also.
What is it?
Is it RFI?
Is it apply now?
Is it talk to an
enrollment advisor?
Is it request transcript?
Like there are so many
different offers I could go
with what's the offer.
And then did I build the page
around pushing
to that one offer?
So that's the second one.
I also have the third one,
which is C for credibility.
And so here is where we can get
into like all the social proof.
Like if I'm trying to show for
my program that this is a
respected program that is
trusted by others ahead of me,
then I want to be able to show
things like testimonials.
I want to be able to show
things like for graduate
degrees, like
salary info or like
companies that hire graduates
out of this program.
Essentially social proof is a
risk reduction metric
or not metric, but a
risk reduction element where,
Hey, I haven't done this
program before.
I might not know anyone who's
been through this program.
I'm going to need to spend a
bunch of money on it.
Feels like a big
step feels risky to me.
What from social proof could I
put on this page to reduce my
perceived risk?
Like, Oh wow.
Look at all the people.
Look at all these happy alumni.
Look at all the, look how high
their salaries are.
Look how many awesome companies
hire people from this program.
Okay.
Now I can exhale a little bit.
Okay.
This doesn't feel as risky.
Um, I have a lot more
credibility there,
show a lot more evidence.
So that's,
that's a credibility.
And I want to just interject
quickly the whole risk
reduction thing.
That's actually, I feel like
not language that
I've heard, um, used even
internally around social proof.
And I just really liked that
because yeah, once you explain
it like that of like this
huge price tag, and
that's a big risk.
And then the social proof
allows me to just kind of
slowly chip away at that
risk because I'm like, okay,
somebody else has
vetted it for me.
That was just a
quick interjection.
I do not hear people talk about
risk reduction when
they talk about social
proof and I like
that you did that.
Awesome.
All right.
You're up next.
Okay.
We're on our you in
focus user centered copy.
Um, I think this
one's super important too.
So focusing on user benefits
rather than
university attributes.
So I think it's, this is
definitely geared
more towards graduate.
I think when we made this point
in the last
episode, we're talking
about undergraduate university
attributes are
super important dining
hall dorm sports, but when
we're talking about graduate
marketing, um, which
is what we're talking about, we
want to focus on
the user benefits.
So it's really cool if you have
faculty that, you
know, have all of these
credits and are very esteemed
or these really
niche courses or services
available to you, but really
what somebody is buying is a
better future for themselves.
So they are paying
for, um, a promotion.
They are paying for an
increased salary.
They are paying for some kind
of big
transformation in their life.
So focusing on those user
benefits, what somebody's going
to get out of the
degree rather than what the
university has to offer.
And then the last one are S to
bring it home is simple design.
Um, so no main navigation, you
can have some on-page
navigation, which I
know we're going
to get to today.
Um, but no main navigation, no
footer, no exit points.
We have just, again, paid for
somebody to land on this page.
We do not want to make it easy
for them to exit the page.
Um, the goal, like you talked
about with offer is
to get them to submit
a form and to take a next step.
So simple design, that's focus.
That's our recap.
And now we're going to get into
a study that Chris, you were a
part of here at
vital and I am just going to
listen and be a
student of the study now.
Yeah.
I think this was
really exciting.
So, um, vital did a study
specifically, uh, who headed up
was, uh, Marissa
Como, who is our, our manager
of our writing department.
And she did a deep dive into
analyzing 50 different graduate
program landing pages.
So, uh, she analyzed them
across, uh, I think 15 plus
different attributes to
see what do they
have in common?
What do they not
have in common?
Where are they strong?
Where are they weak to see if
we could come up with a report
that says, okay,
kind of the state of graduate
landing pages is this.
I love this.
And so this is, so I'm going to
go over several different
statistics that we
came out of the study with
being like, okay, this is where
graduate programs
get it right.
This is where they
miss in a big way.
And this is how
they could improve.
Cool.
So, uh, the first thing we'll
kind of ease into this was
just, were they
even using landing pages?
So that's the first question.
And so that gets answered
generally if there's a main
navigation or not.
So the study found that 74% of
pages do remove
the main navigation.
So they're using a
landing page of some sort.
So that's great.
So that that's a
positive thing.
So majority of graduate
programs are using landing
pages, uh, which just
means they've removed the exit
points and there's
no main navigation.
So landing pages are airports
because landing
pages are airports,
but we have to
explain it again.
Yes.
So the landing page, um, we
want it to be an airport.
We want people to arrive and
immediately just be ushered
forward to where they
want to go.
We want web
pages to be museums.
We want people to land.
We want them to look in all
directions and decide what path
serves the best
love it pump to
bring that back.
It is.
Yeah, it's good.
Yeah.
But that that's why.
So again, if you remove a lot
navigation, you are
constricting their
ability to navigate elsewhere,
which means we get to focus
them on our page,
focus them on the offer, focus
them airport style.
Okay.
Check 74%.
That feels pretty good.
Yeah.
Doing good.
So like that's the start of it.
We're doing, we're doing, we're
generally, we're all
using the best practice
of a landing page.
We can all exhale a little bit
because man, if
they weren't, we'd be
even in such a worse spot.
Um, but then the next part that
we looked at was do any of them
use any internal
navigation?
So we would call this like
anchor navigation that would
jump you up and
down the page, because what we
did find is a lot of these
landing pages were
pretty long.
There's no way to
navigate that page.
You just have to scroll it and
scroll up and
down the whole time.
Now in your head, okay, it's a
long landing page.
Now think of it as a
mobile landing page.
It is even longer and you have
no way to give that visitor a
way to understand
what's on the page and a way to
get up and down the page.
And from our heat
maps, we know that.
If we don't give them anchor
navigations, they
don't scroll very far down.
Um, and so for us, that's a
miss because 88% of pages don't
include an internal
navigation.
So why majority have no way to
move up and down long landing
pages, some landing
pages that might not be
necessary because they are so
short, but, um, with what we
were seeing here, a lot of them
were longer and most of them
were missing that.
For the listener, Chris is
playing it cool, but he is
obsessed with internal
navigations on landing pages.
I am sitting here smirking
cause I'm like, wow, he's not
really driving this
home as hard as I expected.
Chris loves popping up a
paperclip landing page in a
meeting and being like,
look at this internal nav.
It's like a microsite and you
click around and it's so good.
So yes, you just did a very
good job delivering that.
So the other reason that I love
them is because when we run the
heat maps on the
landing pages, we can see of
the options in the, in the
navigation, what people
were most interested in.
And so if we break it up and
let me say like, Hey, program
overview, tuition,
financial aid, you know,
faculty, alumni, like whatever
we're going to have on that
landing page, I can then go in
and see which of those they
clicked on the most.
And then I can go back and
revise the page.
If I have, let's see, five
different sections on my
landing page, and I can
put all of those in
my, uh, my anchor nav.
I can then quickly see when
they come, when they land on
the top of the page,
which ones they
click immediately.
So that also gives me a lot of
Intel to then go back and
revise the page and say,
this never gets clicked.
No one cares about
whatever this topic is.
Let's get it out of here.
Replace it with a topic.
We know they, that we could at
least test that
they care about.
So I think it gives
us a lot more data too.
It's better for the user
because they get to just get to
exactly what they want and
hop up and down.
It also gives them a
preview of the page.
Like again, I don't
have a lot of time.
I'm not going to
scan this entire thing.
This tells me what's on it and
I can just go to
write what I care about.
I also, I might be going way
too deep in it, but it gives
the user the illusion
of a choice because they are,
they're choosing what section
they want to look at.
We're just bringing them
further down the page, but I do
think it's kind of like
it's empowering, it's buying
them into
engaging with the page.
Again, that's going so deep,
but it's a
different experience.
Just land on a page and scroll
versus landing on a page and
making an active
choice to click on a
navigation, which everyone's
familiar with using, and then
jump down to
exactly what serves you.
So internal naps.
Like it.
The next thing, and this is
very specific to graduate
programs, is program
details are generally missing
on these landing pages.
So there'll be kind of high
level landing pages.
They'll say, Hey, overview of
the programs about this.
And maybe they mentioned some
awards or some social proof.
Well, we'll have some stats on
that later too.
But they generally don't talk
about what we would consider
very critical need to
know information for someone to
want to make a decision about
even considering
this graduate program.
And so the first thing that we
saw is missing is
that program length.
Okay.
Telling the visitor on the page
about program length.
How long is this grad is the
graduate program?
Yeah.
It matters to me
how long is this?
Is it a one year program?
Really?
Two years.
Is it like, I need to know that
this is part of like in my
brain where I'm trying
to decide is
this for me or not?
And it doesn't tell
me how long it is.
It's just going to leave a box
unchecked in my brain.
And that's not good because
that's perceived risk.
That's ambiguity, right?
I don't know how long it is.
Okay.
So 52%.
So program length is
listed on 52% of pages.
So basically 50 50 coin flip.
If you're going to be a visitor
on that page and learn how long
the program is.
Can you just like make a guess
at why you think
it's getting left off?
Cause that just seems crazy.
Cause I think every degree
program page for the most part
has program length on it.
That just seems like such a
table stakes detail to have.
Why do you think
that's missing?
Um, my guess a lot of the time
is that universities
write pages from the
university perspective first
versus the user
perspective first.
And in their heads, they
already know that they know the
program length and all
their programs are that length.
And so it's kind of
like an assumption.
It's not the most
empathetic approach.
You're not taking it from the
approach of the visitor to the
page, but you're
like, all my programs are this
like, I would never
think to, to, to tell
people about that part of it.
I actually just had
this quick tangent.
Um, we're proposing a redesign
of a university's
degree pages to include the
kind of quick facts box or at a
glance bar that we're
accustomed to seeing on,
um, degree pages.
And this actually
just jogged the memory.
They were like, are you sure we
need to have program duration?
Isn't it going to be
kind of repetitive?
Like they're all
going to say two years.
And I was like, yeah, no, you
need to have program duration.
That's repetitive to you, but I
might be landing on the page
and just looking
at this one degree.
And so that's my only time
where I'm finding it out.
So anyway, yes, I think you're
actually totally spot
on with that answer.
I was very curious what you
would say, but I do think,
yeah, people just
think it's a no brainer given.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that that's, that's the
trap of being any internal
marketer when you're, when
you're a marketer on the
institutional side, where like
there are things that
you for sure know,
it's obvious to you.
Yeah. And then you need to get out of
your own head and be like, but
what's not obvious
to them.
Um, so that's missing.
Um, tuition, this is huge.
Yeah.
Tuition is
mentioned on 16% of pages.
That's it.
16% of pages.
So like over 80% of the pages
don't mention
tuition, which we know is key
critical
decision-making factor.
Not mentioned when we looked at
these 50 different pages.
So, I mean, that's just, that
might be the biggest miss of
this entire study is
that this is a critical piece
of information that
people who are looking
for it, who are considering a
graduate program,
they need to know that.
And it's not listed.
Sometimes it's gated
behind the RFI form.
Sometimes they'll say, Hey, to
get it, fill it out.
Um, but most of the time that's
not even clear.
So there's actually, you don't
really know how to get it and
it's not mentioned.
And so again, when we talk
about risk reduction earlier,
ambiguity leads to
perceived risk, I don't know
what's out there.
I don't know, you know, if I
hit apply or if I
hit RFI, I don't really
know what I'm signing up for.
I also don't know if it's from
me, you know, like
just take any everyday
purchasing that you were doing.
You wouldn't like, if you're
going to buy a new car, you
wouldn't, you wouldn't
be like, I don't know how much
these cars are, but like, I
guess I go with this one.
Like, no way.
You would get yourself
bracketed down to like, I can
afford this much.
And these cars are this much.
It's not any different here.
Um, but for some
reason it's left off.
Well, let me kind of present an
argument for you.
Chris, what if my tuition is
really expensive?
Like I'm scared of
the sticker shock.
I'm scared.
I'm going to pay to get people
on the landing page.
They're going to see the price
and they're going to leave.
Yeah.
Well, so one, that's going to
happen eventually.
Anyway, if they're going to get
sticker shock,
then they're going
to get sticker shock later on.
Okay.
Um, but more so that's a
marketing challenge, right?
Like, okay, your
tuition is very high.
So like you have to earn it.
You have to show via your
positioning and your messaging
and your social proof
that like it deserves to be
that this high.
And for you, you should be okay
with paying this
much because it's such
an esteem degree from such a
prestigious institution.
You know, look at the, look at
the alumni, look at the places
they work, whatever
it is like this for me, that's
just a marketing challenge.
Okay.
Yeah, definitely expensive.
Let's approach this as a
marketing challenge.
How can we justify this price?
Um, because that's going to
happen either way.
And I'll say too, when it comes
to tuition, I think one
approach, if you
don't want the sticker shock of
the full tuition, I
think it's totally
fine to do cost per credit and
the number of
credits, like you can let me
do the multiplication myself.
Um, and then that does get you
away from the full price tag.
Being on the page
is kind of jarring.
Yeah.
As long as they're
both on the page.
Yeah.
What I don't love is the
scavenger hunt, which, which
happens on a lot of
university websites where it's
like for tuition, go to this
totally separate
part of the site, like I'll
tell you the credits here, but
the cost per credit
will be on the, the other page
that I have to go to.
And it's like, Oh, I don't have
to go to like six pages to, and
then do all this
math to figure
out what this is.
Yeah.
Um, then honestly that
creates ambiguity too.
And I have to run around
because then it's like, do I do
the math right?
You know, and like that's risk
that you're introducing to as
the institution
of like, what if they do the
math wrong and they opt out
because you put the
credits over here and the cost
per credit over here and they
did the calculation
wrong and they said,
it's too expensive.
So like you, this introduces
risk to do that from, from
both, from both perspectives.
So I don't love the scavenger
hunt part of it.
I find that to be a very
empathetic on empathetic
approach to like this person
just wants to know how much it
is, why are you making it?
We go to several different
pages to compare all these
different things.
Um, so I think tied to that,
and this is one of the ways
that you can lessen the
burden, let's say if you have a
high tuition program
is the two other staffs
we found is around scholarships
and financial aid.
So only 14% of the pages
referenced financial aid and
only 16% of the
pages talked
about scholarships.
So like just to recap, tuitions
mentioned on 16% of
the pages, period.
And then 14% mentioned
financial aid and 16% talk
about scholarships.
So like just the whole
financial absent, just absent,
like that's the key data.
I need to decide if this
program is for me or not.
And to go back to user
benefits, some people might be
pursuing a graduate
degree just to enrich their
lives just because they want to
be a lifelong learner.
But most of these people, this
is an equation and
like, this is ROI.
We are paying for this degree
now so that we can get this
title and this salary later.
So to just remove the full
financial portion of the
conversation does
feel kind of crazy.
It does.
It does.
And it just, it's going to
reduce conversion
rates just because
you're not going
to have it there.
You're not going to know if
this is for me or not.
Um, but then when we, if we get
back to like the, what if it's
a high tuition?
Like you need to then mention
financial aid and scholarships.
Like those are two like levers
you have to deal with,
with a higher tuition
or any tuition
price, to be honest.
You know, any tuition price,
those are a couple of levers
are like, yes, it is.
But we have generous
financial aid options.
We have great scholarships.
Like these things
really, really help.
Yeah.
Um, but for some reason
they're, they're
barely mentioned.
Uh, and so like that whole area
is just generally a
miss on these pages.
And it's interesting, but it's,
it's a, it's an
easy thing to change.
Yep. If they can understand that,
like, okay, I just need to get
this information on the
page, I need to probably get it
higher up on the page.
Cause again, I'm
just checking boxes.
Like I just, it's this program
for me, this, this, this, this,
like, as soon as
you can see that it's for you,
or you can see a financial path
to making it for you
via financial aid and
scholarships, you say, this is
a real contender.
I could really do this.
Yeah.
Um, now you're on a short list
versus a, I don't know.
I'm not sure.
I guess we'll see.
Um, you know, generally that
might be okay, but if somebody
else has it, then
they're going to be much more,
they're going to be
more sure, more confident
and feel less risky about
anyone who tells it to them.
We even just tested for a
university partner, um,
updating language on the
paper cook landing pages to
address grad plus loans going
away, purely, um, kind
of for of course the education,
but also for the empathy play
of just, we know
that this is happening, like
this is unavoidable.
This is a part of the
conversation right now.
And we want you to know that
this university
is aware of that.
And so we are prepared to have
conversations about
scholarships and
financial aid with you in light
of grad plus loans going away.
So even just letting people
know like, Hey, we have the
same concerns that you
have on our mind and we're
prepared to
address them with you.
I think it goes a long way in
building rapport, um, and trust
with a perspective
student.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think for graduate
programs too, like this is one
of the things where as a
marketer, it's probably a good
idea to go talk to the
enrollment advisors or the
admissions team or whoever it
is that's talking to these
potential students to
see like, what are the first
questions they're asking you
and what are their
concerns like all of that, that
stuff that you get from them
should be front
loaded into your landing pages.
Hey, everyone's really
concerned about grad
plus loans going away.
The first question is always
about tuition
and financial aid.
Like, okay,
let's talk about it.
Let's talk about it.
Let's get it on these pages.
We know they're having it in
that second conversation.
Let's move that up.
Oh, I love that.
Um, all right.
And then the last one, the last
kind of big takeaway here that
we noticed was,
uh, video.
So only 22% of graduate program
landing pages use video.
So very, very low percentage
and video is such a great
communication medium to
use that can help you do every
single thing that we've talked
about so far can
be done via video.
You can tell
people about tuition.
You can tell them
about financial aid.
You can tell them what the
program overview.
You can show social proof
outcomes, social
proof, alumni, testimonials.
All of that.
And you can just, you can do it
in a quick way that is
compelling and inspiring.
Um, but no one is using video.
Yeah.
Uh, video should be top of the
landing page right up there.
Big play button.
Get a quick 45 second, one
minute overview of the program
and just get them
something to be inspired about
should make it feel
real and tangible.
Like there's just the landing
pages are just cluttered with
copy and words and
like also stock photos.
Like if we could give them
something that made this feel
like a real tangible
program that was inspiring
right off the bat, we would do
such a better job
converting on
our landing pages.
So that's just another area
where it's a,
it's a total miss.
And I'm saying video like one
at the top, but honestly, you
could have four or five
videos to explain
every single section.
Um, I think that could go
really, really well.
And it's just very underused on
these landing pages.
I love having video that
accompanies text.
I'm doing that more and more,
um, and working with
universities on that, on our
curriculum page, if we're
describing a course, great.
We have a video with the
faculty member
describing that course.
You can read one, you can watch
one, you can do
both kind of choose
your own adventure there.
Um, but I agree a video, it's
like, it's a, it's a handshake.
It's a first impression.
It's we're actually hearing
from the university in the
university's voice
rather than just
text on a page.
Yep.
And again, when we look at heat
maps of landing pages that do
you have video or
even program overview pages
that have video, like those
elements get clicked.
A lot.
Like that's one of the most
clicked elements on
most pages on a website.
If they have a video on that
page and it's high
up enough, you're
going to see that get clicked.
Um, well, I think this study is
so cool and so valuable.
I know as a higher education
marketer, we are
all always in our
various chats at work going,
who has a really good higher ed
PPC landing pages?
Anyone have a two page forms?
Anyone have a one page form?
Yeah.
Does anyone have a good landing
page with video?
So I am going to guess Chris,
the study is on the vital
design website.
It is.
Yep.
Okay, cool.
We'll get that link in this
episode so that
everyone can read it.
Um, but otherwise what are our,
what are kind of our,
or one or two things
university marketers could do
this week based on
what we just discussed.
Yep.
So a couple of things I would
audit my landing pages against
what we found here.
Because what we're looking for
here is like, all right, this
is a 50 different
graduate landing page at
graduate program landing pages.
Where's the, where's the blue
ocean, the open space?
What is no one doing that we
know matters that, that we
could do and then audit
your own landing
page against it.
Are we not doing it?
We're not using video.
We're not talking
about financial aid.
We're not talking
about scholarships.
Okay.
Let's get that
stuff on the page.
So I would audit.
First thing I would do is just
audit my own landing page
against the study.
And then I would look at your
competitor landing pages and
see the areas that they
are saying the same thing or
that they have boxes checked
where we don't.
And again, see how we can make
it even more compelling by
again, using the
different
attributes from the study.
Yeah.
And I think too, I mean, I want
to make this feel as.
Unintimidating as possible.
Like I think some of these
things you talked
about putting an internal
navigation on the page that
maybe you have a module that
already exists that
can suffice that need, maybe
that's development.
And so maybe that one doesn't
come first, you know, maybe you
start with just
getting program
duration on the page.
Maybe you start with just
getting a blurb about
tuition or financial
aid scholarships, grad plus
loans, just kind of pick one or
two of these things.
And again, I know we talked
about this in the last episode,
do it on one page, do
it on one page, see how
conversion rate goes up or
doesn't, but hopefully goes up.
And then now you have a use
case, you have proof of
concept, and now you kind
of have the wind in your sails
to start rolling
this out on another page
and another page
and another page.
Oh, great way to start.
All right.
Well, thank you, Chris.
And thank you to Marissa.
This was an awesome study.
I love to hear about it.
She did a great job.
Thank you.
All right.
See you next time.