If your school has been trying to get new leads online, you might be familiar with lead-generation landing pages. These pages are used in various marketing campaigns, including email marketing, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and content marketing. Designed to convert visitors into leads, lead-generation landing pages are essential tools for schools to stand out in today’s digital landscape.
When masterfully crafted and executed, landing pages can become potent tools for helping schools attract, engage, and convert prospective students. Continue reading to discover how to create the perfect lead gen landing page for your school!
What Is a Lead Gen Landing Page, and Why Do You Need One?
A lead generation landing page is a web page specifically designed to capture information from prospects, typically in the form of their contact details, with the primary goal of converting them into leads for schools. Unlike regular web pages, landing pages are not part of a school’s standard website. They are designed with a target audience in mind to serve a specific purpose, allowing schools to communicate and engage with prospective students, parents, and the broader community.
Example: After clicking on this University of Florida LinkedIn ad, prospective students are redirected to a lead gen landing page that offers a wide variety of information to help them choose the university.
Lead generation landing pages allow schools to share important information about their programs, faculty, facilities, events, and policies in a structured and organized manner. Schools can use these pages to facilitate online registration and enrollment and promote events such as open houses, information sessions, webinars, etc.
Lead gen landing pages are a cost-effective way to reach potential students, as they allow schools to target a specific audience without wasting resources on ads for prospects who are not likely to convert. Once leads are captured through the landing page, schools can engage in lead nurturing through personalized communication with prospective students and their families, helping them make their way down the enrollment funnel. Last but not least, landing pages can help your school reinforce its brand and increase brand awareness, ensuring your school’s continued growth and success.
Do you need to generate more leads? At HEM, our specialist can help you reach your lead-generation goals! Get in touch with us today.
Designing the Perfect Lead Gen Landing Page for Your School
Now that you know the benefits of lead gen landing pages, you might wonder, “how do I create a lead generation landing page?” To create effective lead generation landing pages, defining a clear objective while considering your target personas is crucial. If needed, segment your audience to tailor your pages to their needs (parents vs. students, bachelor’s students vs. master’s students, etc.). Remember that the best landing pages for lead generation are designed with the target persona in mind, ensuring alignment with the established goal, which is then reflected in its call-to-action (CTA).
Example: Even though these two landing pages are from Yorkville University, their design and information changes depending on their target audience: the page on the left targets older students looking to enter a counselling master’s program, while the page on the right targets a specific group of students looking for a career in interior design. Though both pages keep consistent branding, the particular elements (graphics, copy, CTA) of each page speak to the needs and interests of their target audience. Notice how the visuals of the design page are more object-oriented, and the photo used on the counselling page speaks about human connection and interaction.
Pro tip: Landing pages allow schools to target specific demographics or prospective student segments. Schools can attract more qualified leads by tailoring the content and messaging on the landing page to address the unique needs and interests of these groups.
Once you have outlined your objective, the persona the page is targeting, and the needs it should be addressing, you can choose the branding elements you wish to include. While these elements are meant to catch the attention of the page’s visitors, keep in mind that they should be aligned with your school’s branding guidelines. To enhance your school’s online presence, incorporate your school’s distinctive logo, captivating branding colors, and compelling slogan or tagline into your lead generation landing page.
Another final consideration to remember when designing your lead gen landing page is avoiding navigation distractions, which is crucial for maximizing conversion rates and capturing valuable leads. When visitors are presented with numerous navigation options, they may become distracted and lose focus on the page’s primary objective. By eliminating unnecessary links and simplifying the navigation, you help direct visitors toward their intended action and minimize the likelihood of them leaving the page.
What Makes a Good Lead Generation Landing Page?
In addition to having consistent branding and a clear CTA, the best lead generation landing pages also have a clear and concise headline that catches the attention of visitors. Your headline should be benefit-focused and compelling, telling your audience what your school offers. You can think about a headline that grabs visitors’ attention and creates a sense of urgency, persuading them to continue reading and take action. For instance, in the following Yale School of Management landing page, the headline clearly discusses the program offered and the expected outcomes prospective students can expect.
Once you’ve caught your visitor’s attention with a compelling headline, you’ll want to keep them engaged by highlighting your unique selling points. Tell your audience what makes your school or program unique and why they should choose it. You can create this section with your persona’s needs in mind. In the case of Yale’s Women’s Leadership Program, the institution highlighted the program’s versatility and some key takeaways.
Another key point to consider when creating your lead gen landing page is to tell a story. You need to make sure that your copy is informative and persuasive and that it keeps your audience entertained as it delivers your message. While you want to provide your audience with facts, you want to use a tone that makes them want to enroll in your institution. Additionally, you should integrate your CTA in a place that feels natural and visible. The success of your lead generation landing page depends on the effectiveness of your chosen CTA. You must invest time and effort in crafting a compelling and persuasive CTA that aligns with your institution to achieve your goals. We recommend you make your CTA button visually appealing and use action-oriented language to ensure it stands out from the rest of the page.
Avoid common landing page mistakes such as redirecting visitors to your home page or having an ineffective form that asks prospects to provide too personal information. Since one of the main components of a lead gen landing page is a form where visitors can submit their information, you should consider what kind of information you need to ask to nurture your leads.
Pro tip: Make sure your form is visible and stands out. You can use different colours to ensure the visitor’s attention is directed to the form, as seen in the example below.
Source: College Cumberland
Finally, to gain your prospects’ trust, include trust signals such as student/parent testimonials, words from faculty members, awards, and certifications. These will make your prospects feel confident about their choice and make your school stand out from the rest.
Tips to Optimize Your Landing Page for Lead Generation
The last step to ensure that your education landing page is designed for success is to optimize it. Lead gen landing page optimization ensures schools maximize their lead generation efforts and achieve conversion goals. If you are wondering how to optimize a landing page for lead generation, these tips are for you:
- A/B test your lead gen pages regularly to understand what elements are working and what needs to be improved. The A/B testing process involves creating multiple page versions and testing elements such as headlines, CTAs, copy, or form fields to determine what works best with your audience.
- Optimize your page to be mobile-friendly, as many visitors may be accessing it from smartphones or tablets. It is crucial to structure the page in an accessible manner and to ensure that key elements like the headline, form and CTA are visible, guaranteeing a seamless user experience when navigating the page.
- Keep monitoring the performance of your landing pages to make data-driven decisions for improvements.
Videos on landing pages can increase conversions by up to 86%, so adding a video that communicates your unique selling points can be a plus. Try to feature promotional videos or student testimonials.
