Creating a Destination

As the diversity of competition in higher education continues to rise and
the cross-channel playing field is further leveled by the ability for any
marketer to gain impressions, today’s differentiator is no longer in media
budgets and volume of content, but in the quality of your content and the
fidelity of its presentation.

This content (web pages, landing pages, apps)
will be designed with simplicity and action in
mind.
No longer will it be the way of the technical
world, to be either overly laden in whirly-gig
“features”, or to be kludgy in appearance.

Today, a new startup called LetGo is finally
pointing and laughing at the rot Craigslist
has bestowed on itself through interface
and experience design neglect, offering a
beautifully simple and intuitive, geolocated
app to list and sell your stuff to people
nearby
Apple, for example, taught us that a highly
technical and complex device didn’t have
to be confusing or ugly—that it could
instead feel natural to infants and the
elderly.

Higher education in particular, already faces an up-hill battle in
getting the eyes of prospects and donors. Squandering the
opportunity to build a lasting relationship with each of those
leads, when you finally grab their gaze is, well, a complete
waste of marketing dollars.

Fortunately, we don’t have to upend
our entire brand experience in a fell
swoop to make positive differences in
engagement.
Instead we can select strategic
touchpoints to attract new fans without
upending our brand

While our web properties are juggling the wants and needs of many
audiences, old and new, and a complete redesign is always at risk
of upsetting those familiar with navigation systems and information
locations, we have the benefit of flexibility when working to attract
new audiences through onboarding touchpoints like landing pages

Pages That Pull:
Designing killer landing
pages

Similarly, websites have become inherently
transactional. Pages and sites are no longer
about telling, but about asking, listening, and
personalizing content for each visitor.
Today, every page on your
website is a homepage and your
brand face. Every page is
someone’s first and last
impression.

A good landing
page is one
that…

Stops trying to be something for everyone, and
instead focuses on being everything for
someone. Present and amplify only the core
messaging, tasking, and calls-to-action. Challenge
groupthink and don’t water down your landing pages
with secondary requirements;

Is accessible, usable, and appropriate for a
specific context. It dovetails into the part of
a user journey and decision-making
process it’s designed for, leaning on a
prospect’s existing familiarity to provide
next steps and brand reinforcement,
without redundancy;

Trims forms to only the fields needed
to make contact. Unfortunately, forms
are often the first place we add more
fields, as departments impose their
requirements, but it’s well-known and
time-tested that shorter forms increase
the number of conversions;

Organizes forms and information requests to be
personal first. It seems logical to ask a prospect for their
required contact information before asking about their
interests, because that’s how our Customer Relationship
Management tables are structured. However, that
approach feels just as cold and mechanical in a landing
page as it would if we met the prospect in an elevator.
Visitors want to be asked about their
passions and interests, to imagine a
conversation and become emotionally
invested, before filling in the logical
vitals;

Feels natural in the devices it’s designed for,
including in load time. Not only does the content need
to be trimmed, utilitarian, and goal-supporting, but the
technology does too. Landing pages need to be
responsive to the devices and the networks they’ll be
used on. If a prospect is using the landing page on a park
bench in the sun, pay attention to contrast and legibility.
Think through real-world usage and validate designs;

Uses the voice of the reader, without losing
brand authority. High education needs to
sound smart, but also personable—not like a
research paper. Cut back on the gimmicky
“y’alls” but don’t be afraid to write like a
human;

Presents verbs over nouns. Make it
actionable! Using verbs in headlines allows a
reader to envision their action. “Browse our
programs,” “Join our newsletter,” “Follow us
on Twitter.” This supports the writing like a
human bit;

Has a clear call-to-action, and supports it. This is
the one piece that should be repeated. State the
purpose of the landing page clearly. Provide a button
with a clear label. Add the call-to-action as an in-
context text link within or at the end of a small
paragraph of text leading into it. Try the squint test and
run a usability test. Make sure your viewer knows in
their brief glance what we want (need) them to do. All
other content in the landing page leads to and
persuades this action; and

Is A/B tested and measured. If you’re not sure,
try it more than one way. It’s often easier to launch
two landing pages than one. Track conversions in
each for a brief period of time, then select the
landing page that’s performing better to blanket
across all inbound visitors. A/B test multiple pieces
of a landing page, from the button labels and
colors to the order of content. Use this data as a
means to win internal debates.

A successful landing page is one that
recognizes it’s a single lilypad in a
much larger, 360-degree brand
experience—and capitalizes on that
recognition.

This broadening and unifying of the higher
education brand—this 360-degree design
experience—will come via a handful of
intentional efforts, including:

Thinking beyond the “graphic” – Across print,
broadcast, and digital, recognize your brand
experience as everything in between. Rethink
tangible touchpoints and design collateral to
support and extend larger brand and marketing
efforts. Consider how a brand experience can
be crafted through in-person exchanges,
personalized environmental interactions like on-
campus displays, and non-disposable take-
homes utilizing the capabilities of apps and
devices;

Conducting field research – Run usability tests
on today’s applications to identify market and brand
opportunities for improvement. Conduct prospect
interviews, focus groups, and collaborative
sketching studios with prospects and stakeholders,
rather than following the higher education herd;

Understanding, mapping, and
redesigning workflows – Use test findings
to map out and understand internal and
external workflows, journeys, and
processes. Understand the prospect
decision-making journey and lifecycle
inside and out, to minimize possible
prospects from falling through the cracks
and to sharpen existing touchpoints;

Establishing and extending atomic brand
libraries – Build cohesive brand UI libraries to be
used across digital applications and printed
collateral—iconography, photography style, code
components and widgets, grid systems and
templates, and even content libraries to pick up
brand language. Build this library as a flexible
brand foundation and not as a rigid, over-policed
system, to make it easier for growth and
refinement;

Identify and update key touchpoints –
Review what we know about the workflows
and journeys to pick low-hanging fruit or
particularly problematic engagement points,
to develop new brand assets, new
experiences, and better conversion tools one
at a time. Avoid overhauling everything at
once and encouraging failure.

This Slideshare reflects the idfive
whitepaper “Creating a Destination” by
Director of User Experience Anthony D.
Paul. You can read the full whitepaper, or
contact idfive for higher education based,
integrated marketing consultation.

Creating a Destination

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