3 Ways to Pack Valuable Content into Overlooked School Communications

I love little fixes that can add up to big results. Drink one more glass of water for extra health benefits? On it. Take the stairs for extra steps on my FitBit? All day, every day. Wake up 10 minutes earlier to read a few extra pages of that book? Set the alarm.

So I love the idea of taking everyday areas of communication and making them work harder as marketing tools. Because nowadays, with online communications, almost everything is an opportunity for conversion.

Here are three of the easiest ways you can add more value to the communications you already have in place at your school:

Spruce Up Your Thank You Pages

OK tell the truth: do you even know what content is on your school’s Thank You pages? I’m talking about the pages that confirm a subscription, or let people know their form has been successfully submitted.

Yes, those simple pages hold lots of possibility — because they’re in front of someone who has already shown interest in a topic. So take advantage of that interest by providing more content related to that topic.

For example, if the person has submitted a form to find out more about a specific academic program, add a program overview video to that Thank You page. Or, include a free eBook about the benefits of that program, or the career opportunities in that field.

Want to go super simple? Link to another page on your website, or prompt visitors to check out your social media accounts. Just don’t let your Thank You’s be a dead end.

Add More to Your Email Signature

Another area often overlooked: your email signature. Yet it’s one of the most common “calls-to-action” you use every day. So let’s make the most of it!

Here at Cursive, we use WiseStamp to make our email signatures both pretty and functional. WiseStamp allows you to connect an RSS feed to your email, so that when you send an email, it also includes your most recent blog post.

Here’s a screen shot of my signature:
wisestamp example
Depending on your role, your email can include different types of content. If you’re in marketing, you may want to include a blog RSS feed — because you’re then promoting your communications amongst your internal school staff. Admissions professionals may want to steer people toward an important enrollment piece. Financial aid professionals may want to link to an FAQ document. It depends on whether your role is internal-facing or external-facing. But either way, there are ways to make the most of this feature.

Make Blog Posts More Enticing

So you’ve written a popular blog post — that’s awesome! Now make the most of it by adding a content upgrade.

A content upgrade is a piece of content designed to entice people to sign up or subscribe. Content upgrades are gated content — meaning, they can only be accessed by providing your name or email address.

To create a content upgrade for a blog post, you want to develop a piece of content that adds more value on top of what is already included in the post. So if your post is giving parents advice on how to pick the right school for their child, your content upgrade could be a checklist of things to look at during the review process.

Content upgrades are a fantastic way to provide additional value to your audience, showcase your expertise AND grow your audience database. (And if you want to see an example of this in action, read this post about gated content — and download the content upgrade, a Big Workbook of eBook Ideas.)

Those are three ways to pack a valuable content punch. Want more? Sign up to get our weekly email — every week, we’ll give you one tip you can use right away to strengthen your school story. Click to join in!