How a Digital Prospectus can help you increase new student applications

Leading digital publishing platforms are packed full of features that will enhance your university prospectus. By taking advantage of just some of these features your university can reach new audiences, deliver more engaging experiences and unlock invaluable insight into how potential students engage with your prospectus. 

In this post we shine a light on the core benefits of a digital prospectus and how they can be leveraged to increase new student applications for your university.

Increase reach by opening up new marketing channels

Going digital can significantly increase the reach of your prospectus, giving you access to all new marketing channels to grow your audience and connect with them in the digital space they call home.

Here are the biggest marketing channels a digital prospectus can unlock to significantly increase your reach and drive more new student applications:

• Become visible in major search engines - a digital prospectus is indexable by major search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo. So, when students begin searching for prospective universities, your digital prospectus has the capacity to appear in major search engines.
• Leverage the power of social platforms - almost all prospective students are active on social platforms including TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and X (aka Twitter). A digital prospectus allows you to build a presence in these channels, where your asset can be instantly shared.
• Email your prospectus to interested individuals - a digital prospectus can be emailed to interested prospects and parents, either as an attachment or a clickable link. Leverage your mailing lists to share the latest prospectus with interested individuals, or offer an instantly available alternative to a print prospectus sent via post.

Add lead capture forms direct to your digital prospectus

Once your prospectus enters the digital realm you unlock the capacity to include a lead capture form. This simplifies the process for collecting vital contact details from prospective new student applicants, encouraging them to apply.

With YUDU Publisher, you have two main options for including a lead capture form in your digital prospectus:

• Embed an existing lead capture form using an iframe.
• Build your own lead capture form directly inside the digital prospectus.

Alternatively, a softer approach could be to direct interested parties to your main website using a content hyperlink and they can fill out the form there.

Deliver accessibility features to connect with students who have visual or motor impairments

Going digital lets you create a prospectus accessible to prospective students with visual or motor impairments. Deliver key accessibility features available with online content like compatibility with screen reader technology, keyboard shortcuts and adjustable font size.

Accessibility in your digital prospectus provides an invaluable resource for prospective students with visual and motor impairments to engage with and learn about your university. 

Here at YUDU Publisher, our team can even help you design and develop a digital prospectus to meet the requirements of WCAG and ADA compliance in higher education.

Use multimedia to deliver highly engaging and memorable experiences

Gen Z are the first true digital natives, to capture their attention and stay relevant you have to meet them in digital space. 

With a digital prospectus, you can integrate multimedia assets directly into your content to drive unparalleled engagement. Take advantage of your existing digital assets:

• Embed virtual campus tours for interested students to experience the university without ever leaving your prospectus.
• Include promotional videos you created to present the university in the best light. 

It's not enough to create a digital replica of your print prospectus, you need to create a meaningful online experience that GenZ can relate to. If you can achieve this, then you're on the way to significantly increasing new student applications.

Use analytics tools to continually improve your digital prospectus 

You can add analytics to your digital prospectus to track and measure the performance of your content. Unlocking insights from the analytics data you capture will help you improve the conversion rate of your digital prospectus to drive increased new student applications.

Here are just a few ways analytics data can be used improve prospectus content and drive increased new student applications:

• Identify underperforming pages - look at pages with high exit rates, and low time spent on page to understand problem pages that can be improved.
• Analyse the performance of different marketing channels - if your 're spending on online advertising to drive traffic, or focussing on a specific channel, you can analyse the performance of these channels and adjust accordingly.
• Visualise performance across devices - compare the performance of your digital prospectus across different device types to identify potential design issues to be fixed.

YUDU Publisher lets you add analytics to your digital prospectus by integrating with Google Analytics (GA4) or utilising our own in-house tool.

Use remarketing to re-engage prospective students

Leading platforms - like YUDU Publisher - let you add remarketing pixels to your digital prospectus, building audiences to re-engage with targeted advertising. Remarketing will help you increase new student applications by connecting with an already engaged audience all across the web.

Through segmentation you can create highly relevant advertising to recapture the attention of readers and bring them back to your digital prospectus.

The YUDU Platform supports remarketing pixels for Google, Microsoft, Meta (Facebook & Instagram), LinkedIn and X. You can build retargeting audiences direct from your digital prospectus visitors and leverage the vast search, social, and display networks of these tech giants.

Reduce print and distribution costs and funnel the savings into marketing

Creating a digital prospectus isn't about replacing print, it's about providing prospective students a choice in how they engage with your university. It also has the added benefit of delivering cost savings that can be funnelled into additional marketing activities.

A digital prospectus has a fraction of the associated costs of print and distribution. By diversifying your prospectus offering you can reduce the number of prospectuses printed and sent. Every time someone chooses a digital prospectus, that's money saved you can focus instead on additional marketing efforts to drive more visitors and new student applications.

What next?

As you can see, a digital prospectus can significantly increase new student applications by growing your audience, improving engagement and driving increased conversion.

To find out more about how YUDU Publisher can help you in delivering a digital prospectus that achieves all of the above, book a demo with one of our consultants.

Blog Cover Photo by Pang Yuhao on Unsplash