Part One: Sharpen and clarify your message through discovery
In higher education, the phrase “we need a new website” often gets tossed around like it’s the magic fix for all institutional challenges. And sure, a complete overhaul can be transformative and sounds exciting – until you realize the price tag is well over $100,000, requires months (or years) of planning, and demands serious staff capacity and bandwidth. For many institutions right now a redesign may not be in the cards.
But here’s the thing: a six-figure website rebuild isn’t always the best – or most feasible – solution. In fact, incremental, strategic improvements can deliver measurable results that help you meet institutional priorities and stay within your budget or resource constraints. The key is to work with what you have, keep your finger on the pulse of what matters most, and embrace the more subtle power of phased progress. Your website is never “done” and doesn’t have to get perfect all at once. Your goal should not be perfection but improvement, step by step.
This post is part one of a five-part blog series specifically for higher education marketing leaders. We’ll walk through how to make meaningful progress on your website when you can’t overhaul everything at once. Each part focuses on a key strategy for driving impact, starting with the most important first step: Sharpening and clarifying your message through discovery.
Start at the Top
A website is a living, breathing thing - beautifully imperfect and ever evolving.There is always so much pressure to move forward and adapt…but sometimes what serves institutions best is taking a moment to pause - step back - and dig deeper.
When was the last time you truly evaluated the core messaging on your website? Higher education websites often fall into a “sea of beige” trap: trying to be everything to everyone, which results in messaging that doesn’t resonate with anyone. Or what’s there could be on anyone’s site. You’ve seen it––everywhere you turn there is some version of the “Start here, go anywhere” messaging. Original 5 years ago? Maybe. Now it just feels generic and nondescript. It doesn’t capture who you are, how you do what you do, or speak to your unique audience.
Your website isn’t just a digital brochure. It’s a critical tool for enrollment, retention, and engagement – a platform that should work as hard as your admissions and marketing teams to tell your institution’s story, differentiate it from competitors, and move your audiences toward action. It’s also a “listening” tool that can help you understand and meet user needs with data (more on that another time!) But before you start tinkering with navigation menus or homepage layouts, you need a clear, focused central message that aligns with your overarching institutional priorities.
Here’s how to start the discovery process to effectively refine your core message:
1. Review Your Strategic Priorities
Start at square one. Revisit your institution’s strategic plan or defined goals – whether that means increasing enrollment, improving retention, or reshaping your brand identity.
These goals should be the foundation of your website strategy. Whether you run a department, student success or alumni site, take a moment to ask yourself: How can your website actively support these priorities? Some of that support can come from UX decisions on your website, but messaging also plays a key role here. Does the copy throughout the site echo the strategic priorities of the institution? “Translating” these priorities into messages that resonate with and motivate your users is a critical way strategic plans can give rise to impactful brand messages.
2. Interview Leadership
This is not so much a conversation about the website as it is about what matters most. Skip the age-old question, “What do you want on the website?” That’s a fast track to a wish list of disconnected ideas like “more photos of the quad” or “a letter from the president” (which, no one ultimately reads––no offense meant).
Instead, ask your leadership team deeper questions about their vision for the future and the institution’s strategic priorities. Where do they see opportunities for growth? How do they see the institution evolving to keep pace with competition? What concerns are top of mind? Why are you uniquely able to meet your students’ or your community’s needs? Why do they choose to lead here, and what do they hope to accomplish? Their answers will help inform the overarching message your website needs to deliver.
3. Talk to Admissions
Your admissions and enrollment team is on the front lines and knows what resonates with prospective students. Ask them: What makes students and families perk up during campus visits? What questions do they hear most often? What are the “aha” moments that hook prospective students?
These insights can inform how you craft your website’s content and ensure it reflects what truly matters to your audience. This is your direct line to a large volume of data on student sentiment. Don’t waste it. While you’re at it––start building this relationship. A strong connection between marketing and enrollment will go a long way toward helping you achieve your goals, trust us.
4. Ask Your Students
It sounds like common sense, but you wouldn’t believe how many institutions skip this step. Want authentic messaging? Go straight to your students. Ask why they chose your institution, what keeps them engaged, and what they value most. Notice the language they use. Also ask the tough questions––what they’re lacking, what concerns they have. Often, this can be the most fruitful part of the discussion.
You can even reach out to students who did NOT enroll––ask what guided that choice? What was missing in their experience with your institution? Their answers will help you identify the authentic themes and differentiators that should shine on your website.
5. Alchemize
This is where your expertise as a marketing professional comes into play. Take all the insights you’ve gathered – leadership’s priorities, admissions’ anecdotes, and students’ stories – and refine them into a clear, compelling – and strategic – message that comes from the heart of the institution and translates your value for your primary audience.
Here’s why this matters: Higher ed websites often try to serve too many audiences at once, watering down the message until it becomes bland and indistinct. Truly committing to your primary audience on your website and prioritizing its needs can turn your website into a place where relationships begin that lead to enrollments (and maybe someday donations.) Your goal is to synthesize what’s central to who you are and where you are going, find the nuggets of gold, and fashion them into messages that will shimmer in the eyes of those you most want to reach.
What’s Next?
Now that you’ve done your research and clarified your core message internally, the next step is developing strategies that captivate your unique audiences. You want to make sure that your messaging speaks directly to your key audience segments, connects with their priorities, and reflects your institution’s unique identity.
In part two of this series, we’ll explore Making the Website Work for Your Unique Audiences – how to identify your key user groups and tailor specific strategies to meet their needs.
Stay tuned.
Need Another Perspective?
Sometimes an outside perspective can help you see what’s hard to see “from the inside,” or it can be helpful to have an expert in to ask questions that are hard for you to ask – or for you to get a candid answer to. We’ve helped higher education institutions create meaningful digital experiences that champion connections and build brighter futures for over 30 years. We can get you started with incremental changes or just chat about the latest factors influencing your institution.
Let us know what’s keeping you up at night any time at hello@ifactory.com.