Admissions and the Web: Recession Is An Important Time to Spend Money on Your Website

“Meanwhile, colleges should not cut their admissions or marketing budget, but they must use that money more wisely, said Christopher M. Small, executive vice president at GDA. For instance, this is not a good time to revamp the college’s Web site, which is expensive, though admissions offices might still spruce up their home page with Flash programming and create small, discrete pages on specific topics.”

I’d love to hear your reaction to this remark: please add your comments below. Meanwhile, I have several thoughts about it, most of which boil down to: “it depends.”

If Your Website Is Well-Designed and Managed Effectively

For institutions that already have fairly decent websites, I agree: this is not the time to embark on a massive redesign. If you’ve been thoughtful and prudent in how you’ve approached previous site redesigns, here are some of the things you should have done:

• created a visitor-friendly information architecture for your site 
• invested in a content management system, enabling you to update your site easily
• designed your pages in such a way that enables you to add new & relevant content to them 
• created a user-friendly search that rewards searchers by delivering “best bets” for their searches 
• developed special-interest features (we call them “spiffs” at mStoner) to draw attention to programs or other characteristics that distinguish your institution.

If you’ve done this, you’re in a great position to make sure that you are clearly articulating value messages to the people who visit your site. They’ll be seeking information on what makes your institution distinctive or how you help students afford the cost of attendance. If you’re the kind of institution that attends NAICU, you’ll need to convince them that the education a student receives on your campus is worth the extra cost of attendance over your nearby state university. [Don’t get me wrong—you’ve got a lot to say, but you need to make sure that visitors to your site understand the value of what you offer.]

This is complicated stuff. You need to make the point in web-friendly ways, to visitors who are spending little time on your site. And I feel compelled to point out that this is the sort of information that is usually notdelivered via Flash animations.

Also, remember that it’s not just the home page that needs your attention, but other key pages across your site. In the age of Google, they count just as much as “www.institution.edu.”

And If It Isn’t?

Well, what if your site needs serious help? What if you were just starting to redo your site when the economy tanked? You know the kind of site I mean—a visitor can’t tell what distinguishes your institution from its competitors, and no one can find a list of majors on the site, and even you get lost trying to find admissions info.

I hate to say this, but you’d better look hard for some funding. No microsite or Flash animation is going to help you in a situation like this one [I have more to say about microsites, below.]

You just can’t get away from the fact that your website is your single most important communication and every group-most especially prospective students and parents-is going to look there first for informaiton about your institution. If you’re a state university, there are compelling economic reasons for them to look beyond your incomprehensible website. If you’re a private institution, though, you’re missing one of your most significant opportunities to influence their behavior. It’s often the gateway to the crucial campus visit, where the sell is made.

Microsites

It’s great to think about developing microsites for special purposes. For targeted campaigns, they’re a perfect solution. But remember that microsites have to be marketed specially to the audiences they’re intended for; people won’t just stumble upon them unless they’re linked from multiple pages on your site and/or promoted in email or direct mail. And remember that microsites can accentuate how bad your overall website is. And, unlike your main site, microsites won’t show up on top on Google searches.

In short, a microsite is seldom a substitute for an effective website.

Social Media

There are, of course, other things you can do that are less costly than an overall website redesign. For example, consider now how you can take advantage of social media-especially Facebook. In an economic turndown, it’s high time for institutional leaders (yes, this means deans of admissions, vps for public affairs, and others) to get over concern about “losing control of our message.” [Hint: it’s 2009 and you’ve already lost control; you just haven’t realized it yet.] This is not without its drawbacks, though, since it takes time and effort to manage Facebook-just as it takes considerable time and effort to manage an effective web presence.