Lead Magnets and Landing Pages for K-12
Okay, so you’ve done the work of nailing down a brand for yourself and your district. You have a website that serves as a virtual spokesperson for your district and schools. And you’ve internally distributed the mission and vision that guides your staff toward a common goal.
But you have a few challenges. Recruitment is down, enrollment is fluctuating, and the community isn’t engaged in your campus events.
What’s the answer? Marketing!
Keep reading to find out how you can solve problems in your district using a simple marketing strategy for adding landing pages and lead magnets to your website.
Why do you need lead magnets and landing pages for K-12 marketing?
You might be wondering why you need a landing page if you already have a website for directing traffic.
Well, the website serves the purpose of telling the community about your district, who you are, how you stand out from other districts and how they can contact you. It’s a great information repository for parents, staff and the external community.
But, lead magnets and landing pages serve the purpose of compelling your target audience to take action on a specific topic, whether that be enrolling their child for preschool, applying for a teaching position, registering for an upcoming event or voting in favor of your district in a bond election.
Marketing strategy for K-12: Lead magnets
Let’s start with what a lead magnet is. A lead magnet is a value-add, typically a checklist, or a guide, that provides value to your audience, and makes them want to engage with your content and provide you with their email information so you can contact them in the future.
The marketing strategy for K-12 education is simple but effective. First, you have to target the right audience. Then, you have to provide value through a visually appealing, on-brand deliverable Finally, you have to give a call to action because if you don’t ask, they won’t act.
Take a closer look at your target audience and ask yourself what problem they have that you can solve.
For example, let’s say that recruitment is down in your district. Your target audience might be passionate teachers or prospective teachers who are looking for a fulfilling role in education. They may be considering other districts or careers based on the financial benefits of each option. So, you can create an informational lead magnet that outlines the 10 financial benefits for teachers. Your goal is to build rapport by solving a related problem and then get them to take action by applying for a job, attending a K-12 job fair or contacting your district for more information.
As another example, you may want to boost enrollment in your district’s preschool program. Your target audience has a problem. They need to find a preschool where their child will be safe and successful. By creating a lead magnet that solves a related problem, “how to get my child ready for pre-k,” you can create interest in your district and grow your list of interested contacts so that you can pitch your pre-k enrollment when the time is right.
Why does this strategy work? It establishes you as the expert, frames your district as helpful, gets your name/school top of mind and gives you an open line of communication with your target audience moving forward.
Marketing strategy for K-12: Landing pages
A landing page can be used in conjunction with a lead magnet, or it can exist as a standalone page with a call to action.
A great landing page is focused, informative, on brand and captures everything about a particular topic. Even though your website exists to answer questions about your district, you want your landing page to be a concentrated version of your website. It should tell your audience who you are, what you offer and what are the selling points of your offer while providing persuasive information like testimonials, validations and reasons why they should act now.
When used together, a landing page and lead magnet are powerful marketing tools that you can use to solve problems in your district.
How to create landing pages and lead magnets for K-12
One of our favorite resources for creating landing pages and lead magnets is Canva. It’s a user-friendly design platform that allows you to create visually stunning deliverables even without a professionally trained graphic designer on staff.
Canva provides basic templates and general design tutorials to help you get started. But if you’re looking for resources that encompass the nuances of K-12 to help you get the design and messaging just right, check out our landing page and lead magnet templates right here.
Where to share landing pages and lead magnets for K-12
Once you’ve created your lead magnet or landing page, you need a way to drive traffic to them. Our best tip of advice is to find out where your audience likes to hang out online or where they would go to get information and drop a trail of breadcrumbs there.
Driving traffic is as simple as creating a pop-up form on your website, running an ad on social media, posting about your freebie in a local group on social media, adding it to a section in your e-newsletter, including it in your printed publications or using other digital media to target your demographic.
You really can’t go wrong with spreading the word about your landing page and lead magnet. The more traffic you can drive to your website, the better.
Conclusion
There are so many problems in your district that can be solved by taking a whole new approach to marketing or pouring your time and energy into elevating your PR team. Lead magnets and landing pages are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making your district shine bright.
I’ve teamed up with Lisa Losasso Jackson to help you make your marketing strategy even more robust and effective through the School District Marketing Academy!
You can also visit our TSPRA Resources landing page to get your free landing page and lead magnet templates, a preview of our School District Marketing Academy, and access to the free K-12 Marketing Resource Academy.