The title of this post is: “Why you NEVER want to drive prospective families to landing pages on your school website!”
Surprisingly odd title, isn’t it, consider I’m a guy who consults private schools in best practices regarding marketing and social media.
So why do I say you should NEVER drive prospective families to landing pages on your school website?
Because there’s a better place to send them. Want to know where?
Your Facebook page.
OK – I know all the naysayers will criticize and typically offer 2 compelling reasons why website landing pages are effective.
- Website landing pages offer an opportunity to drive people to specific action steps, and
- Website landing pages are usually measurable (hits + actions both help you determine traffic and activity)
Admittedly, you are correct and the dual benefit mentioned above is certainly valid. But what if I told you there was a 3rd benefit that you cannot obtain from simply sending ad clickers to your website?
Custom Facebook pages offer a number a benefits for private schools wanting to optimize their presence on Facebook (READ: why your private school needs a custom Facebook page – if you aren’t sure what one is, WATCH this 5 min video about “what is a custom Facebook page for a school”) One of the most significant opportunities you receive with custom Facebook pages (with custom apps as you see on our own school marketing Facebook page below – the custom app tabs are “Speaking“, “Podcast” and “Get Started“) is the ability to also capture the all-important LIKE to your page.
As you can watch on the video at the bottom of this post, custom Facebook landing pages (the page behind each one of the custom apps mentioned above) have unique URLs. For example, if you click on the “Speaking” tab on our school marketing Facebook page (from a desktop or tablet; not currently viewable on handheld mobile devices), you will go to the following URL:
https://www.facebook.com/schoolmarketing/app_128953167177144
If you were to click on the “Get Started” custom tab on our school marketing Facebook page, in a couple of clicks, you would landing on:
https://www.facebook.com/schoolmarketing/app_190322544333196
How does this apply to you? When you are placing a Facebook ad, you are typically asked if you want to promote your Facebook page or to an “external” URL – but now with a custom app that you get when you customize your Facebook page, you can now direct your ad to this URL (or you can send them to your FB page with an option to choose a specific landing view).
Click on the links above and see what I mean. If you are not yet a fan of our school marketing Facebook page, you’ll see an option to click the “LIKE” button.
This can drive visitors who click your ad directly to a Facebook landing page where you receive the following 3 benefits:
- Custom Facebook landing pages offer an opportunity to drive people to specific action steps,
- Custom Facebook landing pages are usually measurable (hits + actions both help you determine traffic and activity), and
- *BONUS* – you can also capture them as a new “LIKE” to your Facebook page (assuming they enjoy the landing page content, then they may also like your page to receive your information directly into their news feed). You may wish to use a “Like Gate” to further strengthen the likelihood of capturing every new LIKE possible on your Facebook page (click here to watch how this works).
This unique URL also works when you are driving a prospective family from your email marketing message, Twitter, Google Adwords, etc. If you were doing a radio or TV ad, you could also buy an easy-to-remember domain name for $10 and then redirect it to your custom Facebook landing page (you could use “bestschoolinhouston.com” or something like that.
While you get to drive prospective families to an action step AND you get a measurable page, you get the added benefit of sending them to a custom landing page on Facebook where you can capture that LIKE on your Facebook as well. That’s a trifecta if you ask me!
WATCH: What is a Custom Facebook Page for a Private School? (5 min)
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