Did you know that it takes 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website and school?
Considering lockdowns and restrictions over the past few years, we have seen a big shift in the role and importance of a school website. There are characteristically two primary purposes for any school website. One is to provide timely, compelling, and current information to your current parents, students, staff, and community. The second purpose is to attract new students and to recruit quality staff.
Here are eight reasons why your school website is so important and how your website can positively impact Sponsorship outcomes for schools, their communities and ultimately students.
- Your school website receives great community traffic and local businesses are eager to show their support for your community. From a marketing perspective, it’s important to understand and harness the opportunities that this shift has presented.
- The perception of the school is one’s reality. Improve your perception. Your audience of potential parents have been spending more time at home than ever, communicating, and learning about your school online. This provides an exciting opportunity to review and improve your school website and consider how it can better serve your target audience. We can help.
- Having an enticing and attractive prospectus on your site will pique the interest of prospective parents who are early on in their decision-making process. Pre-pandemic, a parent would have to attend an open day or declare an interest in your school in order to receive a prospectus. Now, if a parent types into a search engine “schools near Brisbane City” for instance, they could be flicking through your school’s dedicated and sharply presented prospectus in a matter of seconds.
- They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Images are an easy way to improve the user experience of your school’s website. Studies show that people remember 80% what they see and only 20% what they read. In fact, there’s research that suggests that 65% of people are visual learners. MIT also found that the human brain can process images in as little as 13 milliseconds. These and many other statistics favour the idea that images are powerful means of communication. Ask us how we can help update your website imagery.
- Not only does a website give your potential students information, but it also shows that you’re up with the times. Having up to date, relevant and compelling content highlights that you’re interested in your school’s growth and innovation. It also helps schools relay crucial information surrounding severe weather conditions or school closures for example.
- A Stanford study shows that 75% of consumers admit to making judgments on a company’s credibility based on the company’s web design. Promote your schools’ purpose, vision and values and it will spread throughout the online community. You will need to ensure your brand is sharp and managed via some brand guidelines. We can help with this and web development.
- Driving an omni-channel approach enables your school staff to proactively engage with parents and their communities both online and offline. That’s why consistent communication and having the offline tools available to manage enrolment enquiry for example will not only accelerate processes for staff, it also drives brand consistency and an overall positive user-experience.
- Look into whether advertising on your website is able to be sponsorship inventory for your school, local community-based businesses would be interested if so, but best to make part of a package than sold in isolation. All sponsorship placements can be customised, and Sponsorship Ready can support in producing all graphic content needs on behalf of your school!
For more information on how to drive sustainable sponsorship revenue, you can contact our team who would love to discuss with you some of our success stories and case studies.
For an initial chat please contact Kelsey McAlpine via Kelsey.McAlpine@sponsorshipready.com.au or call 0434 495 948.