Marketing Online Distance Learning courses: How we can help
I recently attended a seminar hosted by the Institute for Academic Development on how to use social media to market Online Distance Learning courses at the University. While social media was the focus of the seminar, many participants spoke about how services and guidelines provided by UWP can help strengthen and measure the success of an online marketing campaign.
Google Analytics
If your social media posts link to course information on your University site, you can use Google Analytics to track information about site visits and get an idea of how effective your campaign is.
For example, you can discover your site’s bounce rate, which shows the percentage of users who leave your site after visiting a single page. One speaker at the seminar mentioned that the average bounce rate for a campaign is 60%–a low percentage indicates your visitors are exploring other pages in your site.
Other metrics you could use to measure the success of your campaign include the number of pageviews, how long users spend on your site and how many pages they visit in your site.
If you would like to start tracking information on your site, read through our Google Analytics guidance materials, or come along to one of our training courses.
Google Analytics guidance wiki page
Writing for the Web
It was great to hear from seminar participants how following Writing for the Web guidelines can help strengthen campaigns—especially, the fact that your campaigns should have a strong call to action.
Remember, web readers are task-driven, scanning pages looking for important information, so be sure to provide visitors with pathways about where to go next, whether it’s ‘how to apply’ or ‘view our course fees’.
Moreover, when visitors initially get to your website, it’s essential that you have effective landing pages with up-to-date content. Fresh content can make the difference in whether visitors explore your site past the first page, and in this case, influence whether visitors apply to your courses.
Content Freshness Widget and guidance
If you’d like a refresher on Writing for the Web guidelines, have a look at our presentation handout or come along to our next training session.
