Visit the St. Clair College website. Analyze it strictly from a visual marketing strategy perspective targeting:
Local domestic high school students.
You are to provide three strategic visual enhancement recommendations. For each recommendation:
a) Clearly identify the issue or missed opportunity (3 x 2 = 6 Marks)
b) Propose a specific visual improvement (3 x 2 = 6 Marks)
c) Explain why it would improve recruitment effectiveness (3 x 2 = 6 Marks)
d) Connect it to student psychology and digital behaviour (3 x 2 = 6 Marks)
Do not provide vague suggestions like:
• “Add more pictures”
• “Make it more modern”
• “Use better graphics”
You need to be specific based on class content only:
• What type of visuals?
• Where?
• Why?
• What behavioural outcome would it influence?
Think like a digital strategist. (24 Marks Total)
Recommendation #1: The first issue I identified is the overall tone of the homepage. The home page speaks to the viewer in a way that suggests that the viewer is someone who already knows what they are looking for upon entry to the site, and for high school students, this likely won’t be the case. The site can be more appealing to high schoolers by highlighting a section for them, making it visually appealing and making it a primary or secondary focal point of the site.
The visual improvement I would suggest is utilizing the type of images that speak to the intended audience, in this case, high school students. The use of photographed images of high school students in open houses, first-year college students who have just finished high school or St. Clair staff, students and maybe alumni going to high schools and speaking directly to these students. Images of any of these could work well in speaking to this crowd. Having a section strictly for these students that features images of people who look like them or who are in the position they are soon to be in can attract their attention more quickly and retain their attention for longer.
The section tailored to high schoolers creates a seamless flow for this audience and can reduce confusion a high school student might have upon entry to the site. The use of the proposed photographed images, that being high schoolers in an open house or first-year college students who have just graduated, creates an authentic feel for the viewers. These types of images don’t feel heavily forced and are more natural. With these characteristics in mind, high schoolers likely won’t hesitate to apply since they are able to pick up the message the college is conveying to them through the images.
The reason why this implementation works with this audience is that the content is a reflection of them. A high school student who is looking for something will likely resonate more with someone who looks, thinks and acts the way that they do. With images of other high school students, they are more inclined ot pay attention since they can see themselves in other high school students. They would likely be drawn to images and videos that include St. Clair staff, students, and alumni going to their high schools and speaking to them personally. They resonate with this because it brings a sense of familiarity since they are aware of their own high schools or other schools in the district.
Recommendation #2: Another area in which St. Clair could capitalize is the comparison of students before and after entering and completing programs. This is a sure way of getting rid of any doubt students might have about entering a program; being able to see what they can become after completing a program is definitely something worth implementing.
A specific visual improvement St. Clair could implement is using before-and-after comparison images or a visual storytelling sequence to convey the effectiveness of each program and show the progression of a student going through that. Adding this to the section for high schoolers, as stated in the 1st recommendation, could also prove effective. This way, you are targeting high schoolers in the part of the St. Clair website that they are most likely to browse and displaying what it’s like to attend St. Clair while also highlighting each program with before and after pictures of previous students.
This implementation is likely to improve recruitment effectiveness by pushing students closer to the decision of applying by actively displaying what their money, time and effort are going towards and what kind of career path they can take. The best way to implement this visual improvement to get students to apply is not only by including images of students before and after completing a program, but also by short videos that recount their stories and experiences within the program.
The way this visual improvement connects to student psychology and digital behaviour is because of attention. The younger generation has a very short attention span; it is for this reason that continuing to use large bodies of text as the primary source of information isn’t the most efficient. Text can be used to back up the claims of the visuals and provide extra context for visual elements such as videos and pictures. High school students are more likely to interact with something that summarizes what they want to know in a short video because it requires them to do no work at all.
Recommendation #3: the 3rd opportunity I identified for the St. Clair websites relates to the previous two recommendations I have stated, as it involves the section specifically for high schoolers. The opportunity is to make it as streamlined as possible. The way to make this implementation work is by making sure the information in this section speaks directly to the intended audience. This can be done by cutting down on the amount of text utilized for the programs and summarizing the text into videos or original infographics.
The visual improvement for this strategy is using infographics and informational videos to serve as the primary focal point rather than a large body of text that summarizes the program. Text is still beneficial, however, to accurately reach high school students and make them retain information its better to show and use voices rather than just text on a screen. This is the same reason why open houses are beneficial, they provide a up close look at how the programs operate in a more in-depth fashion. The videos that are already on the program overviews are brief vignettes, while the text on the rest of the page is how students really get their information. What I’m suggesting is that we switch these roles and make the videos the primary source of information.
This method could improve recruitment effectiveness by making students do less work when processing the information about a program. Instead of watching a short video that provides a little bit of context and then reading a huge block of text, why not condense the course information into a medium-length, roughly 10-15, maybe 20-minute video that covers every aspect of the program? And with the help of YouTube’s chapters feature, students can jump around to different parts of the video to find exactly what they are looking for.
The way this visual improvement relates to student psychology and digital behaviour is going back to how visual information is processed more quickly than text-based information. It also links back to the attention spans of the younger generation. They want to be able to process as much information as effectively as possible and in as little time as possible. One video with chapters highlighting each aspect of the program is a sure method to attract and retain the attention of high school students without them feeling like they are wasting their time. People are more inclined to stop and listen to someone rather than read an entire paragraph about something.
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