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Your school’s website is your largest online asset. For most prospects, it’s their first stop along your digital highway. But it’s a two-way street. A place where prospective students and parents find all manner of valuable information about your school and application process. Don’t forget to make sure you’re getting valuable information about your website visitors in return.

The earlier you can get a website visitor to self-identify, the sooner you get them in your database. Your opportunities to interact with prospects, and nudge them along the enrollment journey, explode once you have them in your marketing system.

Do you need to get more prospects into your enrollment funnel? Here are some small ways that you can attract and convert more prospective students online.

Attract: Work those Keywords

Improving your keyword optimization is a time and cost-efficient way to improve the content on your site. You don’t need a web team to write a host of new content to benefit from this tip. Simply re-work some of your current content.

And, use an updated keyword strategy to grow organic traffic, and steer visitors to the right part of your site from the start.

Look at some of your pages with the highest engagement. You know — the ones you discovered people find valuable because visitors already spend a lot of time there. Clarify what message you’re trying to get across in each sub-page or blog post. Use these messages to build a working list of long-tail phrases (also called “long tail keywords” or “LTKs”).

Optimizing a page for an LTK increases your chance to improve the page’s rankings. First, Google keeps getting better at understanding how people actually talk. It recognizes that people are searching more often by the way they speak, so expect this trend to continue.

For example, “private high schools in Northern New Jersey” is certainly better than “private high schools,” but it’s still pretty generic. Does your academy have a debate team winning state competitions? How about “academies with winning debate teams”?

Once you’ve selected the LTK for a page, refresh the content and tags on that page with it. Here’s a quick on-page SEO guide you can use.

You should also take a look at your current keyword traffic. Which keywords can you let go? Go back to the pages using these LTKs and give them a keyword refresh as well. Which keywords should get more attention? Find current content on your site related to those keywords and optimize those pages with these successful keywords.

Convert: Don’t Be Shy – Ask!

How many conversion points do you have on your website? By this I mean, forms where prospects can give you their information. These are your calls-to-action (CTAs). What type of content are you offering in exchange for the details?

Increase the frequency and volume of your early conversion points. Would you go to a car website and just click buy-now? Of course not. So why would students or parents visit your blog and choose to apply or enroll site unseen? They won’t.

Don’t scare them away from sharing their contact information by having only big asks, e.g. “Get your application today!” Early conversion points should center on the content that answers prospects research phase questions. This type of content includes your program descriptions, sample syllabi, employment outlook for certain professions. Information that interests them and starts to establish your school as a trusted authority.

Include the CTAs on the pages intended for discovery phase prospects, such as along side relevant blog posts. Create landing pages to generate interest in high value, education content – no web team needed!

Gate the content with a simple form. Now that they’re in your database, you can use progressive profiling. Progressive profiling is the gentle way to collect more intelligence about your prospects over time. The more you know about a lead, the better you can personalize the content you deliver to them.

Personalization: Lead Nurturing Gold

Personalized content is the most relevant content you can deliver to a specific prospect. By strategically selecting offers and content to a person’s individual needs and situation, you can smoothly shuffle them down your enrollment funnel. HubSpot users do this with “smart content.”

Smart content is on-page content that changes based on the profile of the visitor. For visitors already in your database, a key content filter is which persona they fit. With smart content, students will see a different homepage than their parents when either visits your school’s website.

You can also customize the offers on a web page. A visitor tagged as showing interest in the nursing program will see an offer to download that nursing employment outlook report. A different visitor who previously downloaded a brochure about your graphic arts program will see an offer to attend an upcoming show of student work.

With the right tool, customizing content is easy and doesn’t require much technical support. Only an understanding of your prospects, personas, and what the data collected tells you.

Our own research shows that personalized CTAs convert 42% better than generic  . That’s logical. If you can only show the CTA to download a report on nursing jobs, how many prospects looking at other programs are going to return to your site?

Quick Wins for High Return

The underlying theme here – don’t publish it and forget it. You always have more wins to find by intelligently refreshing your current content. If your team is pressed for content or technical resources, follow these steps to get more from your current content.

In fact, even if you’re not pressed for resources – it’s still a good idea to work these tips and get the highest possible return on all your digital assets.

When you’re applying for a brand new job, simply adding a few lines to your old resume and calling it a day isn’t going to cut it. 

First, you have to research your target job market — because once you get an idea of who’s gonna read your resume and what’s important to them, you can shape your message accordingly. Then, you’ve got to format your resume properly, structure and write your role descriptions in a compelling way, pick the interests that are relevant to the job and the company’s values, and so on and so forth.

Download our 10 free marketing resume templates here. 

But wait … how many pages should my resume be again? What’s the best way to write those role descriptions? And what are the buzzwords I should be avoiding at all costs?

Don’t worry. The folks at StandoutCV have you covered. Check out their infographic below to learn how to write a standout resume in seven simple steps, including all sorts of helpful tips and tricks along the way.

Anyone remember Dr. Pepper-flavored lip gloss from Lip Smackers?

I’d venture a guess that many of you do, whether it was a staple of your own childhood or that of a loved one’s.

There’s something brilliant and memorable about that co-branded product: It’s fun, unexpected, and involves a classic and timeless brand that’s helped the flavor remain popular all the way from 1975 to present day. (Seriously, you can still buy them.)

Strategic partnerships like that one can be a highly effective way to build a business, boost brand awareness, and break into new markets. The whole point is that the success of one brand will bring success to its partner brand, too. But for a partnership to truly work, it has to be a win-win for all players in the game. The value perceptions, target audiences, prices, and promotion channels need to match.

So, what do great co-branding partnerships look like?

There are a lot of great examples out there — too many to list in one post. Below, we’ve curated a shortlist of eight examples of great co-branding partnerships to inspire you. Check them out, and add your own favorites in the comments.

8 Examples of Great Co-Branding Partnerships

1) GoPro & Red Bull: “Stratos”

GoPro doesn’t just sell portable cameras, and Red Bull doesn’t just sell energy drinks. Instead, both have established themselves as lifestyle brands — in particular, a lifestyle that’s action-packed, adventurous, fearless, and usually pretty extreme. These shared values make them a perfect pairing for co-branding campaigns, especially those surrounding action sports.

To make the partnership work, GoPro equips athletes and adventurers from around the world with the tools and funding to capture things like races, stunts, and action sport events on video — from the athlete’s perspective. At the same time, Red Bull uses its experience and reputation to run and sponsor these events.

“GoPro camera technology is allowing us to compliment the programming by delivering new athlete perspectives that have never been seen before,” said Sean Eggert, Red Bull’s director of sports marketing. The collaboration allows exclusive GoPro content to enhance both companies’ growth.

While GoPro and Red Bull have collaborated on many events and projects together, perhaps the biggest collaboration stunt they’ve done was “Stratos,” in which Felix Baumgartner jumped from a space pod more than 24 miles above Earth’s surface with a GoPro strapped to his person. Not only did Baumgartner set three world records that day, but he also embodied the value of reimagining human potential that define both GoPro and Red Bull.

2) Pottery Barn & Benjamin Moore: “Experience Colors”

One of the biggest benefits of co-branding campaigns is the opportunity to expose your product or service to a brand new audience. That’s exactly what home furnishing store Pottery Barn and paint company Benjamin Moore did when they partnered together back in the early 2000s.

The folks at Pottery Barn realized their customers had a special interest in paint color when they realized how many questions they were getting about the colors used in their catalogues. By partnering with a reputable paint company like Benjamin Moore, they were able to give their customers what they wanted.

Together, the two brands created an exclusive product line of paints, and then added a new section of Pottery Barn’s website that helped customers easily select paint colors to complement their furniture choices.

Image Credit: Dezinable

“We’re always trying to develop new tools to help consumers with the color selection process,” said Eileen McComb, director of communications at Benjamin Moore. “And the great thing about working with Pottery Barn is that we’re able to narrow down the palette to the paint colors that will work best with their designs. So, it’s providing an extra valuable service to Pottery Barn’s clientele.”

The partnership was successful for years, although Pottery Barn has been collaborating with paint company Sherwin-Williams instead since 2013.

3) The Global Fund & Gap: “PRODUCT (RED)”

INSPI(RED). ADMI(RED). EMPOWE(RED). The PRODUCT (RED) campaign to fight AIDS in Africa, run by The Global Fund, has been around since 2006. Since then, it has raised more than $130 million and is arguably one of the largest partnership efforts ever. And while Gap wasn’t the only company involved (there’s also American Express, Apple, Converse, Starbucks, and more), their partnership is a great example of a company creating new products around a theme — in this case, the theme of change.

In one of their first PRODUCT (RED) campaigns, the folks at Gap took photos of celebrities like Chris Rock and Anne Hathaway, both as individuals or with friends and loved ones, wearing a Gap (PRODUCT) RED item in a way that expressed their own, personal style. The photos were published in magazines like Vogue, and were accompanied by thought-provoking questions like, “Can the shirt off your back change the world?” and “Can the next generation change the world?”

Image Credit: The Inspiration Room

This partnership is also, of course, a great example of a business marketing themselves as socially responsible, which can often lead to an increase in sales. In return, The Global Fund received 50% of net profits from the sale of Gap (RED) items. Neither Red nor the companies would disclose revenue or total contributions by company or product.)

Some question the sincerity of social campaigns like this, arguing that these partnerships benefit the for-profit partners more than the charitable causes. But, while corporate social responsibility isn’t going to solve the world’s problems, it is a way for organizations to benefit from exposure to a new audience.

4) Bonne Belle & Dr. Pepper: Flavored Lip Balm

Dr. Pepper-flavored lip balm. I mean, it’s genius.

Bonne Belle first debuted Lip Smacker, the world’s first flavored lip balm, in 1973, starting with flavors like strawberry, lemon, and green apple. Just two years later in 1975, they’d forged their first flavor partnership with the timeless Dr. Pepper brand. The result? A lip balm flavor that’s been famous for decades among teenage girls.

If you’re thinking the connection between lip balm and Dr. Pepper is a little thin, consider the copy on one of their vintage ads: “It’s the super shiny lip gloss with lip-smacking flavor… just like the world’s most original soft drink.” And later, “From Bonne Belle of course: the cosmetics company that understands your taste.”

Image Credit: Click Americana

5) BMW & Louis Vuitton: The Art of Travel

Car manufacturer BMW and designer Louis Vuitton may not be the most obvious of pairings. But if you think about it, they have a few important things in common. If you focus on Louis Vuitton’s signature luggage lines, they’re both in the business of travel. They both value luxury. And finally, they’re both well-known, traditional brands that are known for high-quality craftsmanship.

These shared values are exactly why this co-branding campaign makes so much sense. In their partnership, BMW created a sports car model called the BMW i8, while Louis Vuitton designed an exclusive, four-piece set of suitcases and bags that fit perfectly into the car’s rear parcel shelf.

Image Credit: Louis Vuitton

Although the four-piece luggage set goes for a whopping $20,000, the price is right for the target customer, as the BMW i8 starts at $135,700. A price like that kind of makes that luggage set seem like a drop in the bucket.

Not only does the luggage fit perfectly size-wise, but its design and appearance fits perfectly with BMW’s image: sleek, masculine, and high-quality. Turns out both the luggage and some parts of the car’s interior use carbon fiber, strong-yet-light composite material.

“This collaboration with BMW i epitomises our shared values of creativity, technological innovation and style,” said Patrick-Louis Vuitton, head of special orders at Louis Vuitton. “Our craftsmen have enjoyed the challenge of this very special project, using their ingenuity and attention to detail to create a truly made to measure set of luxury luggage. This is a pure expression of the art of travel.”

6) Genius & Spotify: “Behind the Lyrics”

You might guess that two companies like Spotify (a commercial music streaming service) and Genius (a huge, online collection of song lyrics and crowdsourced music knowledge) would go together like peas in a pod. Well, their recent co-branding effort didn’t disappoint.

Recently, they’ve been working together on a new set of collaborative Spotify playlists called “Behind the Lyrics.” These are pre-populated playlists that show the lyrics of each song as it plays, followed by brief back stories explaining why certain lyrics are the way they are.

Their first one, “Behind the Lyrics: Hip Hop,” was released in January 2016 and lets users listen to artists like Drake, 2 Chainz, and Rihanna while learning where some of their lyrics come from.

The lyrics facts themselves come from the crowdsourced music knowledge already on Genius.com, and the both teams did some extra work to get the functionality right and time the facts to the music. This is a great example of companies that operate in the same space — in this case, music — collaborating on a fun, interesting project.

(Note: Right now, this feature is only available on Spotify’s iPhone app, and desktop users can check it out on Genius’ website as long as they also have Spotify’s desktop app installed.)

Spotify has done a series of other, successful co-branding partnerships, including one with Uber to create “a soundtrack for your ride.”

7) BuzzFeed & Fur Baby Rescue

Some co-branding campaigns are more complicated than others. This example from BuzzFeed and Fur Baby Rescue is one of the simplest ones out there — and it goes to show a great co-branding effort doesn’t have to take months of planning or millions of dollars.

For this campaign, the folks at a rescue animal shelter called Fur Baby Rescue wanted to leverage BuzzFeed’s readership of over 200 million people. To do this, they partnered with the folks at BuzzFeed to set up and publish an article called, “We Gave Drunk Girls a Bunch of Puppies and There Were Lots of Tears,” which you can read here. The article is exactly what it sounds like: A few ladies had a few drinks, and then were surprised with adorable (and adoptable) puppies from Fur Baby Rescue.

Image Credit: BuzzFeed

The article itself is sprinkled with links to Fur Baby Rescue’s website. Not to mention, the content makes it clear that the puppies featured in the video are, in fact, adoptable — thanks to lines like, “UGH AND THEY ARE ALL ADOPTABLE TOO” and GIFs like the one below.

Image Credit: BuzzFeed

8) Alexander Wang & H&M

Anyone who’s designer-conscious knows Alexander Wang and H&M aren’t exactly the same caliber when it comes to quality. Shoes by Alexander Wang tend to go for around $350 a pair, whereas shoes sold by H&M tend to go for more like $35 a pair. See what I mean?

But that discrepancy in pricing is exactly why the two brands decided to partner with one another. To support their brand positioning as trendy and fashionable, H&M has traditionally paired with high-end fashion brands to offer exclusive branded items for a limited time.

In exchange, those high-end brands — like Alexander Wang — can expose their brand name to “a new generation of potential consumers, who will increasingly aspire to owning more pieces from his high end collection,” writes Michelle Greenwald for Forbes.

Image Credit: Snobette

Which co-branding partnerships are your favorites? Share them with us in the comments.