How to prioritize program-specific marketing: Turn program pages into enrollment growth engines

College websites can't be treated like digital catalogs anymore. Prospective students are researching like shoppers, comparing programs by outcomes, career paths, cost and fit, often before ever completing a form. At Ferris State University, we leaned into that reality by prioritizing program-specific marketing that combines web improvements, rich media, inbound SEO and paid campaigns that land on targeted program pages. In this practical case study, Ferris State shares how we built a coordinated marketing push around identified programs that students could actually feel. We will cover how we updated key program pages to better match search intent and decision-making questions, paired those improvements with new photography and video, and created SEO-rich content that supports inbound discovery. Then we amplified the same program narratives through paid social and paid search, using those optimized program pages as the primary destinations. You will see examples of:

• Program page upgrades that support recruitment journeys: clearer value props, outcomes proof and stronger calls to action.
• Working with subject matter experts, current students and alumni to better understand actual program outcomes to guide content decisions.
• Rich media that builds trust quickly: new program photography and short-form video used on-page and in campaigns.
• SEO-rich marketing that supports inbound: intent-driven page structure, FAQ content, internal linking and content that aligns to the questions prospects ask.
• Paid social and paid search campaigns tied to specific programs, with landing pages designed to convert rather than just "inform."
• How we kept this scalable using templates and a repeatable kit across multiple programs.

We will end with the results we have seen and the measurement approach behind them, including what worked, what surprised us and what we would do differently next time.