Published on: December 5, 2025
Prospective students today belong to Gen Z – a generation that’s fluent in digital content and knows exactly what they want.
They spend over 2.5 hours per day on social media, rapidly filtering through content to find what resonates. They engage deeply with material that’s interactive and mobile-friendly.
This creates a real opportunity for universities: the traditional static prospectus, whether it’s a PDF or printed brochure, simply can’t deliver the experience Gen Z expects.
But interactive prospectuses can.
When universities meet students in their native digital environment with content that’s dynamic and easy to navigate, engagement changes.
This article explores how to modernize your prospectus strategy to connect with Gen Z prospects effectively, with practical recommendations for higher ed marketers and admissions teams. And how can you do all your creatives using Flipsnack.
Not long ago, sending a PDF prospectus via email or handing out printed catalogs was standard practice. But student habits have fundamentally changed. Gen Z candidates are the first to be born into a fully digitized world, and reading on-screen is second nature to them.
They research schools online across multiple devices and expect personalized, interactive experiences. A static PDF, no matter how beautiful, feels cumbersome on a smartphone and fails to deliver the immediacy and engagement this generation expects.
Several trends underscore the decline of static prospectuses:
Traditional PDFs aren’t built for phones. Zooming and scrolling through large files is frustrating, causing many students to abandon them entirely. Gen Z consumes content mobile-first. If your prospectus doesn’t work seamlessly on a small screen, it won’t get read.
💡Tip: With Flipsnack, you can set your prospectus for vertical scroll to work perfectly on mobile devices. We’ll talk more about this in a minute.
PDFs are essentially digital printouts—no video, no audio, no interactive elements. You can only add links to a PDF, and Gen Z expects to interact with content, not just read it. Static text and images can’t compete with the rich media experiences they’re used to.
By the time a prospectus is designed, printed, and distributed, some information may already be out of date. Even digital PDFs have this problem—once you send the file or make it available for download, you lose control. Need to update a deadline or add new scholarship details? You’ll have to create and redistribute an entirely new version, and students who already downloaded the old file won’t see the changes.
Print adds even more challenges: production and shipping costs pile up, turnaround times stretch longer, and the environmental impact grows. Meanwhile, digital prospectuses update in real-time at a fraction of the cost.
💡Takeaway: Gen Z’s digital-first habits require a new approach. To capture their attention, universities need to replace static PDFs with dynamic digital viewbooks that deliver information the way this generation prefers to consume it.
The solution is to transform the prospectus into an interactive digital viewbook—a web-based publication that blends rich media, personalization, and immediate calls-to-action.
Unlike a static brochure, an interactive viewbook or prospectus is a living, immersive experience. Students can scroll, click, watch, and respond, actively engaging with your content rather than passively reading. This approach aligns perfectly with Gen Z’s expectations and behaviors.
The good news? You don’t need a massive budget or a development team to make this happen. Platforms like Flipsnack are specifically designed to help universities create these interactive experiences quickly and easily.
Before diving into design tools, think strategically about your content. Gen Z students care about different things than previous generations, and your prospectus should reflect that.
Don’t bury campus life content on page 40. Start with what makes your campus unique—student testimonials, day-in-the-life videos, campus culture. Save academic requirements and course catalogs for later. Students need to feel something before they’ll dig into the details.
Gen Z skims first, reads later. Use short paragraphs, pull quotes from students, bold subheadings, and plenty of white space. If a page looks like a wall of text, they’ll skip it.
Replace generic descriptions with visuals and rich media.
Let students see themselves on campus.
Don’t wait until the end to tell students how to take action. Scatter CTAs throughout: “Schedule a campus visit,” “Chat with a current student,” “Check out this program.” Make it easy for them to move from interest to action while they’re still engaged.
Digital prospectuses should feel alive. Highlight upcoming events, recent news, or current student achievements. If your content could have been written three years ago, it needs refreshing.
Flipsnack makes it easy for university marketing teams to create the kind of interactive, mobile-friendly prospectuses Gen Z actually wants to engage with. Here’s what makes it work:
Creating an interactive prospectus with Flipsnack doesn’t require advanced technical skills or weeks of design work. The platform’s Design Studio offers a drag-and-drop editor and a library of professional templates, making it remarkably simple to design or update a prospectus even if you’re not a graphic designer. You can start from scratch or customize a pre-made template to match your school’s branding. Fonts, colors, logos, and layouts are all editable in just a few clicks. For busy admissions and marketing teams, this ease of use is vital.
Plus, Flipsnack supports collaboration, so multiple team members can work together in one workspace – commenting, editing, and ensuring content accuracy before publication. The result is a faster turnaround and the flexibility to update content at any time (no more waiting for the next print run to fix a typo or add a late-breaking scholarship opportunity).
Flipsnack’s HTML5-based flipbooks display beautifully on any screen—desktop, tablet, or phone. Students can navigate easily with clickable tables of contents and internal links, creating the app-like experience they expect.
💡Tip: Since Gen Zs consume a lot of content on their mobile devices, you can set your prospectus to a Smart View so it adapts to the screen it’s displayed on.
Embed videos, audio clips, image galleries, GIFs, interactive maps, and virtual tours directly into your pages. Let students watch a video tour of the campus, explore a 360° view of a dorm room, or hear from current students—all within the prospectus itself. This multimedia approach keeps them engaged and helps them actually experience your campus before visiting.
Flipsnack turns prospectuses into two-way conversations. You can easily add interactive questions, quizzes, or forms anywhere in the flipbook. For example, a business school prospectus might include a “Which program is right for you?” quiz or a mini questionnaire to gather a reader’s interests.
You can also embed contact forms and call-to-action buttons (e.g., “Request more info” or “Apply Now”) directly into the pages. This means students can express interest or sign up for a campus tour without ever leaving the prospectus.
Track how students interact with your prospectus: how many opened it, which pages they spent the most time on, and what content drew their attention.
You can even track clicks on embedded links or form submissions. Such data is gold for understanding what resonates with Gen Z readers. If you notice students consistently dropping off before reaching your application CTA, or if a key program page gets very little attention, you’ll know where to improve your content strategy.
Essentially, Flipsnack gives you feedback that was impossible with traditional print prospectuses or a simple PDF.
Transform your prospectus from a one-way information dump into an engaging, personalized journey.
Gen Z students don’t just read, they explore. With clickable elements, embedded media, and interactive feedback mechanisms, a Flipsnack prospectus invites exploration. This interactive approach not only holds attention better but also helps build an emotional connection.
For example, embedding a Matterport virtual campus tour or a day-in-the-life student video can make a prospect feel the campus vibe, building excitement and trust before they even visit.
You’ll have everything you need to inform and impress in equal measure, delivering the polished digital experience Gen Z expects.
Gen Z expects more than static PDFs and printed brochures. They want interactive, mobile-optimized experiences that let them explore your campus on their terms. The universities that adapt will capture attention—and enrollments—while others watch engagement decline.
Start by auditing your current prospectus: Is it mobile-friendly? Does it include video and interactive elements? Can students take action without leaving the page? Can you update it in real-time? Identify the gaps, then prioritize the changes that will have the biggest impact.
Tools like Flipsnack make it possible to launch an interactive prospectus in weeks, not months—without a massive budget or technical team. Your prospective students are digital natives who consume content differently than any generation before them.
The traditional prospectus served universities well for decades, but it no longer connects with the students you’re trying to reach. Meet them where they are.
This site uses cookies to improve your online experience, allow you to share content on social media, measure traffic to this website and display customised ads based on your browsing activity.
Privacy Policy