Digital Marketing Strategies for Educational Institutions and Schools
Even in India, the education sector is booming these days. Schools and universities, especially private ones, are willing to provide their students with this kind of infrastructure and amenities. Nevertheless, state-run businesses are less inclined to spend money promoting themselves. Particularly in the area of digital marketing, private entities feel a strong need to promote their institutions.
The fact remains, though, that conventional methods of marketing one’s endeavors no longer work given the current culture of information dissemination and reception.
Because nobody is reading pamphlets anymore, handing them out no longer works to draw potential customers to your business. Despite the fact that people are present and physically visible in the real world. The majority of children today get their news from the internet. To avoid wasting money on expensive TV advertisements and traditional marketing techniques. Realizing that wise investments in the virtual world are necessary as soon as possible is essential. A digital marketing agency can be helpful in this scenario. Before hiring anyone, you should also conduct extensive background checks in this area. Work with a digital agency that has experience and is knowledgeable about the market for your sector. Concern yourself with the educational sector.
Creating fresh approaches to digital marketing strategies for educational institutions and schools?
You’re not the only one if your school or educational establishment lacks a marketing strategy. Unfortunately, this increases the possibility that your marketing team will become disoriented and focus only on its own (arbitrary) goals. Without a clearly defined strategy, it can be difficult to come together and work toward a shared goal. With the structure a marketing plan provides, teams can produce amazing results for your educational institution.
A marketing team working for educational institutions will carry out goals outlined in the institution’s marketing plan. Goals, measurements, and the specific methods for achieving them are all included in this highly strategic document. We suggest keeping it succinct and direct. A school marketing idea must strike a delicate balance between being comprehensive enough to direct your team and concise enough for people to read.
As a learning institution, we frequently compare our marketing efforts to those of our direct competitors, the nearby private, charter, or public institutions.
Families are no longer only comparing your school to its direct rivals, though. They are reviewing their prior online interactions with businesses like Netflix and Amazon. In contrast to your institution’s online learning environment.
Your school’s marketing strategies need to reflect the fact that people today are more difficult to impress and please than ever before.
In order to succeed this year and in the years to come. Educational institutions and districts must invest time, money, or resources in digital marketing.
Website Redesign
Listen to us out before you say, “Your website company,” which obviously means you’re going to tell us we need to redesign our website. Numerous studies in the industry have shown that most brands can suffer from a weak website.
Poor website usability, particularly on mobile devices, can damage your reputation and result in a decrease in engagement, site traffic, and other things.
Think about the facts
- When users don’t like what they find on one website, 79% of them return and look for another one.
- Users claim that unsatisfactory mobile experiences reduce people’s likelihood to interact with brands.
- If a site is not mobile-optimized, mobile users are five times more likely to give up on a task.
- When a website takes longer than three seconds to load, 40% of visitors will leave, and 47% of visitors anticipate a two-second load time.
- Design has an impact on first impressions.
We understand how time-consuming it is to create a new website from scratch. Before investing time, money, or effort into any marketing strategies, you must first lay a strong foundation. If your educational institution’s or district’s current website checks any of the following boxes.
The following is your best marketing strategy for this year:
- The existence of it should date back at least three years.
- Although the website is mobile-friendly, it is not responsive.
- Compared to its direct competitors’ and major brands’ websites, the website “looks old.”
- The navigation on your website is challenging.
Updating Your Search Engine Strategy
There are three key components to every school’s search engine strategy:
- Optimization for search engines
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing
- Web-based Reviews
One, two, or all three of these essential search engine tactics may require financial investment. Depending on the long- and short-term objectives of your school.
Optimization for search engines (SEO)
Lack of time and money prevents many school marketers from engaging in long-term SEO strategies. It demands doing keyword research, incorporating the results into the title tags, meta descriptions, and on-page content, and, in most cases, producing a top-notch blog. Because SEO results often take longer to appear than those from paid advertisements, many school marketers ignore them. Implementing an SEO strategy frequently requires several months before results appear because Google takes so long to crawl and recrawl site pages.
But for your school to survive in the online world, you need an SEO strategy. With search constituting 90% of all online experiences and pitiful click-through rates for any results past page one, It is abundantly clear that you must find the time and/or resources to make your school’s website searchable.
Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing
When promoting your institution’s website and increasing website traffic, PPC advertisements can be a powerful digital marketing tool. You don’t have time to wait to create your SEO strategy if Google results for your website aren’t good. A paid ad strategy is another option, and it can help you rank near the top of page 1 right away.
Web-based Reviews
Today, a school’s or institution’s first impression comes from online reviews. You might not even get a click-through to your website if you don’t have any reviews with four or five stars.
Reviews had a direct impact on a school’s website traffic even before the pandemic. Reviews are now more important than ever after being used for everything for more than a year.
- Before visiting a store, 90% of customers read reviews online.
- Compared to personal recommendations, only 84% of people trust online reviews.
- Online searches are the most reliable source of information about people and businesses by 65% of people. More trustworthy than any other online or offline source, that is.
Create Email Workflows
For educational professionals, the 2020–21 academic year was one of the busiest ever, and significant burnout is still present. Email workflows are a great place to start if you’re looking for ways to save time while actually improving your email marketing strategy.
An educational institution’s inbound marketing strategy must include email workflows, also known as “email drip campaigns” or “automated emails.” An email workflow is a series of emails that are automatically sent based on the subscriber’s contact information, activity, or preferences. A parent’s enrollment year or persona, for instance, can trigger an email workflow just as easily as a contact submitting a form.
These time-saving “set it and forget it” emails have been shown to increase email engagement. Practically do anything with them, including:
- Greetings to new students’ families
- Foster potential families who have recently enquired
- Orient new faculty and staff
- Inform the neighborhood’s inhabitants of impending activities and due dates
- Promote an event or gathering and start
Publish a blog
A blog is a fantastic platform for sharing knowledge, developing thought leadership, and sharing unique stories. Build a strong content archive, elevate the voices of your community, and improve the effectiveness of your organic search. If schools and other educational institutions want to have more control over their online storytelling, starting a blog is a great place to start. Nevertheless, it is not by any means as crucial as some of the other marketing tactics on this list, like your website.
Think about these questions before you launch your blog.
- Who will write the blog’s articles?
- Where will the blog’s content be kept?
- Which style will we use for our editing?
- Our target audience is who.
- What kinds of topics do we want to write about?
- Have we got the means to post regularly?
Establish Your First Content Offer
A prospect’s information is typically obtained by a private, international, charter, or other school or educational institution via an inquiry form. Inquiry forms are fantastic for gathering information from people who want to learn more about your organization. According to consumer behavior, if a customer is enquiring, they have already done their homework and have put you on their “short list.” In other words, if you don’t have a content offer, you’re missing out on a sizable audience of people who are still weighing their options for their “long list.”
A content offer gives potential families something beneficial to help them make a decision.
Consider this: How to Choose the Best College or Five Reasons to Attend an All-Boys School
You’ll be able to add more families to your pipeline faster by using content downloads, which frequently have higher conversion rates than lead generation forms (like Enquiry forms).
Invest in Regular, Useful Social Media Ads
Now is the time to start spending money on social media advertisements for your institution. Social media is a smart (and cost-effective) way to raise awareness and eventually increase enrollment because your potential families spend a lot of time there.
Because: Social media is an excellent tool for advertising
- Compared to search ads, the average cost per click is significantly lower.
- With numerous lists and campaigns, you can widen your audience.
- You can experiment with a number of different ad formats.
But you’ve got to do it right.
If you’ve tried running social media ads in the past without success, it could have been a problem with your ad content, creative, audience, or even goal. For instance, it won’t work to advertise your school’s open house to a list of people who have never heard of it.
Here are three clever campaigns to get you started if you want to invest in social media ads this year:
- Building Awareness Through a Top-of-the-Funnel Campaign: Looking to expand your audience? To create a lookalike audience, upload a list of demographic details about your current families. Keep the ad copy and creative light for this campaign, with no hard-hitting “pitch.” To promote your school to new audiences is the aim here.
- Conversion-Boosting Middle-of-the-Funnel Campaign: Utilize a Facebook Pixel retargeting campaign to interact with website visitors. Encourage this group to inquire or apply.
- An Encouragement Campaign at the Bottom of the Funnel: Everyone is aware that once a family enrolls, it does not complete your work. Use value-added content, such as student success stories, in social media advertisements to current families during the re-enrollment period.
You should merge your social media profiles
Paid advertisements, however, can speed up the admissions process. All-around marketing and communications can benefit from a cohesive organic social media strategy. If your district or school is having trouble managing numerous rogues, this could be a straightforward victory for you. Accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter that are either outdated or off-brand.
A single institution should have a single Instagram profile, Facebook page, and Twitter account. Twitter is frequently regarded as the “exception to the rule,” though. This platform allows sports teams and clubs at schools and colleges to post timely updates. Your school or college must maintain a single profile on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms like LinkedIn.
Combining social media accounts has numerous advantages, including:
- A rise in activity and traffic on the main pages of your College or School
- Consistency of voice, brand, tone, and content
- Passwords and privacy settings are now easier to access.
- Fewer remarks to manage
- simplifying online reviews
Spend more time and money on video
Comparatively speaking, video content is the most engaging. As a result, start making small adjustments to your email, social media, and website marketing strategies.
There is good news for you if you are already short on time and money! No one expects Hollywood-level quality after a year of connecting via low-res video, but making videos has never been simpler.
Consider the following if you want to use video in your marketing more this year:
- Begin modestly! Weekly social media posting goals should include one new video. It might be something silly, like adhering to current Instagram Reel trends, or it might be a way to advertise an occasion. For users of any skill level, editing videos is simple with programs like Canva and Animoto.
- Make a list of potential video topics. Interviews, teacher advice, and testimonials all make for entertaining and interesting videos.
- Work on a YouTube strategy for some time. Investing in YouTube can help your school perform better in organic searches if it consistently produces longer videos.
- Even if you return to in-person events, live streaming is now a “need-to-have” rather than a “nice-to-have.”
- Collaborate with your neighborhood; students in particular are excellent resources for producing video content.
Schools, colleges, coaching centers, universities, and pre-schools. From branding to website development, we provide targeted and strategic digital marketing services. Due to this, educational institutions are able to successfully increase online enrollment.
Digital marketing for educational institutions can make it challenging to target parents, guardians, teachers, or even actual students.
Change your plan for marketing and communications at your institution to meet higher-than-ever parent expectations. For us, this has become “normal.” During the planning process for your district’s marketing and communication strategies for the upcoming academic year. Make a list of “must-haves” to make sure your marketing and communications strategy is future-proof using the suggestions in this blog.
