Digital Marketing Considerations for the Educational Institutions
Marketing for the education sector is notoriously challenging. Hurdles like budget limits and the ever-changing audience every year make promoting and marketing educational institutions more complex and competitive.
Students and parents expect a seamless online experience and an authentic presence on social media. As candidate recruitment becomes a year-round activity and as digital channels continue to evolve, even established educational suppliers have to analyse their marketing strategy on an annual basis.
So what can you do to enable education sector marketing strategy for success? Some of it will always depend on the objectives of your school, college or university, but below are some general things you can pay attention to.
Key Timings
Choose a suitable time during the year when you can best plan and review your marketing strategy, keeping in mind the extended time for implementation. Recommended timings are preparing for the new academic year in June, and getting ready for the new financial year and spring term in November.
Regardless of your budget, it’s important to work on your marketing strategy to see how you can generate demand that leads to fill spaces. It’s important to pique the interest of potential candidates through the whole year. One-off recruitment days can lead to poor results, as competition is tough and potential candidates can be easily compelled with attractive alternatives.
Understand Social Media
Prospective students are native to social platforms; hence they now expect you to have a strong social media presence across popular channels, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Having a presence on these platforms keeps your name of the school in sight and provides you with an efficient communication channel.
Get to the Top
Choosing an educational establishment also entails a process of due diligence. Parents and students will research education providers mostly online. That’s why you need to be at the top of the search results.
As Google is the most popular search engine, Google Ads can be an effective way to drive traffic to your website. It’s also a good idea to work with someone who is experienced in search engine optimization, otherwise it can become very expensive solely relying on paid ads.
Multi-Channel Strategy
Prospectuses remain vital and are still one of the best tools to talk about your story, from results to reputation, facilities and extracurricular activities. However, you should not limit yourself to printed prospectuses.
While printed material is still effective in education marketing, make sure your information and prospectus is also featured on your digital, social and email communications as well as any promotional items you give out at events.
Enhance Your Credibility
Testimonials from past students, certifications and awards you’ve won as well as your latest results are crucial to building up the credibility behind your name. These are all great endorsements which can be incredibly powerful in convincing potential candidates.
