7 PROVEN DIGITAL MARKETING WAYS TO GROW YOUR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
Education sector is one of the most difficult service businesses to scale in terms of marketing. The traditional marketing ways are no longer that much effective because of your ideal customer spends most of their time on internet. Their most of the life decisions are backed by the the content they consume on the internet. Therefore, in order to grab maximum attention and interest of your target audience; you have to adopt digital marketing strategies for your education-service business. Following are some proven and tested digital media marketing ways to grow your institution exponentially in terms of admissions.
1) A Complete Website
Website is the digital gateway to your institution. This is the place where parents usually research and find details regarding the institution for their child admission. Millions of parents search ‘ schools near me or schools in [city name]. At this moment if your your institution website is not showing in front of them; you are missing a massive potential audience. So, create a website that provides complete information regarding your institution and establishes a positive image in visitors mind.
- Add your brand story, how you differentiate from others, admission information, contact options, your history, testimonials, latest news, etc. Showcase your events, achievements, academic results and positive happenings of your institution. Add maximum compelling images & videos which can add value to website visitor’s information.
2) Social Media Marketing
An average internet user spends 2-3 hours on social media platforms. This is the place where you target audience such as parents and students spend most of their time consuming content. Therefore, social media marketing is one of the top-performing way to establish your brand awareness and get attention of massive potential audience. Facebook, Instagram & Linkedin are considered to be best platforms for educational institutions.
KEY ADVICE: Don’t use social media platforms just to upload promotional content; utilize it to build connection with your target audience and convert that attention into your customer by the language of value rich content.
WHAT TO UPLOAD: In addition to upload content regarding your institution; create images and videos to add value to your viewers knowledge and decisions. Upload creative & insightful content – For example, your institution learning experience, how-to tutorials, academic performances, teaching methodologies, event activities, why someone should your institution, etc. Such type of content can influence the decision of parents and students.
3) Facebook | Instagram | Youtube Advertisements
The best practice to invest your advertising budget is to invest on paid social media advertising instead of traditional methods. Nowadays, digital advertising campaigns yield more result than TVC or newspapers. This is because you can show advertisements to relevant audience, engage with them, retarget them and track each and everything.
- Social media advertising let you to show ads to your target audience depending upon their age, gender, demographics, education level, interests, online activities, type of content they consume, etc.
- Use Facebook & Instagram ads to create awareness and Youtube video ads to convince them. Always adopt indirect marketing approach in term of education advertising. Flip features of you institution into benefits.
- Advertise info regarding your services, your institution environment | Statistics | Achievements, advertise reasons why anyone should join your institution and how you are different from competitors. If are able to create such appealing high quality ads and target the most relevant audience; you will get guaranteed results
4) Automated WhatsApp Marketing
Suppose you have 1000 contact numbers of the parents or students who are relevant to your admission campaign. WhatsApp Marketing can play a vital role here to convince the most out of those 1000 prospects. Here you need a WhatsApp marketing software to send whatsapp messages to thousands of prospects instantly with a few clicks. You can see detals of a whatsapp marketing software here.
WhatsApp marketing softwares are more than a bulk message sending utility. You can accomplish a lot by utilizing it. You can setup auto responder chatbot for your whasapp which will automatically send replies to the incoming whatsapp messages and guide those who are enquiring about something. You can send buttons and catalogs with messages and much more!
Second responsive strategy is using WhasApp groups or communities. Add the relevant people in the group. Engage with them, share useful content, and answer their questions. Afterwards, invite them for a phone call or a physical visit to your institution.
For both whatsapp marketing strategies; follow a great rule known as 80/20 rule. Your 80% of the content and conversations should add value to the knowledge and information of your prospects. Just 20% should be the promotional material. You will absolutely start seeing the results.
5) Google Advertising
As you know that thousands of people search for nearby institutions every month. Most of the time; google is the first place where parents usually research regarding institutions. With Google advertising, you can show your website in top google results whenever someone will search for keywords related to your institution e.g Intermediate colleges near me
- Google ads can also be utilized to run image and video ads on websites relevant to your target audience.
- You can use Google ads to feature your Google business listing. This means whenever someone will search for schools near me or private schools in their city; your school listing will be showed in top results.
6) Search Engine Optimization
There are 2 ways thorough which your website can be displayed in front of relevant and potential audience on Google. One is the paid way Google Ads which i discussed before. The second is the the organic way known as search engine optimization. It is a long-term process in which you technically optimize your website in such a way that it ranks higher in Google search results for specific search terms. Running Google ads every time will prove to be expensive. So, one of the best practice is to hire a SEO expert who can work on various SEO strategies to rank your website higher and get potential visitors on it.
7) Value-Rich Blog
Content Marketing is still at the top in terms converting a reader into your customer. One of the best ways to influence and create a perfect image of your institution in peoples mind is creating value rich content.
- Set up a blog section in your website where you can upload articles regarding your institution, your students, academic grooming, child grooming, learning outcomes of your syllabus, etc. Try to indirectly market your institution via articles. Let me explain with examples. You can write articles on ‘How to choose best school for your child’ | ‘Top 10 high schools in Islamabad’ | ‘Impact of school environment on children’. You can write articles on such unique topics and indirectly project your institution as a recommendation not an option.
These were some top high performing digital marketing strategies for institutions. I hope these will prove to be super valuable for you.
About Us: Grow Iconic is an agency which helps businesses to emerge, grow, and scale via modern methodologies. We have worked with some of the notable educational brands in Pakistan including Concordia College (A project of Beacon House), Aspire college, Superior college, etc.
Interested in responsive digital marketing or web development for your institution? let’s discuss the plan on a quick free consultation call.