Education Marketing Strategies

Schools, colleges, and universities may not operate like a typical business, but they do need to make sure that they know how to promote themselves through effective marketing. The education sector can be fiercely competitive, so it is important to have a strong online presence in today’s digital marketplace. Prospective students and pupils will always research an educational institution online before making a decision, so you need to make sure you are easy to find online. With this in mind, this post will explore a few effective digital marketing strategies for education providers that will be most effective. Read on to find out more.

Higher Education SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most prominent digital marketing strategies, as this is how you improve your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Higher education SEO is particularly effective because prospective students will often use search engines to find and research colleges and universities in a specific area. Higher education SEO will help you leapfrog the competition and improve your visibility on SERPs, which will increase awareness, improve your reputation, and drive more organic traffic to your website.

Social Media Campaigns

These days, social media is a powerful tool when it comes to promoting your educational institution, whether it is a nursery, school, college, or university. Social media provides a platform for you to advertise, so you want to create high-quality content that will engage your target audience, such as key programs, campus events, achievements, and student testimonials. Additionally, you can utilise targeted ads with demographic targeting, enabling you to reach the most relevant audience with your advertisements.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is another highly effective strategy in digital marketing for schools. Once you collect potential student email addresses, you can create email messages for each stage of the recruitment funnel. The key to success with email marketing is crafting engaging subject lines (not clickbait) and including a clear call-to-action, such as filling out an enquiry form or booking a campus tour.

Video Marketing

These days, people often do not have much of an attention span and may be reluctant to read a lengthy post about your school. This is why video marketing has emerged as such a powerful tool in digital marketing in recent years, particularly short-form video marketing (this is thanks to the rise of social media platforms like TikTok. By creating high-quality, entertaining, and engaging videos, you can capture and hold your target audience’s attention. By combining visual and audio elements, you can create a narrative and succinctly communicate complex messages. There are all kinds of types of videos that can be effective for school marketing campaigns, such as:

• Student testimonials

• School leader interviews

• Virtual campus tours

• Event highlights

• Live Q&A sessions

• Examples of student work

Content Marketing

Content marketing remains one of the key education marketing online strategies as this is how you communicate with your target audience. In addition to getting your voice heard, content marketing allows you to showcase your authority and improve your reputation - this is hugely important in the education sector as you need to position your institution as a leader in the area. This can be achieved with blog posts, guides, resource centres, webinars, and podcasts. Of course, this means that you need to create content that is authoritative, engaging, and valuable. You should also optimise this content to improve your visibility online.

PPC

Higher education SEO is a highly effective digital marketing strategy for colleges and universities, but it is important to understand that it can take a few months for results to show. This can be frustrating when you need to improve your visibility online, which is why it is intelligent to blend SEO with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC advertising allows you to instantly improve your viability by appearing in the sponsored section of SERPs - this could be key for targeted reach during enrolment seasons. Combining PPC with higher education SEO is a great strategy as you will benefit from both short and long-term results.

Online Reviews & Testimonials

Online reviews and testimonials are one of the best ways to improve your reputation and convert visitors into customers. Deciding what educational institution to attend is a huge decision, so hearing from others can be incredibly useful for prospective students. Positive reviews can act as social proof, whether this is existing students, parents, and/or pupils, so be sure to encourage students to leave reviews on platforms like Google and Facebook. You should also create reviews and testimonials that you can include on your website.

Website Optimisation

The above are all proven school marketing campaigns that can help you get noticed online, but this will not help if you have a low-quality, dated website. Therefore, one of the most important processes is to optimise and update your website, which will improve conversion levels. Your website is how you present your institution to the world, so it needs to be a positive reflection and impress your target audience. This means having fast loading times, a mobile-friendly design, an intuitive layout, and engaging content.

Using A Digital Marketing Agency

Digital marketing for schools will help you achieve success and encourage enrolment, but it can also be challenging, time-consuming, and require specialist knowledge. This is why, for the best results, it is worth using the services of a digital marketing agency specialising in education marketing. Here at Digitally Unique, we have experience helping a range of educational institutions improve their online visibility. Our link building, SEO, and content writing services can transform your online presence and engage your target audience. It can be challenging to compete in today’s competitive online landscape, so you want digital marketing experts in your corner who can help you achieve success.

Digital marketing for schools is vital to success in today’s internet-driven marketplace. The above are a few of the most effective strategies that will help you stand out online, engage your target audience, and improve enrollment.