If you’re looking for the most efficient methods for increasing enrollments in your school or college while leveraging the power of the online world, you know it can be difficult to find a solid place to start. The internet is a vast place, and identifying the right next steps for improving your school’s online presence can seem complex.
With virtual platforms and tools becoming more and more important in education, it’s crucial for school leaders to understand how to leverage digital marketing to boost the bottom line.
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR SCHOOLS
Your website is your first contact with parents and students (or simply, your potential customers). Hence, upgrading its quality, content and SEO optimization can do magic for your school enrollments.
Upgrading your website provides visitors with user-friendly experiences, allowing you to communicate your institution’s values and vision to parents and potential students alike.
To start, keep in mind the following considerations:
When parents or students search for the best schools in their area or their field of interest, Google ranks the probable websites with specific algorithms and shows you the results. Search engine optimization (SEO) essentially positions your site to leverage these algorithms to appear higher in Google’s search rankings. Hence, improving your website’s SEO can help you get a higher rank in Google search and even rank you on the first page of search engine results.
One of the most important aspects of SEO is formatting your website with right keywords. For example, when you’re looking for the best business school for your kids on the internet, you’re most likely to employ terms such as “best business schools near me”, “top business school” or “best business school”.
Including such important keywords can make your website rank higher on Google search results and land more potential students and their parents onto your website. For that reason, it’s important to hire an SEO professional who can help improve your college website’s chances of appearing higher in search results.
Though advertising is no longer as effective as using inbound and outbound marketing strategies to drive organic traffic to your site, it is still a crucial element that—if done right—can increase enrollments for your school. Google AdWords is definitely the best place to start doing this. With Google AdWords, you can reach parents looking for the best school for their kids at that exact moment when they’re searching.
Here are some of the things you should remember while using Google AdWords -
Facebook is still one of the most popular social media platforms and a great place to reach your target audience. Use the power of sites like Facebook to draw more website traffic and cultivate a powerful online community with your new and current students—as well as their parents. Some key ways to do this are:
LinkedIn is another social media platform that you can utilize for your online marketing. It is a professional online meeting place and can help you connect with other academics, prospective students, possible partners and more. Getting into a regular cadence on LinkedIn can help you in several ways:
When it comes to attracting modern-day online consumers, creating high-quality content is table stakes. Developing and publishing consistent written content that speaks directly to the pain points of your target audience is one of the best ways to begin driving organic traffic to your website. And it costs you way less than paying for ads. A few strategies to get started are:
Another inexpensive, yet effective, strategy for online marketing for schools is sending regular email newsletters.
Your school has a natural potential subscriber base—parents and students. You can ask your them to subscribe to your school’s informative newsletter on a weekly or monthly basis. Email provides you with a direct line to potential students and other prospects.
These newsletters will also act as your word-of-mouth advertisements and help you increase enrollments—not just with new students, but also with transfer students. For instance, let’s say someone subscribes to your newsletter, but ends up choosing a different college. However, after six months, they realize they would like to look elsewhere to study. The fact that you’ve maintained consistent communication with them may just nudge them in your direction.
Online marketing might be the most influential modern-day tool, but integrating it with innovative offline methods will take your marketing campaign to a whole new level.
For example, wherever you offer your offline print ads, such as pamphlets or in newspapers, make sure you include your website address. Whenever you distribute documents, letters and envelopes, add your website and social media addresses to them. Also, wherever you send emails or texts, add the option of subscribing to your e-newsletter.
The more consistent you are about incorporating your online strategies with your analog tactics, the more you’ll grow across the web.
Think of your digital marketing as a car. Content, social media, SEO and other strategies are components that make the car function.
For example, if you want to leverage Google AdWords, you will forward people who click your ad to your website. However, if your website isn’t up to standards, your efforts will be wasted. People will get a negative impression of your brand, and it may even hurt your digital marketing efforts. That’s why all strategies need to be integrated and aligned.
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