The way that people find information has changed dramatically over the last forty years. We live in a digital age, and more people are using the internet than ever before to do their own research about purchasing decisions. The research window lengthens the higher the buy in. So for example, researching a dog toy may only take an hour before a purchase is made, but a larger purchase like a vehicle or a decision on school or university can take weeks or months to research before a person reaches out to a sales person or enrollment advisor.
What does this mean for those in the education industry? It means that you need to ensure prospective students and their parents can access enough information about your school or university to understand why yours is the best-suited option from the moment they start doing their research. If you’re relying on enrollment staff or in-person events to share information about your schools with students and parents, you’re too late.
Enrollment marketing combines the information and resources your sales and enrollment teams might share in a phone call, in-person interaction, or at a school fair and makes the relevant details easily accessible online.
Enrollment marketing includes any marketing campaigns and tactics undertaken in order to increase the number of applicants and enrollments at your school(s). Enrollment marketing is typically used for charter schools, private schools, colleges, and universities. The marketing assets in enrollment marketing will consist of a combination of traditional and digital marketing tactics and content. In this blog post, we’ll be focusing on digital marketing efforts like your website content, blog posts, social media, digital ads, etc.
Enrollment marketing is designed to provide information and resources that your students and parents need to inform their decision-making. This can include information about your mission, class size, program offerings, tuition rates, expectations for students, areas of focus, on-campus life, and anything else that could be relevant to a prospective student. By providing this information in strategic ways on your website, you can answer the questions your leads have while also gathering useful information about contacting leads and what else they might be looking for online.
Determining what your enrollment marketing campaigns will look like depends on where your organization needs the most support and is likely to see the best results online. Start by taking stock of where your digital marketing currently stands. Then you can figure out what tactics will work best together to support your enrollment goals. In order to attract your prospective students, you need to understand what they are looking for. Buyer personas are the best way to establish what your ideal students look like and how to find them online. You can use your buyer personas to customize your marketing tactics to speak to exactly what your prospective students or parents are looking for online.
While you can utilize a single marketing tactic, you’re likely to see the most success by incorporating multiple tactics that work together into a larger campaign. Each of the tactics listed below are tried and true methods we’ve used with our education clients to see the most success. Consider how they can be incorporated into your current digital marketing or work with other tactics to form a comprehensive digital campaign.
Targeted keywords help you curate your content to fit exactly what a parent or student is looking for online when searching for education options in their area. Which means that finding and utilizing the right keywords can have a big impact on how easily your schools can be found online. Keywords and search phrases are one of the most impactful tactics to utilize across your website. It’s how website visitors can find you online, and good keyword strategy can significantly improve your organic search traffic.
High value content is an in-depth way to help prospective students see your schools as a trusted knowledge source throughout their search process. High value content can include a wide variety of content types including ebooks, infographics, checklists, guides, comparison charts, and more. If there’s a topic that you can cover in-depth to provide valuable information to your students, you can and should turn that knowledge into a high value content piece.
Blogging is an effective way to improve your search engine rankings and increase the number of visitors coming to your website from organic search traffic. To do this, you need to include keywords that your visitors are using to find information and resources online in every relevant blog post you publish. Ideally, your targeted keywords should cover a range of topics that your students might be looking for online — from enrollment information to tuition support. By blogging about those same topics, you can provide the answers your leads are looking for and then give easy access to a similar topic, your enrollment advisors, or another relevant call-to-action.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a powerful way to see direct results in the form of search engine traffic for every dollar you spend. You’ll need to designate targeted keywords that you want to build your PPC campaign around, but once your ads are in place you can put your school at the top of the list for leads to find online.
Depending on the size and organization of your school, consistent digital marketing can be a challenge. Business moves quickly online, so if you aren’t keeping up with the fast pace you could be losing out on prospective students finding your schools, even if you’re the perfect fit for their needs.
Working with a digital marketing agency is an efficient way to put your digital presence into the hands of the experts. We’ll work with you to craft a campaign that has the most impact both short and long term on your enrollment. Click the button below to see how inbound marketing can help you increase your enrollment leads.