As schools today find the need to appeal to a diverse student-parent base, adopting new-age marketing trends has become an increasingly important task for them. Education institutions must now go to greater lengths to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Implementing successful marketing trends can help with spreading positive word of mouth recommendations, increasing enrollments, and building trust.
Given below are a few modern marketing trends that educational institutions can implement to ensure that they don’t just survive, but thrive.
Services through mobile platforms
Mobile devices have become an integral part of the education system on a global level. They have penetrated the teaching system by accessing learning and information. Parents often feel emotionally disconnected from their children during their learning years. A high-tech platform not only helps negate this disconnection and involve parent engagement but also puts the school in a positive light by boosting its image. This will be very helpful in increasing a positive word of mouth around the school.
Highly personalized content for each student on a mobile app helps boost parent satisfaction by keeping them up-to-date with their child’s daily activities and achievements in the classroom. Through a platform like this, parents have the opportunity to view their child’s progress on a regular basis. The idea of watching their child grow both physically and mentally on a personalized platform is bound to increase their delight and trust in the school.
Invest in Visual Content
Video marketing is an essential part of marketing trends today. It is the perfect way to show emotion in a school’s marketing efforts. In fact, according to studies, 45% of people watch more than an hour of video on Facebook and YouTube every week. Using a smartphone to go “live” on social media, filming your testimonials, and catching candid moments in school can go a long way in capturing the attention of potential parents.
Here are some potential ideas to help you get started:
- Highlight success stories of first-generation students that came to your school and thrived.
- Interview a group of students about what they love about the school and compile the best responses.
- Show how a student who felt lost developed his skills vastly and found direction through the school.
After that, integrate these videos to your website, social media, and email campaigns.
SEO: Oldie but Goldie
Today, 93% of people use search engines to begin surfing the web. High search rankings increase traffic on websites, and there are different types of strategies that educational institutes are implementing to improve their search rankings. This makes SEO one of the most essential marketing trends. It involves making improvements to your website that will increase its visibility in search engines, mainly for the words that a potential student would associate with your site.
Tap into the world of Social Media
The millennial parents majorly rely on their timelines for news, motivation, research and even opinions. In fact, a research conducted by QS World University shows that a growing number of prospective parents and students are using social media to research schools and universities.
Implementing a social media strategy that is right for your school is crucial. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Ensure that the social media sites you use are consistent with your school’s goals.
- Make sure that the platform you use, content you create, and tactics you employ are all relevant to your audience.
- Finally, research! Continue to learn about who your audience is, where they live on social media, when they visit, their challenge points, and how you can solve them.
Don’t sidetrack email marketing
Email is one of the key tools that education marketers make use of. It’s important to understand how to send valuable content to the right prospects at the right time.
Personalization is highly essential for a simple fact: people want to feel wanted. One of the easiest ways to provide a personalized experience to your audience is through email marketing. 74% of marketers confirm that targeted personalization profoundly increases customer engagement.
It has become quite evident that schools need to adapt to modern forms of marketing slowly. While these trends are not traditional forms of marketing, they do ensure a positive word of mouth and enhance the school’s image and brand in the eyes of existing and prospective parents – which is precisely what marketing is all about.
