Education is becoming accessible now more than ever. We have seen this in COVID times very clearly. With lockdowns imposed, educational institutions were quick to shift online and ensure an uninterrupted mode of education. But now that they have a more active digital presence, let’s look at 5 digital marketing strategies that they can use successfully.
Mobile Optimization
These are no more the computer or laptop days. Everything is now in the palm of your hands. From entertainment to work to connecting with your friends to organizing your calendar. Everything has summed up in smart phones. And if your business is not accessible on cellphones, you have already lost the race.
You need to remember that as educational institutes, your consumers are students. Generally, they are young, and smartphones are extremely popular with them. So while developing your website, you need to ensure that they are mobile friendly, attracting your potential audience, the students, with much more zeal.
Encourage Students to Leave Online Reviews
90% of consumers go through with a deal after going through reviews. Now, one would think that online reviews may make a difference to ecommerce businesses more than educational institutes. But let me tell you that student’s reviews who are currently enrolled or have already graduated matter a lot. Most of the times, students even opt out of courses or schools if they do not hear reviews. And so online reviews are the need of the day.
But the question arises, how would you get the students to leave these reviews? Students live a very fast life. They cannot be tied down with complicated and long reviews. So make them easy, short, and fun. The best is to make feedback requiring sentences optional and adding Likert scale to your survey review. Now that you have created a platform, you will surely receive negative reviews as well. Do not delete them, publicly address them. It will show you potential consumer how you respond to such situations.
Also, if you still need to ensure that students give you reviews, add a bonus point system. Students love other methods of earning credit if it doesn’t require extra studying.
Create Engaging Video Content
Hubspot reports that almost 78% people watch online videos weekly while 55% watch them every day. So naturally, video content will give a fantastic returns on investment (ROI). So make videos and publish them online.
Video content for educational purposes can range from interviews to how-to tutorials, to live videos, explainers, animated content etc. These best way to choose the content is to make your audience tell you what they want to watch. And you can do that by keeping an eye out on the stats.
Managed Ad Placement
Ad placement is a very important digital marketing strategy. Done rightly, it can reach a huge number of the audience in an estimated budget. However, executed wrongly, it can lead you to getting the least possible number of potential consumers by applying a huge budget. So managed placement is that you place your PPC ads on relevant websites. For instance you are going to introduce a course for copywriting. You will find the aspiring copywriters on websites of esteemed advertising awards festivals.
This way you will have regulated the marketing budget in the best way possible.
Stakeholder Networking
Get the best out of your stakeholders. And for an educational institute, the stakeholders include alumni, students, professors, professionals, etc. Make use of them. Talk to them and this will definitely reflect in your webpage’s efficiency. A few examples as to how this will be possible: by prospective students and parents you will understand what they expect from you, the alumni will tell you how the institute helped them curate their career path, and professionals can you tell about career opportunities that your current or prospective students will have after they graduate.