How to do Digital Marketing For Educational Institutions?
Do You want to do Digital Marketing for Educational Institutions? like Schools, colleges, and universities.
Digital Marketing is the marketing in which our targeted audience is online like Google, Facebook, Instagram etc.,
Nowadays, everyone is online, and the percentage of people using the internet is increasing day by day.
Whether they are in the waiting room of a Railway station, Clinic, at parties, or travelling, People are using the internet and social media everywhere.
So, there are high chances that our customer is online, and we have to reach them and make them our customer.
Here in this article, I will be discussing how to do digital marketing for Educational Institutions?
What are Educational Institutions?
Educational Institutions are all the institutions that are giving knowledge to the community like schools, colleges, tuitions, academies etc.
Why do Educational Institutions need Digital Marketing?
Everyone wants customers. In our case, the customer is a student. Every Institution wants to grow and have more students. So, for growing, you need to market yourself. There is a quote “The best known will always beat the best”.
Every institution whether it may be a school or college, use print media to advertise for their schools/colleges. Print media is one of the best options to advertise for schools and colleges. But wait?
How many people are reading newspapers nowadays? Print media is dying nowadays. The number of publications in newspapers decreases exponentially.
As many parents and students are using social media and the internet nowadays, then it is the best option for us to start marketing them on the Internet.
And Digital Marketing is also called Internet or Online Marketing.
When your potential customers are online, then it’s the best practice to drive their attention to your institution from there only.
How to Do Digital Marketing for Your Institution?
Here I will disclose the step by step procedure for doing digital marketing for schools or colleges or any institution.
- Institution
- Build a Website
- Customer Avatar
- Blog
- Social Media
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Nurturing the lead and Building Trust
- Testimonials
- Acquire Customer
1. Institution: The first and foremost thing when it comes to marketing is your product. It is said that “A great product sells itself, you just need marketing to make awareness about it. One should focus on the product first, and then on marketing. If you market a bad product then good marketing will accelerate the death of your company.”
In our case, the product is Educational Institute i.e., school, college, institution, academy. So, first thing is that You should have quality education in Your institute. You should have the best teachers to teach the subjects, and strong management to manage parents, teachers and students.
You should have good infrastructure as well because when anyone visits your school, they will see your infrastructure first. If you don’t have good infrastructure then parents will prefer the other school.
So, the first thing is you should have a good product i.e., your institution.
2. Build Website:
The first step for digital marketing for the school is to build a professional Website for the School. A website is the Your online Showcase of your work. You can make a professional website using WordPress for free. Just you have to Purchase a Domain name and Hosting.
And you have Hostinger– the Cheap and Best Hosting for WordPress.
If you don’t know how to build a website in WordPress then here you have a complete WordPress Tutorial for beginners.
3. Customer Avatar:
The next most important step is knowing your customer that we call Customer Avatar. You should know your customer,
- and what they want?
- what are their pain points?
- What is their budget?
- Their location etc
So, before marketing yourself, as an institution, you should know your customer well. Then you can place yourself by solving their problems and when you know their pain points then it will be very easy to relate with them.
For example, You are running a school in a particular area of Hyderabad. Then you should do a survey, the survey can be offline or online using Google Forms. In the survey, you should have the basic details of parents with their pain points regarding the school in which their child is learning.
Through this survey, you will get the contact details of a parent, as well as you will know different pain points of the parents in the locality with regards to the educational system. Then you can design your marketing strategy according to the survey.
I am working for one of my clients and I have designed an inquiry form for his institution, and soon We will be sharing that inquiry form and getting feedback from the parents. Once that is complete, definitely, I will be sharing the details here.
We can call it Market Research too.
4. Blog
As you have designed a professional website for your institution, now you should also have a blog for your website. You should write content according to your Educational department. Suppose You are running a Junior College, then you should have a blog on your website which answers the basic questions of Students as well as their parents. Like
- What after 10th
- Why Choose CEC
- What are the different options in CEC
- What course to join to become CA
- Why Choose MPC, BiPC.
- What after Intermediate
- Best Colleges for CEC in Hyderabad
- Top Colleges for MPC in Hyderabad
- Top Colleges for BiPC in Hyderabad
- Eamcet VS IIT-JEE
- Best Coaching for NEET in Hyderabad
- Best Colleges for NEET in Hyderabad
- How to crack NEET
- Best Colleges for IIT-Jee in Hyderabad
- Best Coaching for IIT-JEE in Hyderabad etc
These are the question many parents, and students will have in their minds. And definitely, they will Google to get the answer, and if you have a blog on these topics, then there are chances that the parents will visit your website and can become a potential clients. Your blog should be SEO friendly. Here is the complete guide for beginners to learn SEO.
5. Social Media
Nowadays social media like Facebook and Instagram presence are very important for Educational Institutions. As many parents and students spend their major time on Facebook and Instagram. So, you should have the Strong Presence over there.
You should share posts, photos, and videos of your institution like
- Daily activities
- Weekly Activities
- PTM
- Principals Word
- Student’s speech
- Kids drawings etc
So regularly posting on social media will develop your brand, and the parents following you will have an impact on their minds, and definitely, if they want to admit their kid to school, the first name will be your school. Remember “The best known will always beat the best”.
6. Google Ads
Google Ads is one of the powerful channels when it comes to advertisement. People search on Google when they want the information. They don’t search on Google just for entertainment as people use social media for entertainment. So, if Your potential client wants to admit his Kid in school, he/she might search on Google like
Best School near me, Best Primary Schools in Hyderabad. Best schools near Charminar, Best Schools with sports in Hyderabad etc.
Look here is an example of Google Ads when someone searches “Best Schools in Hyderabad”
When I searched Best Schools in Hyderabad, there were top 4 links are Google Ads by different schools. There are chances that Parents click the top links.
So, this is the power of Google Ads. You should have a separate budget for Google Ads too.
7. Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are the most powerful ads when it comes to Social Media Advertising. You can run Facebook ads and it will display on Facebook as well as on Instagram. And these channels are mostly used by parents and students.
Every 3rd post or 3rd story will be a Facebook ad and it will be written as Sponsored.
Facebook gives you leverage to select the audience to which you want to show your ad. So you can select the area in which you want to show ads, and the interest of the public to show ads.
That’s why if 2 people or 2 brothers are using Facebook, they will see different ads. Because Facebook shows ads as per the interest of its users.
8. Nurturing the Lead
Now after acquiring the parent’s attention, you should have them down the funnel by nurturing them. This can be done using Email Marketing or Sales Call.
As we are in the educational sector, when you run Facebook Ads or Google Ads, then you should have a form on Your Landing Page which asks them their Name, Phone Number and Email address.
In the Educational sector, a Phone Number is very important. Because many parents won’t read their emails. So, when you get the mobile number or WhatsApp number, then you can send them Emails and you can call them and ask them the age of their kid and which class he or she is in? Then you can tell them about your school. And ask them to visit the school premises.
Through this, you can nurture your lead and you can build trust with the lead.
I have a personal experience of calling and follow-ups. When we want to admit my nephew into school. I went to many schools and fill up their forms. But out of all the schools, I got continuous follow-up calls from their marketing girl. She followed me up, every 2-3 days. And we end up admitting my nephew to their school.
This is the power of follow up calls or emails.
9. Testimonials
You should also have Testimonials, and reviews by your Happy Parents on your website and on Google. When you are advertising on Google and Facebook, the landing page should have testimonials also. This will build trust, and chances are there that your lead will become your customer.
10. Acquiring Customer
When you nurture your lead and send them follow-up emails, and messages. And follow them up on calls, then there are high chances that the lead become your Customer. And in the education department when someone is your customer that means you have a customer for 10 years and more in the case of schools.
Conclusion: In this era of Digitalization, every school should have an online presence and they should have a strong digital marketing team, which gives leads to the institution. Else your competitor will have the upper hand.
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