Like any other business, higher education institutes need to go online these days, if they want to get more students or improve college admission numbers. After all, high school students who are planning to get into a good college take the online route mostly, to check out websites, make comparisons, or even apply for a course. And the current pandemic has made it essential for them to stay home, stay safe, and use their laptops or mobile phones to research different colleges and universities. And this is an opportunity you shouldn’t miss out on.
So, take a look at these online marketing tips to get more students:
- Know who you are targeting – If you intend to target “all” prospective students, your marketing campaign might fail. Because, not everyone will be a perfect fit for your college. So, identify your ideal target audience and research about what social media channels they use, if they are active on emails, and their online behavior. Then you can craft personalized campaigns about the programs they might like or the facilities (campus location or setting, dorm rooms, cafeteria, gym, library) that will attract them.
- Sell your uniqueness – Why should a potential student choose your college over others? There must be something unique about you. So, one of the online college marketing tips is to highlight that USP. So, your online marketing strategy should focus on your strengths and chief attractions. It might be a location that is easily accessible, or beautiful campus grounds, a massive and well-stocked library, impressive faculty or a canteen that serves a wide array of cuisines.
- Make the website awesome – Ifyou want prospective students or their parents to visit your website more and linger on, make sure it is extremely responsive, fast to load and easy to navigate across all devices. It should look professional yet engaging. Add crisp and well-shot images to increase interest of site visitors and also embed college virtual tours for an immersive and interactive experience. Such 360 degree tours give a clear idea of what your college is like and tell the student how he or she will fit in.
Read – How Virtual College Tours are Changing the Student Recruitment Game - Optimize site for search engines – Your SEO strategy should be smart and updated, so that you get more organic traffic to your website. For this, you need to use relevant keywords in your web content based on the phrases potential candidates use to search for a college like yours. Even your social media pages and blogs should be optimized for search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
- Experiment with content formats and marketing channels – Apart from your website,use yourFacebook page to build a community of students and parents, where you can share events, upload informative videos, and create polls or fun quizzes. This will help you communicate better with your target audience, understand their pain points, solve their worries and gradually nudge them towards conversion.
- Also try and maintain a blog where you post informative pieces regularly and share them on social media channels.
- LinkedIn is a great platform for colleges too and can showcase your formal side effectively. You can also ask ex-students to join your LinkedIn group and share their experiences. This can reel in new students.
- You can also use YouTube to post videos. Or, share the virtual tour on your website on social channels, to get more clicks.
- Email newsletters every week if possible, to boost brand awareness and engage students.
- Also try and maintain a blog where you post informative pieces regularly and share them on social media channels.
No matter what type of content you share or which online marketing channel you choose, make sure to include a powerful call to action or CTA at the end, like “Find out more”, “Ask questions” or “Apply now”, so that the student knows exactly what to do. This will get you more applications.
Apart from the points mentioned above, make sure your brand voice and tone is consistent across all marketing channels, so that students can easily associate your campaigns (posts, tweets or ads) with you. And if you need the best visuals to boost your online presence, say with college campus virtual tours, send an email to info@massinteract.com.
Read Also – Why Visual Marketing is the Future for Businesses
