Yes, the pandemic is still here, but life is gradually and carefully adapting to a new rhythm. Take college admissions, for instance. While students are eager to start a new phase of life, they are not too keen about travelling much or meeting a lot of people in person just yet. They want an easier way to find out about different campuses, compare them and then make a choice. So, how do you convince students to apply to your school even when you can’t meet them personally? Here are 5 smart tips that can help: 

1. Informative and engaging blogs or articles – Any college worth its salt knows the importance of having an attractive and informative website. Along side a strong website, in-depth, interesting blogs and articles are the best way to add value to it. In fact, you can also churn out guest blogs to draw potential candidates from other reputed sites. How-to articles and guides can especially help students to find out more about your institution, how to apply, what courses to consider, how to get financial aid, and more. Plus, by including relevant keywords (phrases that potential applicants use while searching for colleges), you can rank high on Google over time and boost awareness. This will get you more traffic to your website and conversions.
   
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2. Appealing and meaningful visuals – One of the best ways to convince students to attend your college is to use visual media like well-shot images, exciting videos and immersive college virtual tours. Pictures speak louder than words, and so, include powerful visuals wherever possible, on your site and social media pages. They will ensure more engagement, better recall, and can help you beat competition. Virtual tours, especially, are perfect if you want students to explore your campus in a realistic manner and imagine their future there. You can also embed buttons like “Apply Now”, “Plan a Visit”, “Contact a Student Ambassador” etc. to drive conversions. 
   
   
3. Smooth and effective communication – If you wish to attract students to your college in this tech-savvy era, you need to warm up to channels like text messsaging, email, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom and so on. It can be a super effective way to send out updates and notices, especially if you want to reach students anytime, anywhere. This way, they won’t miss out on anything important, be it the last date for application or documents needed at the time of enrolment. Having multiple channels of communication also means students can get their doubts cleared whenever they want and appreciate your support. You can share visual information too, to hook them fast. This can lay the foundation for a long-term relationship. 
   
   
4. Tap the power of social media – Social media marketing is among the best tools to increase college enrolment without spending a ton on physical or online ads. Building eye-catching pages that are rich in information can be your starting point, whether you are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or all of them. Since youngsters spend a large chunk of time scrolling through their social feeds, your institution will come across as smart, progressive and friendly. You can create interesting and visual-rich posts about important events, the majors you offer, your faculty members, and your facilities, ranging from the lawns, pool and gym to dormitories, lecture halls, library. Sharing virtual tours on social media platforms is another clever way to ensure better engagement.
   
   Read – Top 5 Ideas to Make your College Virtual Tour More Winning
   
   
5. Let your alumni speak – In order to convince students for admission, you have to walk the talk. Essentially, you have to prove what you claim. And for that, you can loop in alumni members and request them to create short videos where they talk about their on-campus experience, how they bagged good jobs from your placement cell or earned a prized football scholarship, how they enjoyed running around the gardens or splashing in the pool, how the locality or community made everyday life easy for them, and so on.    

All in all, it is not impossible to attract students to your college, despite the tremendous competition in the education sector, if you are a little creative and know how to keep up with the times. And the above tricks and tips must have made it evident how crucial visual marketing is, when it comes to improving college enrolment statistics. So, send us an email at info@massinteract.com if you need help with stunning photos, videos or virtual tours, and we will do it all for you.

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