Digital marketing strategies are used to promote a brand or business over the internet. The main goal is to attract more audience and build a better brand. Digital marketing for the education sector is as essential as any other sector. Now, let us see how.
Technology has always played a vital role in shaping lives. And this technology has given birth to the Internet that occupies a majority of our space today. The students seem to have the highest internet consumption rate compared to any other group. With the ongoing global crisis of COVID 19, the digital platform has gained more importance than ever before.
This pandemic has, in a way, influenced several sectors. Right from the software to the automobiles, e-commerce stores, and any other field you think of is on the digital platform or is on the verge of jumping into the wagon.
The same is the case with the education sector. The key is adapting to the change. Change in terms of being more active digitally and reaching out to the students online. Online courses have been present for long. But, with regular online classes now, education via digital mode is the need of the hour.
The educational institutions need to follow well thought of digital marketing strategies to succeed. And why so? To stay on the top, to compete with other brands, and communicate with potential students, parents, and other experts, and to build a sharper brand image for the institution.
The primary purpose here is to implement various marketing strategies to promote educational content. And it is often the only way for new informative content to reach students and gain traction.
Digital marketing strategies for educational institutions should ideally include:
1. Using social media platforms to connect with the audience
With more than 4.5 billion people using the Internet, over 3.8 billion of them are active social media users, more than 9% increase since the last year.
There are several options to choose from, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and others. The main motive here is to create valuable content to establish a meaningful connection with the target audience. Now when creating your content, an institution must focus on its social media persona to reach out in a better way.
With the use of social media platforms, educational institutions are in a better position to provide students with useful information. Students can connect with a lot of learning groups and other educational systems that make acquiring knowledge convenient. Parents also stay updated with regular school activities and things involving their children.
2. Include digital advertising
The most significant advantage of digital advertising over traditional modes is the precision of targeting the audience. You can reach out based on demographics, intent, the pattern of engagement, etc. With proper targeting, the advertising campaigns will have a positive click-through rate and prove beneficial for other vital metrics.
Some digital advertising channels include search engine advertising, social media advertising, display ads, and video ads. It is good to use a mix of all channels. Also, gathering more and more data will help monitor digital advertising’s effectiveness and make necessary decisions on improving the same.
3. Have a mobile-optimized site
Over the years, the number of internet users using mobile phones has exceeded the number of people accessing the Internet from desktop computers or laptops. So, educational institutions need to design a mobile-optimized website to stay in the lead.
The website should look and feel great on a mobile device, that is, all the links and navigation channels should be easily clickable, the site should be responsive, and the page loading should be faster. It will ensure a happy experience for everyone, especially first-time users.
4. Include student and alumni feedback options
Studies reveal that around 90% of people read reviews or feedback online before going through something or paying for a service. So, every educational institute must have a place where the students and alumni can share their views or feedback on a particular subject. Make this part a little fun with some graphical representations. You can even incentivize those who share an opinion or give their feedback, to promote the same. You can also reach out to students or the alumni over emails or some other communication channels to solicit reviews or feedback.
Good Read: Digital Marketing in times of COVID-19
5. Include video content on video-sharing platforms for more engagement
Videos continue to rule the digital world. And as humans, we always prefer to watch videos rather than reading content. Viewers tend to retain 95% of the content when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in the form of text. Video content thus plays a vital role when designing a digital marketing strategy.
Video content can be in the form of presentations, live videos, webinars, product videos, tutorials, online sessions, interviews, case studies, animated content, etc. Moreover, the education sector can easily create more visuals regularly as they have a lot of educational content available at hand.
A close watch of the video content will give you an idea of what content does well. Monitoring should be in terms of the watch time, the average duration of viewing, video completion rate, audience retention, re-watching the video, click-through-rate, engagement, viewer growth, and others.
6. A good website experience
A website says a lot about you as a brand. It is a great marketing tool as it represents your work on the Internet. A good website should be visually appealing, easy-to-navigate, responsive, and should have valuable content. Through an excellent website, you can pull a lot of traffic or audience to your page and offer a worthy experience.
7. Increase your search visibility using SEO
SEO forms an integral part of any digital marketing strategy. In terms of educational institutions, it is the process of making the institution’s web page easy to find and easy to categorize.
It is the way of driving the audience to your brand through different online platforms. It means increasing your visibility or chances of being found on the Internet. Here are some top SEO techniques to generate more traffic.
We all know that the young mass or the students of the present day are the future. The same implies to the use of digital media in the field of education, where the focus seems to be increasing in terms of online classes, e-learning modules, educational content across websites, workbooks, etc.
The way forward
Students are continuously seeking the Internet’s help to access information, learn new things, mark their attendance, for entertainment, extra-curricular, and so much more.
And it is imperative that a good experience lasts forever and can fetch the right word of mouth.
These basic digital marketing strategies for educational institutions are perfect to represent your education brand in the right light. They are a great way to navigate to the students and parents and create a more reliable brand recall for your institution.
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