Are you trying to attract more students and improve your online positioning, but have not been successful? Probably, the strategy you use is not generating the prospects you need or attracting traffic to your website.
In this article, we will address some digital marketing trends in education that can help you stand out from your competition and achieve recurring sales.
Table of Contents
Why do you need digital marketing?
Digital marketing strategies allow you to capture qualified prospects, understand with data and statistics the interests, desires and motivations of your potential students.
Both students and parents are increasingly informed about academic offerings and regularly search the Internet before speaking with an advisor or going directly to the institution that interests them.
Therefore, in addition to offering an innovative educational model, you must also allow your prospects to find and contact you easily through digital marketing strategies , which are based on process automation and organic positioning .
Advantages of using digital marketing in your institution
The digital marketing increases the effectiveness of your actions and improve the shopping experience of your potential students even before they sign up . These are its benefits:
1. Being up-to-date helps define the most appropriate strategy
Technology reigns in our day-to-day lives and it is not enough to have many likes on your networks or have a website, if you are not turning visits into real sales opportunities.
By not having an effective strategy to support these efforts, you are missing out on multiple positioning and prospecting opportunities . The formula to enroll more students is:
(Strategy + Processes + Technology + Execution) * 2 = Students
2. Make a plan and determine a budget
The digital marketing encompasses various tactics and actions with a defined timing, prioritizing the most important and delegating tasks related to marketing and sales teams.
Based on them, it is also possible to establish a budget to work on, metrics to analyze what works and what does not, in order to achieve greater efficiency.
3. Adaptation to the new purchasing process
In recent years, the purchasing process in the education sector has evolved along with the strategy to enroll more students.
Consider that most of your potential students are digital natives and use the Internet to answer all their questions or request recommendations on educational offers. So what strategies allow us to adapt and attract them?
Through SEO tactics and a blog, you can improve your search engine rankings and integrate keywords that help improve the visibility of your website and capture the attention of your prospects.
4. Anticipate the competition
There are more and more educational institutions and offerings, and even the field of study has gone digital with online classes and specialized academic program platforms.
The trends that we will see below can help you stand out from so many competitors and add value to your offer .
5 Trends in digital marketing that you should know
The marketing digital advances in the education sector and if you do not want to miss the opportunity to attract more and better prospects, you must implement the following trends:
1. Increased use of mobile devices
Currently, more than 80% of people use their smartphone to access the Internet and search for information. So if your content is not easily digested on a mobile device or your website has navigation problems, you have a serious problem.
Optimizing content and checking website performance for mobile devices is key to increasing traffic, improving conversion rates, generating more sign-ups and increasing revenue.
2. Videomarketing
According to Hubspot, 86% of universities are already on YouTube and this year live video content will be the key .
Video marketing does not require a large investment or production, since you can use applications such as Facebook Live, Instagram or Snapchat to share videos of sports, cultural or academic events of your institution.
To even create more engagement , you can create longer videos of student interviews, lectures, or sample classes.
3. Chatbots in marketing automation
This instant messaging tool to chat in real time and 24/7 with students or website visitors is gaining ground, as people (especially young people) prefer simple and immediate things.
In addition, chatbots not only guide potential students, but also provide important information about the different stages of the purchase process of each prospect.
4. Influencer Marketing
Currently, influencers have become opinion leaders, whose content weighs on their followers. But, ideally, you would have to look for those that share themes that match your target and offer.
Influencer marketing can help you influence and connect with your potential students, share your content, and even make it viral.
However, if it is not in your hands to reach a famous influencer, you can create a group of internal influencers who speak and recommend your institution: successful graduates, outstanding teachers and even leading alumni of the student community.
5. Personalization of the experience
Potential and registered students seek to stop being just another number on a list and want to be treated according to their interests, motivations and desires. This becomes complex for educational institutions that have a high volume of students.
Segmenting the contact base is one of the most important digital marketing trends, since it allows you to personalize communication and actions, according to how people seek to buy.
People are looking for solutions that make their lives more comfortable and, in that sense, voice searches are positioned as a digital marketing trend , since it is estimated that by 2020 they will represent 50% of total searches, becoming a great business opportunity .
For that reason, it is important to optimize your website and content to identify and respond to the challenges that this means; offer quick responses and personalize communication with your prospects.
From digital marketing, implement actions that add to your results!
Digital marketing trends don’t work the same for all institutions. It is best to only incorporate those with which you can get the most benefits.
In our experience, a strategy with an inbound approach can offer you great benefits, as it uses several of these educational marketing tactics to attract more students .
