Do you want to increase your university / School admission? then this is the right article for you. Whether you are a small or large institution, here we’ll give you the best digital marketing strategies to increase admissions in your college/School.
As we all know the world is going digital. Students and their parents are getting smarter when it comes to choosing the right universities or schools. The traditional way of distributing pamphlets is no longer enough to increase admissions, you need to hop into the digital marketing world to generate huge amounts of leads.
Now that the admission season is going to start all educational institutions will try their level best to fill the seats of their colleges/schools. And if you want to stay ahead of your competitors it’s high time to boost penetration with digital marketing strategies to increase admissions.
Students are spread across the globe and cannot jump from one place to another to gather information to make their decision. Hence, the role of digital marketing is very important in terms of reaching out to students globally.
So, without wasting time let’s dive into our article :
Buyer’s Persona :
Buyer’s Persona is the first and foremost strategy that should be applied when it comes to digital marketing for increasing admissions in universities/schools. Buyer’s persona is simply the process of identifying the audience whom we have to target, that is the parents and students, who you want to influence to take admission in your College/School.
We should have a proper understanding of who is our ideal parents/students are going to be. Are you providing world-class infrastructure in your college/School and expecting high-income parents to pay high monthly fees? or expecting average-income parents who can afford your standard monthly fees? Are you looking for those students who are looking for institutional activities like Sports and Arts activities? or only for academic curriculum.
When you’ll have a clear understanding of your ideal customer ( Parents & Students ), It will be easier for you to target the right audience at the right time which will not only help to increase enrolment or admission in college/school but also help you avoid waste of your time and resources.
Benefits of Buyer’s Persona :
- For a better understanding of the parents and students
- To increase Profit
- To inculcate motivation in parents/students to take admission
- Helps to Generate more leads in your institution
- Helps to target and position them
Increase Visibility on Search Engines :
It is important to have visibility if your educational institution is on the digital front. And search engine optimization (SEO) is something that can help you with this. Strengthening your SEO strategies can help you improve your google ranking. So that, when students search for a university for themselves your university or college can appear at the top of the search results. Seeing your university on top students will most likely pay a visit to your universities website before going to look at your competitors’ websites. SEO has also been highly effective when it comes to attracting and tracking leads through search engines.
When you’re on top of the google ranking you can grab this opportunity to engage and attract parents and students by showcasing the achievements of your university.
Use Social Media :
Nowadays social media presence is mandatory for all educational institutions. Almost all of their targeted audience i.e., the students and parents everyone is on social media. It’s the most attractive and engaging digital marketing strategy for universities. Advertising on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram about entrance exams, admissions, webinars, placement opportunities, etc., can generate a lot of positive feedback and leads.
According to Google, around 400 Million people use social media in India in 2021. Annual growth in active social media users is more than 78 Millions of new users.
TOP SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM IN INDIA 2023
- YOUTUBE – 85 %
- FACEBOOK – 75 %
- INSTAGRAM – 70 %
- TWITTER – 50%
- LINKEDIN – 37%
- PINTEREST – 34%
- REDDIT – 22%
So, undoubtedly social media is the best platform to increase visibility.
Build & Enhance Your Content :
Always remember content is king. Content plays an important role in any business. It’s a results-based marketing strategy for all brands.
If educational institutions regularly produce engaging and informative content, there is a high chance that students will find it interesting and it’ll activate their minds. Just keep in mind to create content by keeping students’ interests in mind. For example, you can publish blogs talking about the opportunities you are going to provide on campus or something like ‘how to overcome the fear of examination’, ‘ how to choose the best course’, etc. Keep showering your digital platforms with engaging content, this will give prospective students a reason to choose you and stay with you.
Inbound Marketing :
Inbound is about creating content and sharing on over the web. By creating content specifically designed to attract the customers of your dreams, inbound marketing attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more.
This form mainly focuses on creating quality content that attracts people towards the brand. These people are already pioneers, exploring the market and competitors to find the best option.
One should build a good website that has proper call-to-action buttons that take the student to the landing pages. Landing pages are a good source of leads. In the above screenshot you can see that the CTA button is clearly visible. When you open the Symbiosis website, the first thing that appears is this window. Now is the season for admission, these kinds of tricks work.
Virtual Tours and Going live:
Apart from courses and placement, the thing that students take the most interest in is, the infrastructure of the college and what the overall campus looks like. Therefore, giving virtual tours to students through social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be very beneficial.
This involves creating a 360-degree image of the college campus as such posts are actually trending on Facebook. The 360-degree images give a complete idea of what the campus looks like.
A virtual tour guide can guide them through your state-of-the-art auditorium, your first-class sports facilities, laboratories, classrooms, and more. Also making campus videos with a good voice-over can engage students.
Going live on universities’ social media pages is another way of engaging students as many prospective students may join your live video. For example, if there is some fest, concert, or fun activity going on in the campus, you can go live to show what you have got for your students. This type of activities generally attracts a lot of students these days.
Alumni stories and placements :
Every student and their parents are interested in knowing the placement record of the universities before taking any decision because everyone wants a nice package. So, you can’t forget to display the placement record of the last few years when you do digital marketing for increasing admissions in universities.
You can share alumni stories and ask the students who got placed to make videos sharing their experiences and tips for the coming batch. It’s a really effective way to connect with prospective students. This is the most effective digital marketing strategy for increasing admission to universities and schools.
Career Counselling Webinar :
Students do a lot of research before choosing the right university and course for themselves, but most of the time they get confused by looking at the number of options available sometimes that they get confused as to what to choose. So, they desperately start looking for someone who can guide them in this context. Hence, colleges can arrange career counseling webinars to attract prospective students. This will help in getting leads as interested students will sign up for webinars and if done properly these leads can be converted into enrolled students.
webinars have a positive impact on the students as it builds the trust of students in the organization.
Email Marketing :
There are several ways to collect target audience data. And once you have the data, you can generate various newsletters stating admission details, event news, recent blogs or any relevant information about the college.
Plus, adding a call-to-action button can take a lot of work here, all you need to do is deliver a catchy headline. The content should be such that the reader makes a call to action and proceeds to the next step. It helps in creating large-scale databases. According to a survey, emails have yielded more results than social media platforms in generating leads for universities. Email Marketing is one of the most effective and budget-friendly digital marketing strategies for universities.
Chat Bot & Quick replies :
At the beginning of every new academic year, candidates are full of questions related to campus, courses, accommodation, etc… answering them all one by one is not possible for the admission department. And delay in answering prospective candidates’ questions can make them lose interest in your university and they might go for other alternatives. That’s when chatbots come into play, they’re designed to provide quick automated responses to the most common questions asked by potential students.
Now that you have read about how digital marketing can increase student admissions. It is time to start working on the strategy and achieve the highest ranking of all.
