This year has been tough for a lot of us, having to adapt to a more digital lifestyle in order to keep in touch with people. Our “new normal” now includes things like online meetings and events instead of in-person ones.
Digital marketing is continuing to grow, with worldwide digital ad spending expected to rise to $441.12 billion in 2022. It is important to make sure that the right messages and channels are being used to reach the right audience.
Schools need to keep up with changing marketing trends to appeal to current and prospective students. By applying these 7 trends, schools can improve their marketing strategy and see better results in the year to come.
1. Drive big results through student-centered content promises.
High quality content is a great way to improve your marketing, increase engagement and build trust with potential and current students. It can also help increase your school’s visibility and search traffic. Many companies are increasing their content marketing budget next year.
Great content is interesting, useful, and easy to read. It is also error-free.
It is important to know your audience and student personas when creating content. Focusing on what would resonate with your students can help you make stronger connections with them and naturally drive conversions. Try exploring different platforms and formats, but remember that quality is more important than quantity.
Blogs
More and more schools are starting to have blogs as a way to show off their school’s community, share resources, and engage potential students. Even though blogs aren’t new, they are still popular and are expected to stay that way. According to HubSpot, 56% of marketers believe that blogging is effective and 10% think it generates the most return on investment.
A popular trend among schools is guest blogging, where a school will share a post on someone else’s blog. This is beneficial because it allows the school to reach new audiences and create backlinks to their website, which can improve their SEO ranking.
TAFE Queensland recently posted an article on Study International, a site that produces a variety of content for international students. The article is prominently featured on the homepage, and uses personal stories, engaging images, and relevant backlinks to interest readers.
Podcasts
The appeal of podcasts has surged in recent years, and it has been estimated that the market will be worth more than 2 billion by 2023. A defining feature of podcasts is their conversational style, which can make information more engaging and personal. This presents a range of possibilities for podcasts that focus on students.
Your school’s lectures and community insights can be shared informally to those who are interested. For example, Western University has a Podcasts page that features different speakers, departments, and subjects.
Videos
Even though blogs and podcasts are getting more popular, video content is still number one. In fact, it’s expected to make up 82% of internet traffic by 2022. Short videos are popular on many platforms, but long videos (2 to 6 minutes) usually do best on YouTube. Producing content in both formats can give your school more benefits.
You may want to create a long video that can be cut down to create shorter videos for social media platforms. This would allow you to engage your students through story-telling, while also avoiding high drop-off rates.
2. Catch the TikTok wave: video marketing and advertising continue to rise.
As previously stated, video content is more popular than other formats. With the added impact of social media, your school’s video and marketing campaigns will go a long way in reaching your target audience and connecting with them.
In September, TikTok surpassed one billion monthly active users, giving advertisers access to 24% of users aged 18 and above (excluding users in China and India). Analysts project that TikTok will reach 1.5 billion users in the next year, which would put it ahead of Instagram.
Schools can use this platform to increase awareness and engagement with teenagers, as it is becoming more popular. TikTok is about authenticity, so educational institutes can create content that is more organic and “TikTok-styled” to appeal to their target audience.
3. Collaborate with student ambassadors to level-up a social media strategy for schools.
HubSpot sees micro-influencers as play a big role in influencer marketing in the near future. Micro-influencers are social media users with a dedicated following that typically ranges from thousands to tens of thousands of users. These influencers often connect with a niche audience, giving marketers access to a new or specific target group.
Student ambassadors can help promote your school on social media platforms by becoming micro-influencers. They can reach prospective students in a more personal and direct way, and help showcase your school more authentically.
You can increase the appeal of your school to prospective students by including student-made content that connects them to current students and the school. This will show them that the student experience is good and that they can imagine themselves enjoying it too. This will make it easier for you to build trust and loyalty.
Marshall University has a program where students can act as ambassadors for the school on social media. These ambassadors share pictures and posts about their experiences at the school, including meals, hangs with friends, campus life, and school events.
4. Leverage the power of influencer marketing for universities.
Influencer marketing is a digital marketing tactic in which organizations partner with social media influencers to promote their products or services. This tactic has become increasingly popular in recent years as social media use has grown and organizations have become more aware of the power of influencer marketing. Higher education institutions can use influencer marketing to reach their target audiences by partnering with social media influencers who have a large following among the institution’s target audience. This tactic can be used to promote the institution’s programs, events, and initiatives. If your institution is looking for new ways to reach its target audiences, consider partnering with social media influencers. Influencer marketing can be a powerful tool for promoting your institution’s programs, events, and initiatives.
Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing that relies on endorsements and product mentions from influencers. Influencers are people who have a lot of social media followers and are thought to be experts in their field.
You can use social media influencer marketing to promote higher education. To do this, you need to start your campaign by analyzing your social media channels.
The individuals who use the name of your institute should be evaluated, and their social media standing should be studied. A digital agency should be sought to help in this regard. Then, the influencers should be connected with, and the approach they should adopt to advertise your institution should be discussed. Your own students can also be leveraged to become your ambassadors and talk positively about your higher education institution.
5. Use responsive ads for higher ed digital marketing.
As higher education marketing becomes more competitive, institutions need to adopt new and innovative marketing strategies to stay ahead. One such strategy is responsive ads, which are ads that adapt to the user’s screen size.
Ads that adjust their size, shape, and appearance to fit seamlessly into the content of a website or app are called responsive ads. These ads are highly visible and effective, without disrupting the user experience.
You can create responsive ads by working on several ad formats, including copy, headlines, and visuals.
A responsive ad is one that changes its size, appearance, or other features in order to be more effective on different devices. They tend to have a higher click-through rate and more impressions than static ads.
6. Adopt personalization for higher ed digital promotion.
personalizing your content is a great way to draw potential students to your university. making a connection with them on a personal level increases the chances that they’ll want to attend your school.
According to a 2015 survey of college and university admissions directors, 58% of them said they did not meet their enrollment goals. This means that the institutes need to have a well- thought-out plan to attract prospective students.
The students are struggling because they are being bombarded with information that doesn’t matter to them. Digital ads that are personalized will show the students what they want to see. Personalization that is meaningful provides students with valuable information and support as they move through their academic journey.
7. Use Google Analytics for higher education marketing.
If you are a higher education marketer, then you know that data is key to understanding your audience and making informed decisions about your marketing strategy. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you collect and analyze data about your website traffic.
Google Analytics can give you a lot of insights into your website visitors, like where they come from, what they do on your site, and more. With this info, you can adjust your marketing to better target your audience and achieve your goals.
Google Analytics is more concerned with how the site is being used overall, rather than the technical details.
The improved metrics allow you to predict the behavior of your users and calculate customer churn. It also provides more detailed data control and outlines how you should optimize your campaigns.
One of the most prominent digital marketing trends for higher ed in 2022 is benchmarking websites against competitors to fine tune promotional campaigns.
8. Improve your higher ed institution’s search engine visibility.
It’s important for institutions of higher education to use SEO strategies to ensure their marketing efforts are reaching the right audiences.
SEO is the process of making your website more visible in Google search results. By optimizing your site for search engines, you can increase the chances of your site appearing in the top search results for your target keywords, which will result in more website visitors.
If the developers of a well-designed content piece fail to use search engine optimization techniques, it will be doomed to obscurity. Search engine optimization can be thought of as an online publicist, which will help increase the visibility of potential investors and prospective students.
We have helped many clients improve their enrollment rates using our higher education SEO services for universities and colleges.
Anyway, three types of SEO you must be aware of are:
- On-page SEO is content enriched with strategic keywords, meta descriptions, title tags, internal links, and optimized headings.
- Link-building involves integrating high-quality internal links into your content.
- Technical SEO ensures that your official institute website doesn’t have technical errors or irrelevant content. Factors like broken XML sitemaps and missing links can really take a toll on your website.
SEO is a powerful tool that can help you win featured snippets and bring traffic back to your website, but it is not as straightforward as PPC. It takes a lot of time and effort to drive meaningful results from SEO.
9. Emphasize career outcomes through higher ed marketing.
A recent survey by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute discovered that the most popular reason students choose to go to college is to get a good job later. This provides assurance to both students and parents about the tangible value of a degree.
Boston College is doing a good job of showcasing the types of careers its graduates go into.
When your website’s academic and career outcomes are clear, it will engage the prospects and give them solid evidence.
There are a few ways to market your school’s alumni career outcomes. Feature alumni stories on your website or in other marketing materials. Focus on specific programs that have a good track record of preparing students for careers.
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