Why You Need Education Marketing And The Top Trends To Watch Out For in 2022
Did you know that the global E-learning market is projected to reach $457.8 billion by 2026?
There is no question that the global E-learning market is booming, especially since the pandemic drastically changed our lives.
But is your educational organization or institution ready for the cut-throat competition that comes with the booming market?
Do you have a comprehensive education marketing plan in place to beat the competition?
Educational institutions need to implement specialized marketing strategies to attract new talent and elevate their standards. Hence, we will help you understand education marketing and explain how it is different from standard marketing strategies.
Additionally, you will also find a list of education marketing strategies that you can use to scale your brand and reach a wider audience.
What is Education Marketing?
Education marketing is any marketing campaign that promotes educational content or helps educational institutions. Your educational content can be in any form, including
- Courses
- Books
- How-to videos
- Research papers
- Software applications
Educational content sells like hot cake, as long as you implement the right marketing strategies. Furthermore, the pandemic has accelerated the need for educational content worldwide. As a result, there are numerous learning solutions released in the market every day.
Educational apps and other distance learning tools are helping students all over the world continue their education. More and more companies are entering the academic industry, especially with new valuable learning content.
Hence, quality education marketing is the only way for educational organizations or institutions to get ahead of the competition.
Why Do We Need Education Marketing?
There are over 500,000 educational apps currently on the App Store, Google Playstore, and other platforms. However, this number is increasing every day, which signifies the growth of the educational industry.
It is also worth noting that the e-learning market is not just limited to educational apps. Other popular educational solutions or products include eBooks, videos, online courses, educational websites, and more. With so much competition in the e-learning market, it is not easy to get noticed without an education marketing plan.
Education marketing uses various strategies to promote helpful learning content. You could even say that it is the only way for educational institutions or organizations to ensure that their content reaches students.
Education Marketing vs. Education-Based Marketing
One of the most common misconceptions about education marketing is that most people think it is the same as education-based marketing. The latter is a marketing strategy that focuses on educating the prospects rather than pitching them with a sales offer. On the other hand, education marketing is all about marketing activities in the industry.
Major Marketing Activities In Education Marketing
Education marketing includes all marketing activities in the education sector. Some of the significant marketing activities in the education sector are listed below.
School Marketing
Until a few years ago, schools didn’t need any marketing activities as they relied entirely on their reputation and word of mouth. However, that time has long gone, and millennial parents are super picky about their children’s education.
Almost every parent goes online and reads reviews of schools before making a decision. So, schools that do not have a significant presence online or an active education marketing strategy in place go ignored.
Higher Education Marketing
Higher education marketing holds a special place when it comes to marketing for the education industry. Colleges and universities often use marketing for higher education to attract new and promising talents.
Marketing higher education helps educational institutions to establish their brand and drive more enrollments. Furthermore, the students also benefit from these marketing efforts as it helps them pick the right path.
Educational Sector Digital Marketing
Although educational institutions still employ several traditional marketing techniques, it is not enough to survive in today’s highly competitive market. Like every other industry vertical, the education industry too must embrace digital channels for conveying their message to a large target audience.
Furthermore, digital channels are often cost-effective. It enables you to target a much broader audience than traditional marketing methods without burning a hole in your pocket. Some of the common digital marketing channels educational institutions can use include email, social media, web content, and more.
Educational Sector Social Media Marketing
As you know, social media is now more than just about connecting with people online. Social media marketing has become a fully operational marketing tool that can target both parents and students alike. Hence, educational organizations must make it a point to have an active presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
You can use social media sites to engage with your target audience and understand their needs and expectations. However, there is one thing that educational institutions need to remember. The content that you post on social media should always be bite-sized and captivating. Long-form content does not work on social media sites.
Educational App Promotions
As you know, the prevailing educational app market is highly competitive. Even if you have a great product or app, it may still fail to succeed in the market. With proper planning and perfect implementation of education marketing, you can get ahead of the competition.
Top 6 Education Marketing Strategies For 2022
In recent times, the best-performing marketing strategies in the educational industry use advanced automation for enhanced convenience. Automation reduces the chance of an error significantly and helps to ensure the best possible outcome for your marketing efforts.
However, traditional marketing methods are still employed by educational institutions because of their promising results. Below, we list some of the most promising education marketing plans you need to watch out for in 2022.
#1 Connect With Your Audience On Social Media Platforms
Did you know that roughly 42 per cent of our population are social media users? Millennials are regular users of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc. However, the same social media networks are also used by Gen Z, Gen X, and baby boomers.
Establishing Meaning Connections
Over the years, many social media platforms have come and gone. The ones that have survived have matured to accommodate a myriad of ways for promoting a business or its products. However, your goal should always be to create meaningful connections with the customer through engaging content regardless of the social media platform.
Social Media Marketing or SMM Persona
Create a social media marketing (SMM) persona that accurately represents your target audience. Some of the details of the persona you should consider are:
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Goals
- Primary values
Make sure that every post you create on social media for your educational business aligns with the interest of the SMM persona. You can even try testing different social media marketing strategies.
Tweak Your Promotional Efforts
Unlike several other marketing channels, social media platforms provide you with loads of information for optimizing your marketing campaigns. Even if your business grows gradually where your social media content interactions reach over a million, you still get accurate insights from social media. It shows you exactly who’s sharing your brand’s content.
#2 Incorporate Digital Advertising in Education Marketing
Digital advertising is an effective and convenient form of marketing educational services and products. Precise targeting is the most significant advantage digital advertising has over traditional ads. It means you can target your audience based on various factors such as:
- Demographics
- Intent to buy
- Engagement patterns
Digital Advertising Channels
There are several digital advertising channels that offer great results to your education marketing plan. Some of the most popular and effective digital advertising channels include
- Social media ads
- Search engine ads
- Display or banner ads
- Videos ads
None of the solutions listed below is perfect because each has its flaws and advantages. Hence, quality education marketing strategies should generally use a combination of different channels.
Gather As Much As Data As Possible
When it comes to digital marketing, ensure that you gather as much data as possible. Collecting this data enables you to monitor the effectiveness of your existing campaigns. As a result, educational institutions can make well-informed decisions for their campaigns.
#3 Build A Mobile-Friendly Website And Optimized Landing Page
Another unavoidable component of education marketing campaigns is a mobile-friendly website and optimized landing pages. There are almost 2.87 billion people in the world! It means that you can’t succeed in the market without a mobile-friendly website or a dedicated app.
The mobile-friendly website or app should include links and navigation elements that ensure a fluid user experience. Furthermore, the links and navigation elements must be easily clickable. Finally, you must ensure that the loading time of the mobile website or app does not exceed three seconds.
Consider Using AMP Or Accelerated Mobile Pages
AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages is a web component framework developed by none other than Google. It is a website publishing tech that gives you the ability to create web pages that prioritize user experience over anything else. Furthermore, it is fast and ensures smooth-loading of the website.
Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
Website development is often expensive, and it might take educational institutions time to implement these changes. However, educational organizations can ensure their existing website passes Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Doing so enables you to ensure that your website is ready for education marketing.
#4 Encourage Students To Leave Online Reviews
The majority of the customers read reviews online before they decide to visit a business or pay for a service/product. Hence, online reviews should be an integral part of your education marketing plan. Make the review process as easy and convenient as possible to encourage the students to submit their reviews.
Make It Fun
Submitting reviews is not necessarily fun for everyone. However, you can eliminate lengthy review forms and replace them with a star-based rating system. Additionally, you can make the verbal feedback entirely optional to further enhance user convenience.
Quick Response To Reviews
Ensure that you respond to the review as fast as possible whenever you get an online review. It doesn’t matter if the reviews are good or bad. You still need to reply to all of them. Look at negative reviews as scopes for improvements and work to rectify the issues for the students.
#5 Use Engaging Video Content
Educators have often used engaging videos for teaching. And now they can use exciting video content for education marketing purposes. Videos are often easily consumed by the masses. It is relatively easy to get the point across to the target audience via video.
Transform Existing Products/Services
Videos are among the most popular educational content you can find. Hence, you can always repurpose your existing educational video content for your marketing purposes. It saves you valuable time and effort and brings down the cost of video content marketing for you.
Use Different Forms of Video Content
There are different types or forms of video content an educational institution can use, and some of them are:
- Demo videos
- Expert interviews
- Brand/event videos
- VR or virtual reality videos
- Explainer videos
- Case studies
- Customer testimonial videos
Let your audience decide which type of video content you need to produce. You can understand this by keeping track of different metrics like time, average view duration, click-through rates, etc.
#6 Use Automated Direct Mail
Direct mail is still one of the best ways to reach out to prospective students or parents. However, sending direct mail for higher education marketing can be time-consuming and hard to manage, especially when you do it in bulk.
You can add a modern spin to your direct mail campaign by automating the whole process. Several advanced direct mail automation tools are available in the market, such as PostGrid. It allows you to automate your entire direct mail campaign saving you the trouble of printing and delivering the mailers.
Personalized Mailers
You can integrate systems like PostGrid with your CRM software, and you can easily personalize your mailers. It enables you to send personalized postcards or letters to the students or parents. Instead of taking hours to write or print the mailers manually, you can use PostGrid’s system to do it for you in a matter of seconds.
Specialized Education Direct Mail Service
Advanced systems like PostGrid offer specialized direct mail services for the educational industry. PostGrid for education enables educational institutions to run marketing in the education sector and much more. With a specialized service, you can use the automated direct mail system for sending materials such as:
- Student reports
- Certificates
- Program information
- Acceptance letters
- Fee invoices and receipts
Combine Online and Offline Marketing Channels
With an advanced system like PostGrid, you can easily combine your online and offline marketing efforts. You can include a simple QR code inside the mailer. The recipient can conveniently scan it and navigate to your website. You can even use it to implement omnichannel marketing campaigns for your institution.
Conclusion
Education marketing is becoming more and more competitive every day. Technology-based educational solutions are hype today, and new companies are swarming to take the leading position. Effective education marketing is the only way educational institutions can get ahead of their competitors.
Educational institutions must employ new and innovative marketing strategies to reach prospective students. Advanced direct mail automation is an excellent example of how educational institutions can innovatively market their business.
Using a tool like PostGrid, you can easily automate your direct mail marketing. It means you can send personalized postcards, brochures, flyers, and more delivered to the target audience with the click of a button.
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source https://www.postgrid.co.uk/education-marketing/
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