If traditional marketing is the tortoise, then online marketing for the education industry is the hare. The difference between this race and the classic fable told is this time the hare wins by a landslide.
Digital technology has taken over education marketing.
The days when students, parents, and teachers went through print marketing materials to research schools have disappeared as quickly as the social media site MySpace. Letting your fingers walk through the Yellow Pages no longer has any relevance when it comes to selecting an educational institution.
Demographics have played a huge role in transforming marketing for educational institutions. Millennials became the first generation to make digital technology an indispensable part of their lives, and Generation Y and Z have taken the use of digital technology to the next level.
As a member of an educational institution that wants to get the word out about what your school has to offer, you have to master effective digital marketing techniques to reach your target audience.
You can start by learning about six Google tools to help enhance your education marketing.
What is Education Marketing?
Marketing for educational institutions is all about promoting your brand to students, parents, and teachers. Prospective students and their parents want information about a school’s academic standards, campus amenities, and features such as the library and learning resource center. Teachers looking to find the right employment fit research schools for metrics like teacher turnover rates and the amount of time it takes to achieve tenure.
You should look at marketing for educational institutions the same way that a business owner views marketing. You are promoting a brand by offering a wide variety of services. The key is to leverage education marketing to reach your target audience of students, parents, and teachers.
What are the Benefits of Online Marketing for the Education Industry?
Unlike the MySpace and the Yellow Pages, digital marketing is here to stay. Let’s see why it is important for your educational institution.
Boost in Brand Awareness
Before the Internet, schools at all levels had to rely on traditional marketing to attract interest in their educational institutions. Building a user-friendly website and staying active on social media allows your school to reach more potential students and parents, as well as teachers.
Personalized Approach to Marketing
The biggest disadvantage of traditional marketing is the lack of a personal touch. Online marketing allows educational institutions to leverage data-driven results to create different marketing messages for different groups.
Easier to Track Results
Education marketing cannot be a success unless you have the analytic tools in place to track results. With traditional marketing, tracking results is tedious at best. Online marketing for the education industry provides you with several tools to help you track and then modify your approach to marketing if needed.
Google offers six helpful tools that can enhance your education marketing.
What Are the Best Google Tools for Education Marketing Campaigns?
They say the lion is the king of the jungle. Well, who is the king of the Internet? It is not a who but a what, and the answer is Google.
With a global market share touching 90 percent, Google facilitates more than 3.5 billion searches each day. The daily online search count translates into an incredible 1.2 million Google searches per year.
Google offers the most powerful search engine, but the company provides users with much more than a digital database of websites. The search engine giant also offers dozens of tools to help educational institutions reach more students, parents, and teachers.
Not only are the following six Google tools effective in helping enhance your education marketing strategy, but each of the six tools is also free to use at any time.
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the most popular and effective tool for educational institutions to learn more about their website traffic. For example, the dean of a liberal arts college can discover the demographic makeup of every job candidate that applies for support, teaching, and administrative position.
You get a much better understanding of your target audience, as well as how effective your education marketing strategy is at motivating visitors to your school’s website to take action. Google Analytics shows you which web browsers and operating systems that are used by students, parents, and job applicants.
You will even learn how much of your school’s website traffic comes from the use of mobile communication devices.
2. Google Drive
Online marketing for the education industry requires you and the members of your department to be highly organized. One tool that is overlooked by many school marketers is a tool that they use daily.
It is called Google Drive.
Google Drive represents a safe and convenient way for you to store all of your marketing information in the cloud. For example, you can create a marketing plan for reaching low-income students. By uploading the marketing plan in the cloud and designating who has access to the file, you can share information without having to lift a finger.
One of the greatest benefits of this free tool (up to the first 15GB) is you can access it anywhere where there is an Internet connection. You can take a break from an education seminar and spend your short break updating the names of prospective students that have shown interest in scheduling a campus visit.
3. Google Alerts
Stay on top of your online reviews by using Google Alerts.
Yes, academic institutions receive online reviews from a wide variety of sources. Every time a former student leaves your school a review on Google, you can set up the Google Alerts tool to let you know about the new review. You can also set up this free tool to alert you every time someone mentions your school online.
Getting notified about a review is one thing. It is what you do after receiving the Google Alerts that matters. Take time to respond to the reviews left by former and current students, as well as parents and former faculty members.
4. YouTube
Here is an important statistic for education marketing: 96 percent of teenagers are active on YouTube. If you are responsible for online marketing for the education industry, then YouTube is a match made in heaven for reaching the members of Generation Z.
There is not a more effective platform for you to showcase your school. From presenting a virtual campus tour to conducting interviews with teachers and administrators, students and parents of your target market learn more watching YouTube videos than they learn from reading brochures and flyers.
YouTube is also an effective recruiting tool to attract accomplished teachers and administrators.
5. Google Keyword Planner
Although it is a part of Google Ads, Google Keyword Planner is worth discussing on its own merits. This free tool helps you discover the same keywords that prospective students use to find your educational institution. You also get to see how competitive it is for using the keywords. You do not need an SEO consultant to get your schools’ website noticed by students, parents, and teachers.
The Google Keyword Planner tool does the job for you.
6. Google My Business
You can think of this free resource as “Google My School.”
Although it is targeted at business operators, Google My Business is an effective tool for education marketing. The page that you set up will include your school’s name and contact information. Just makes sure all the information that you upload is accurate.
You can also use this school profile listing to promote future recruiting events and encourage visitors to leave your academic institution a review.
Creating a Google My Business page can help you boost your school’s ranking in the Google search results.
Final Thoughts
Marketing for educational institutions is a highly competitive business. Every school seems to have a website and a presence on social media. How do you make your school stand out online?
The answer to getting your school noticed online is by leveraging the free education marketing tools offered by Google. If you have any questions about the Google tools mentions above or would like to learn more about the education marketing services we provide, please feel free to contact us for a complimentary consultation and strategy session.
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