If you’re looking for the most efficient methods for increasing enrollments in your school or college while leveraging the power of the online world, you know it can be difficult to find a solid place to start. The internet is a vast place, and identifying the right next steps for improving your school’s online presence can seem complex.

With virtual platforms and tools becoming more and more important in education, it’s crucial for school leaders to understand how to leverage digital marketing to boost the bottom line.

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR SCHOOLS

1. Upgrade Your Website
2. Improve Your Organic Search Visibility with SEO
3. Use Google AdWords to Increase Your Website Traffic
4. Leverage the Power of Social Media
5. Engage with Parents and Alumni on LinkedIn
6. Start Creating Online Content
7. Establish a School Email Newsletter
8. Incorporate Your Online Marketing Strategy With Your Offline Activities
9. Integrate All of These Strategies for Greater Success

1. Upgrade Your Website

Your website is your first contact with parents and students (or simply, your potential customers). Hence, upgrading its quality, content and SEO optimization can do magic for your school enrollments.

Upgrading your website provides visitors with user-friendly experiences, allowing you to communicate your institution’s values and vision to parents and potential students alike.

To start, keep in mind the following considerations: 

• Make the interface responsive – Non-functional links aren’t acceptable. “Not found” pages or “404” errors give a terrible impression to anyone browsing your site.
• Make sure it’s mobile-ready – There’s nothing worse than a website that isn’t formatted to be adaptable for smart phones.
• Improve your website’s load speed – Most people leave sites if they don’t load within a few seconds. Use a free tool like WebPageTest to easily check how fast your page loads.
• Upgrade the look of your website – Does your site look outdated? Using high-definition images on your page, employing one consistent font throughout your site and implementing a set gradient of approved colors are all excellent ways to ensure your online hub looks professional and presentable for online visitors.

2. Improve Your Organic Search Visibility with SEO

When parents or students search for the best schools in their area or their field of interest, Google ranks the probable websites with specific algorithms and shows you the results. Search engine optimization (SEO) essentially positions your site to leverage these algorithms to appear higher in Google’s search rankings. Hence, improving your website’s SEO can help you get a higher rank in Google search and even rank you on the first page of search engine results.

One of the most important aspects of SEO is formatting your website with right keywords. For example, when you’re looking for the best business school for your kids on the internet, you’re most likely to employ terms such as “best business schools near me”, “top business school” or “best business school”.

Including such important keywords can make your website rank higher on Google search results and land more potential students and their parents onto your website. For that reason, it’s important to hire an SEO professional who can help improve your college website’s chances of appearing higher in search results.

3. Use Google AdWords to Increase Your Website Traffic

Though advertising is no longer as effective as using inbound and outbound marketing strategies to drive organic traffic to your site, it is still a crucial element that—if done right—can increase enrollments for your school. Google AdWords is definitely the best place to start doing this. With Google AdWords, you can reach parents looking for the best school for their kids at that exact moment when they’re searching.

Here are some of the things you should remember while using Google AdWords -

• Set your target audience - Your website is not for everyone. Rather, it is for a limited set of people, mainly consisting of parents and students looking for the most suitable schools in the area. So, use the many features Google AdWords offers to identify the right target audience and keywords.
• Fix a regular budget and keep track of your expenditure and ad’s performance - After a time, you will also figure out what keywords are giving your maximum conversions.
• Make simple call-to-action (CTA) – Only try to sell one thing at a time. Remember, a customer with too many options chooses none. Make sure to include a compelling CTA that directs the potential student to one part of your site.
• Advertise against competitors - One effective strategy when using Google AdWords is to include your major competitors' names as search phrase targets when launching an ad campaign. Your school will automatically show up on top of the page when people search for your competitors, giving you some extra exposure to students and their parents seeking schools.

4. Leverage the Power of Social Media

Facebook is still one of the most popular social media platforms and a great place to reach your target audience. Use the power of sites like Facebook to draw more website traffic and cultivate a powerful online community with your new and current students—as well as their parents. Some key ways to do this are:

• Update your social media pages regularly - Keep providing regular updates and information to your students on your social media pages. What’s key here is consistency. It’s better to post once a week instead of seven times in a row for one week and rarely ever again. Establish a regular cadence and stick to it!
• Post engaging content – What will make your school stand out from the rest? High-quality, engaging content. Post exciting event videos, photos, post-event updates, and information about upcoming events and programs.
• Use the right hashtags – Different hashtag rules apply to different social media platforms. A good general rule of thumb is to cap your hashtags at four or five key terms. Also, it’s best to start specific (e.g., using the name of your school as a hashtag first) and add on more broad, far-reaching hashtags for your third, fourth and fifth hashtags.

5. Engage with Parents and Alumni on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another social media platform that you can utilize for your online marketing. It is a professional online meeting place and can help you connect with other academics, prospective students, possible partners and more. Getting into a regular cadence on LinkedIn can help you in several ways:

• It will improve your SEO - Creating a social signal can boost your digital assets. Make sure to regularly post any content your school creates to begin generating more interest in your institution.
• It will extend your alumni community – When it comes to establishing a sustainable education institution, staying in touch with alumni is key. Use LinkedIn to highlight alumni achievements and maintain contact.
• It will introduce you to new parents and students – Since LinkedIn is a professional networking site, you will have the opportunity to engage parents seeking schools for their children and students who may be seeking graduate programs.

6. Start Creating Online Content

When it comes to attracting modern-day online consumers, creating high-quality content is table stakes. Developing and publishing consistent written content that speaks directly to the pain points of your target audience is one of the best ways to begin driving organic traffic to your website. And it costs you way less than paying for ads. A few strategies to get started are:

• Create a blog section for your website – Blogging is more powerful than you probably know right now. Creating helpful blog posts for potential students and their parents that speak to their urgent questions will naturally drive your website to the first pages of Google according to your carved-out keywords.
• Hire professionals to create professional and high-quality content – If you’re a business owner, you probably don’t have much time to craft your content. Experienced digital marketing agencies like Crothers Consulting can do the legwork to create consistent content for your brand that is already formatted to maximize brand visibility.
• Start posting content on third-party sites – Do you have established relationships with other brands? One of the best ways to begin boosting traffic to your site is by guest-posting on their sites. Pitch the idea of sharing your expertise with their audiences or ask if they’d like to trade guest-posting so that you both win for starters.

7. Establish a School Email Newsletter

Another inexpensive, yet effective, strategy for online marketing for schools is sending regular email newsletters. 

Your school has a natural potential subscriber base—parents and students. You can ask your them to subscribe to your school’s informative newsletter on a weekly or monthly basis. Email provides you with a direct line to potential students and other prospects. 

 These newsletters will also act as your word-of-mouth advertisements and help you increase enrollments—not just with new students, but also with transfer students. For instance, let’s say someone subscribes to your newsletter, but ends up choosing a different college. However, after six months, they realize they would like to look elsewhere to study. The fact that you’ve maintained consistent communication with them may just nudge them in your direction.

8. Incorporate Your Online Marketing Strategy With Your Offline Activities

Online marketing might be the most influential modern-day tool, but integrating it with innovative offline methods will take your marketing campaign to a whole new level.

For example, wherever you offer your offline print ads, such as pamphlets or in newspapers, make sure you include your website address. Whenever you distribute documents, letters and envelopes, add your website and social media addresses to them. Also, wherever you send emails or texts, add the option of subscribing to your e-newsletter. 

The more consistent you are about incorporating your online strategies with your analog tactics, the more you’ll grow across the web.

9. Integrate All of These Strategies for Greater Success

Think of your digital marketing as a car. Content, social media, SEO and other strategies are components that make the car function.

For example, if you want to leverage Google AdWords, you will forward people who click your ad to your website. However, if your website isn’t up to standards, your efforts will be wasted. People will get a negative impression of your brand, and it may even hurt your digital marketing efforts. That’s why all strategies need to be integrated and aligned.