The education industry is evolving with new and innovative technology. Gone are the days of simple blackboard and chalk; digitization has started to take roots here as well. With the advent of the internet and people becoming more tech-savvy, it has become possible to access knowledge from anywhere. The projects, lesson plans, assignments are all picked up from different best case practices. This revolution has happened as the scholars are now we users and heavily dependent on it for the information. The web is helping students unlock their potential as it makes it possible for them to unlock immense knowledge from the data pool at their disposal. Communicating with the scholars and their guardians or parents have now become really important for the institutions. The best way to achieve this is Digital Marketing. With the amount of students using the internet and mobile phones increasing with each passing day, educational institutes are now allocating resources to capture the attention of their potential and current target groups.
Let us see what are some of the best strategies for Education industry to capture their audience via Digital Marketing:
Website: A website is the virtual portal to any institute. Invest in creating a website that is power packed with all the information that you wish to display to your audience. Make sure that the website consists of all the relevant information that the students are looking up for. Visiting a website for college or school is equivalent to visiting a campus these days. Enlist all the USP, facilities, courses offered, faculty members and a news bulletin to display all current news. The purpose of your website should be to inform and impart education related to fee structure, application process, selection criteria, to name a few. It should have all the important information that is required to make an informed decision. Blogs are another way to impart required information to your target audience. Make sure to keep a FAQ section which answers the general query of the students. You can also use Automated Bots to help students navigate your website with ease.
Social media presence: Social media presence has become really important these days. It helps you connect with your target audience in real time. It also allows you to be creative about all the information that you wish to impart to your audience. The Gen-Z, which forms the current student population, is a heavy user of social media. 97% of the target population is using social media to engage, shop and watch videos. This means that having a social media presence to showcase day-to-day happenings be it lectures, webinars or industry interactions can work wonders. Live streams are excellent examples of interacting and engaging with students in real time. It works like a two way street, the students can engage or put forth their queries and you get to answer them. This can showcase the authenticity of the college and can help the potential audience be an enrolled student.
SEO: When we talk about having an effective digital marketing strategy, SEO is an intricate part of it. It helps enhance your visibility on the search engines. Hence, it acts as a catalyst when it comes to making you more accessible as an institute. Students these days do their research well before even they start thinking about their applications. The easiest form of looking for anything online is via search engines like Google. We all know and accept that Google is the most used search engine. It is thus important for you as an educational institute to improve your search engine ranking constantly. There are a plethora of educational institutes and their information that is easily available to students, what is important is what are you doing to stay on top. Make sure that your website is indexed by Google and featured in SERP to make it easier for students to discover you. You can change your entire admission game via Google search and by investing in it.
Mobile optimization: Gone are the days when people required a laptop setup to access the internet. Mobile users have surpassed the laptop users in number by manifolds. Now everybody is accessing the internet on their mobile phones. It is important for the educational institutes to be discoverable via mobile phone. Your website should be mobile friendly and the loading time should be small. With the short attention span of people and tonnes of things in mind, it is necessary for your website to be loaded and displayed within single digit seconds by the watch. If your website is not mobile friendly, there is a very high chance that you will miss out on targeting the right audience for your educational institute’s admission cycle.
Placement of ads: Placing an advertisement strategically can help you get results faster. Make sure to find relevant websites when you can place them. For Example: if you wish to show that your institute provides a course or degree in Forensic Science, it will be helpful if you place your advertisement on web pages related to Forensic Science. Any website or webpage that is disseminating information related to Forensic Science would be appropriate and beneficial to get the job done. Managed placement of advertisement helps you reach your audience efficiently, it saves both time and money.
The above mentioned are some of the pointers that are the best case practices for any educational institutes. Nowadays everything has become accessible to everyone. It is really important for your institute to have a digital presence in order to stay updated with the current times. Along with being convenient, it is also beneficial to have an online and digital presence. There are some other ways to make your digital presence felt to your target group. You can use PR, Content targeting traffic for your website, Content that targets conversion rate, Social sharing content to name a few. These strategies need planning and smart implementation. It takes time to get your search engine ranking up and it is very difficult to maintain it as well. Make sure that you are making constant efforts and refining your strategies as and when required. An outdated strategy will yield results only for a short period of time before the number gets stagnant. 88gravity can help you achieve all these goals. Their team is trained in website building and maintenance, SEO and blog writing. Reach out to them today and make your institution digitally available for all!
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