Digital marketing is undoubtedly an emerging field that is transforming the entire landscape of global businesses and their promotional plans. Marketers must constantly keep themselves updated with the changing trends of the market and perpetual advancements in the field of technology. The digital channels of communication are vast and constantly expanding beyond geographical boundaries, making them more complex and complicated to understand and implement promotional campaigns.
These digital marketing strategies will not only enable you to cater a wider audience, but also track the entire consumer cycle in the education industry at every instance.
- Utilizing User Data
Marketers often use user data for creating efficient school site designs. The scope of data collection and collation is not limited to just a school website’s demeanor but can also encompass real-time feedback and communication mechanisms to understand students’ aspirations instantly for suggesting available service offerings. Data analytics is a facet of AI that must be inculcated into digital marketing strategies by the businesses.
- Optimization of website
Say for example, college websites might be the last priority of an institution’s marketing plan, but 2018 has been instrumental in explaining that relying solely on social networking sites or search engines for driving potential parents or advertising core offerings can be detrimental for the business model. The business website must be optimized and updated with aesthetically appealing elements with a sufficient level of content.
- Remarketing
Attracting a new customer is five times costlier than retaining an existing one. Companies mostly focus all their resources on attracting new customers, while taking the existing cluster of consumers for granted. Businesses must maintain a rapport with their alumni, and continually keep in touch with them through follow-up emails to have a strong brand equity. These existing consumers can become medium of word-of-mouth strategy and their feedback about the products can act as referrals to others.
- Interactive Content
Gamification has been an evolving concept that has been inculcated into several university websites to augment the user engagement time. Businesses must produce content for their websites and social media outlets that is engaging, interactive, and satisfying. The concept of evergreen content can also be emphasized here which requires businesses to produce literature that is beyond the realms of extinction or obsolescence.
- Curate Content
Organizations should hire the services of higher education marketing firms or a content producers to promote its platform as an open source network which encourages the flow of content from outside stakeholders. It is mandatory to have a diverse bank of content from myriads of sources so that monotony can be avoided. Motivate external stakeholders like students, teachers, and even professional educationalists to express their valuable opinions and participate in productive discussions.
- Availability 24/7
Customers are impatient and need products overnight which is evident from the fact that e-commerce sites are increasing at an exponential rate all over the world. If your college website in unable to reply to the potential student as soon as possible, the risk of losing that consumer increases. Companies are investing into technology and equipping their websites with chatbots which can give instant responses without any linguistic barriers.
- Investing in video marketing
A picture is worth a thousand words so just imagine what moving images are capable of. Disseminating information in this age is difficult because of content overload and ‘noise’ in multiple promotional channels. To give your content a creative infusion, it is imperative to innovate with the available resources. Video marketing is an unexplored field which can prove to effective if the message is terse and presented in an appealing manner on the college website. Keeping in mind the reducing attention span of teenagers, video marketing can be the key to success. Animations have proven to resonate with children very effectively.
- Influencer Marketing
Traditional TVCs have always bolstered the idea of celebrity endorsements. In this modern age, companies have been hiring eminent internet personalities like bloggers, vloggers, actors, and other artists to promote their products in subtle manner on social media platforms. Influencer marketing allows the company to tap into a larger audience by also disseminating the brand message to the influencer’s fanbase.
- Exploring Uncharted Territories
Businesses need to penetrate arenas which have not been tapped yet. Platforms like Reddit and WhatsApp cater to the needs of a large cluster of internet users, but businesses may not advertise there due to risk adverse nature or absence of marketing infrastructures. School website solutions often include faculties of WhatsApp groups to facilitate parents and students.
- Consumers at the Center
Not only should the promotional strategies aim to target consumers, but the organizational structure must also be supportive of consumer feedback. Stakeholders must be involved in the decision-making mechanisms to instill a sense of belonging into them.
