education marketing strategy

Education Marketing Strategies for Lead to Enrollment

education marketing strategy

Let’s just say that…your education marketing strategy includes increasing web traffic, and you have worked hard on driving traffic. Your hard work is paying off, and traffic is ticking up. Looking at a Google Analytics traffic report even gives you the warm fuzzies. You might even treat yourself to a Starbucks Trenta to celebrate!

Congrats on a job well done! And no bubble bursting intended, but having lots of site traffic is only as good as your ability to convert that traffic. And converting from website visitor to lead is also awesome! However, even that valued lead is only worth something if you can convert the lead to a new student! That is the end goal of education marketing, right? 

Education Marketing Strategy Ducks

education marketing ducks in a rowYou have to make sure that all of your education marketing strategy ducks are in a row to convert leads to new students. Why are there so many ducks, you ask? Because your lead to enrollment ratio is only as good as the attention you pay to the details. And it’s not just the details that you need to pay attention to – it is really the people that you want to connect with on their research and decision making journey. Effective education marketing strategy has to be much more personalized than ever before. You need to understand people to connect with them. Who is the decision maker? What do they need? How can you genuinely meet their needs? From identifying felt needs, you have to eloquently articulate how you can meet those needs.

And there is way more to effective education marketing…. What?? Yes, it’s true. So you can continue to celebrate with those Starbucks Trentas, we have a great education marketing strategy tool for you! It is a downloadable lead to conversion checklist. You’re welcome.  And, we invite you to schedule a complimentary 30 minute consultation.  We would love to hear what your growth goals and challenges are.   Go HERE to schedule your consultation.

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Education Marketing Checklist

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education marketing strategy webinar
digital marketing for schools, reputation managment

Digital Marketing for Schools Includes Reputation Management

Digital Marketing for Schools Includes Reputation Management on Google

Digital marketing for schools must include reputation management for educational leaders.  You have to be living under a rock to be unaware of how reputations are trashed in a day, regardless of the truth of online content.  Schools need to protect their name, their brand, and their leaders’ reputation. 

When your team starts to put their school digital marketing plan in place, make sure they include a reputation management scan. This first place to start is on Google, because that is where most people start their online searches.  Below are tips for managing your Google search results.

  1.  Scan the first 3 pages of Google search results – most people don’t look any deeper than that.  If someone really has an axe to grind against you, you may need to search deeper.
  2. Search your name and any derivatives of your name.
  3. Follow up with a Google search of your organization’s name.
  4. Delete anything that is negative that you are able to delete.
  5. Respond to anything that is negative with the truth if there is a place to comment.

If you find negative content about your school or school leaders, the next step is to push the content off the first three pages with search engine optimized content that you create and publish online.  This is a standard component of smart digital marketing for schools. 

We Can Help With Online Marketing for Schools

This is a very simplistic overview of reputation management online. Want to know more about professional reputation management?  Download our complimentary Reputation Management checklist.  We also invite you to schedule a complimentary 30 minute consultation with us.  We would love to hear about your organization’s goals and challenges.  Go HERE to schedule a consultation.

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Education Marketing Checklist

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education marketing strategy webinar

About Elevate Education Marketing

Elevate Education Marketing is a division of Elevate Marketing, leading full service advertising agency located in Phoenix, AZ.  We serve local, state and national clients including B2B, B2C, non-profit, and government entities.  Find out more about our marketing and communications services HERE.

school marketing, charter school marketing, private school marketing

A “Plan to Win” School Marketing Strategy During Uncertainty

school marketing, charter school marketing, private school marketing

A "Plan to Win" School Marketing Strategy During Uncertainty

Can the “Plan to Win” strategy inform school marketing strategies?  Skinner said, “I told people, never, ever take the Plan to Win down and leave it down—do whatever it takes to replace it“. People might see that and think, ‘Oh, Plan to Win’s down. There must be a change strategically.’”

Who is Skinner and why does it matter? Do you recognize Big Mac? Or Quarter Pounder with Cheese? You guessed it – the golden arches brand of McDonald’s. As McDonald’s CEO, Skinner spearheaded McDonald’s growth through the recession. His “Plan to Win” marketing strategy was relentless – it kept the corporation focused despite global economic shifts. They incorporated the 5 P’s into the strategy to serve as guardrails from the top to the bottom of the organization – People, Products, Place, Price, and Promotion. 

What Does McDonald’s Have to do With Schools?

Why is the McDonald’s story important? Many smaller organizations make the mistake of not formalizing their school marketing strategies. For other schools, if the marketing plan IS formalized, they give in to the temptation to cut the marketing budget when difficulties arise.

You might be saying to yourself – “Well, we are not McDonald’s, and our pockets are not deep. ” Guess what? McDonald’s was once a one location hamburger shack, a mom and pop store, until someone came along with a bigger vision and… a marketing strategy that they stuck to.

Whether you are a one school organization or a multi-school corporation, school marketing strategy matters. If you have the right plan, with the 5 P’s in place, the right messaging will motivate the right people to enroll at your schools.

Want to Chat About Your School Marketing Strategy?

Would you like to discuss your school marketing strategy? Schedule a complimentary consultation HERE.

About Elevate Education Marketing: We are a full service education advertising and marketing agency located in Phoenix, AZ. For over 15 years, we have been helping educational organizations grow.   Be sure to subscribe to our blog for more school marketing strategy insights. You can also stay connected on Facebook and LinkedIn.

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education marketing strategy webinar
education marketing strategies

Education Marketing Strategy Needs Flour and Eggs First

education marketing strategies

Dazzle Me With Your Marketing Strategy

How many of us feel compelled to do the “dazzle” with our 2022 education marketing strategies to justify our budgets or worse yet, our salaries? A successful marketing strategy will view the dazzle in the same way we view the icing on our favorite cake – it’s the tastiest part but it is also the smallest part of our beloved dessert.

New education marketing strategies or plans also shouldn’t necessarily be “new” in the purest sense of the word. If they are brand new, that means nothing we did the previous year worked. It also means that none of the data, or analytical insights yielded valuable information that allowed us to improve our strategies in the previous year. If that is the case, it is time to go back to square one and build from the bottom up.

If, however, the marketing strategy for this year is built on informed data, it will be an ever improving process from one year to the next. Indeed, it should be from one day to the next, one week, one month, and so forth. Paying extremely close attention to marketing analytics yields a gold mine of information from which to build effective marketing strategies that are goal driven and metrics informed.

The dazzle is the enticement, not the main ingredients, but not to be under valued or overlooked by any means. You can have the most solid strategy in the world, but if you don’t engage your customer base with anything attention grabbing, you’ll have very little data to review. Just remember, make the cake first. While the cake is in the oven, make the icing. And only when the cake is done should you roll out the icing.

Part of a successful educational growth plan includes a website that is designed with education marketing strategy as the primary ingredient.  Integrating marketing strategy into the website maximizes the opportunity to connect with people researching your school.  Visitors to your website are great, but capturing the site visitor as a lead to nurture into an enrollment is far better!

Connect with us on Facebook for free marketing strategy tips.  And, we invite you to schedule a complimentary consultation with us to review your current website and discuss ways to maximize your growth opportunities.

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education marketing strategy - chicken or egg?

Chicken or Egg – Effective Education Marketing Strategy

education marketing strategy

Chicken or Egg?

It depends on how savvy your education marketing strategy really is.

Many marketing firms would say CHICKEN.  A truly insightful education marketing firm would see the correct answer as YES, or IT DEPENDS. On what, you ask? What time is it? Are you hungry? Health conscious?

For me, it depends on time of day. For dinner, I will take a great piece of fried chicken any day over a tiny, lonely egg. My felt need at 5 pm is DINNER but at 6:00 am, I pick the egg. Enter #marketingtrends – programmatic marketing.

A silly illustration to describe an important digital marketing trend is micro-targeting based on programmatic capabilities. All important info that we consider for our education marketing strategies. 

For example, according to Joshua Spanner, head of Google’s Media Lab, Google’s recent Search App campaign with dynamic content that changed based on location of user, time of day, and other live data points delivered their strongest mobile results to date. Spanner also refers to the “micro-moment” – the intersection of demographic and psychographic data with intent and decision that programmatic buying can make possible.

According to eMarketer, advertisers in the US will accelerate growth in their programmatic digital display ad investments in 2021 as spending approaches $97 billion. That will represent a 29.0% increase over 2020 and will account for more than 89% of all digital display ad spending.

As the big boys like Google and Yahoo hone in on the massive amounts of data they collect, they can leverage that data to build even more effective ad delivery platforms targeting more specific consumer behaviors. As publishers aggregate and anonymize their findings, they offer more highly targeted and responsive programmatic media buys using geo-targeting, time of day, etc. The result is the increasingly effective ROI of programmatic ads. When campaigns deliver results, repeat buying is the response. Make sure you are using the education marketing strategy to harness the power of technology to grow enrollment.

It is a year of continuing technological change with increased marketer opportunity. At the same time, the person at then end of the ad message should never be forgotten. In the digital world, the messaging has to remain consumer focused to answer the felt need. Additionally, data helps us deliver better campaign results, while being mindful to protect consumer privacy,  a primary responsibility for the platforms and advertisers who hold the data.

The final takeaway is that while technology continues to drive greater opportunities, we can’t forget that we are serving people. Elevate Education Marketing has the experience and expertise to meet needs, deliver value, and build trust. Here’s to  exciting enrollment growth! 

Are you taking advantage of all that technology has to offer your organization? If not, schedule your complimentary consultation now!

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We invite you to connect with us on our social media sites including Facebook where you can take advantage of special offers, free white papers, and education marketing strategy insights. 

content marketing for schools

Thought Leadership Content Marketing for Schools

Content Marketing for Schools
Why Thought Leadership is so Important
for Educational Leaders and Organizations

It Builds Trust,
Name Awareness,
And Grows Enrollment

content marketing for schools

What Unique Insights
Can You Offer?

88% of Educational Leaders Believe
Thought Leadership
Enhances Organizational Perception

education leadership, education marketing, education marketing strategy, content marketing for schools
content marketing for schools

Thought Leadership Content Marketing for Schools Increases Brand Awareness,
Prestige, and Website Traffic

Research illustrates that well researched and written thought leadership pieces published online can increase name awareness, website traffic, and drive enrollments. One article for a university enjoys 35,000 reads annually on the school’s website, and generates 30-40 enrollment inquiries.  Content marketing positively impacts school branding and protects professional leadership reputations.

According to Decision Makers,
Thought Leadership is Used to
Vet Capabilities 71% of the Time.

71% of decision makers confirm that reading thought leadership is the best way to ascertain the calibre of an organization and has positively impacted buying decisions. 60% of decision-makers are willing to pay a premium for services when a organization is deemed of higher quality as a result of this type of content marketing for schools.

Download the Thought
Leadership Strategy Checklist

We Provide Content Marketing for Schools

Most decision makers spend at least 1 hour per week consuming thought leadership articles, yet only 17% believe that thought leadership content being produced is high quality.  This creates a substantial opportunity to step in and lead.

Elevate Education Marketing provides high quality content marketing for schools.  We can ghost write or assist leaders in producing thought leadership articles and getting them published.  Where an article is published impacts the effectiveness of the article.

Too busy to manage your thought leadership content?

Elevate Education Marketing has the expertise
to position you  as an education thought leader.

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Elevate Education marketing

About Us: Elevate Education Marketing is a full service education marketing and communications firm located in Phoenix, AZ with over 15 years of experience serving national, state, and local education clients.

Article Data Source: Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study

higher ed marketing

Now You’re Talking – a Higher Ed Marketing Viewpoint

higher ed marketing

Allow us a few moments to help change the narrative with our higher ed marketing viewpoint.  Let’s begin.

 

“Don’t talk to me that way…”

Yep, that’s right. It’s because I’m 22 and I don’t want your salesy shmooze. Just give me a video of real people telling the truth. Or, it’s because I’m a 64 year old man and I don’t respond to “whatever” and “LOL”. Just give me facts. It could be that I’m a 36 mom for whom multi-tasking is a way of life and I don’t have time to read four paragraphs of product descriptions, particularly in Times New Roman size 10.  Do these scenarios impact your communications strategy for higher ed marketing?

If you don’t communicate effectively, your message will turn people off. Effective communication requires asking the right questions. EVERY higher education organization can improve its communications and marketing messaging. 

Years of Higher Ed Marketing Experience

Our education marketing agency has years of experience testing effective communications.  We can help your messaging resonate with your audience.

The next question – how can you improve if you don’t know WHAT questions to ask or WHO you are talking to? And WHO can answer the “WHAT” and “WHO” questions accurately? There are two logical answers – the people that actually interact with the prospective student or parent and the data that the already enrolled student interactions generate.  This data plus robust demographic, sociographic, and psychographic research will help you create target personas with important information on who you are communicating with and how they prefer to be communicated to. 

It’s not just style of writing or choice of graphics.  It impacts choosing the right marketing channels and creating the appropriate lead generation and lead follow up strategies.

Reviewing your higher education offerings, matching prospective students, researching the matches, creating target personas, higher ed marketing strategies by appropriate channels, building an effective lead nurturing plan, and a customer journey map to move the prospective student forward from lead to enrollment are all important growth processes.  The best laid out plans, however, will fall flat with ineffective, generic communication that does not motivate.  You can read more about our higher ed marketing services HERE.

WANT HELP? SCHEDULE A COMPLIMENTARY 30 MINUTE MARKETING CONSULTATION WITH OUR HIGHER ED MARKETING AGENCY.

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