When it comes to marketing schools, strategies have changed radically over the years. With the rise of social networking and the growing number of options for higher education, schools now face increased competition to attract students and develop their reputation. They must therefore adopt more innovative and effective marketing strategies to stand out from the competition.
At the same time, social networks have become an essential tool for communicating directly with potential students, informing them about the programs on offer and creating a community.
Developing strategies to build visibility and awareness will set your establishment on the road to success, resulting in a return on investment and increased registrations.
Steps to raise a school's profile
1. Distinguish your establishment from the crowd.
2. Extend your marketing reach.
3. Create a sense of community.
4. Create ROI on marketing spend.
Brand awareness: what can it do for your business?
Notoriety, or the public perception of your school, has a direct impact on the number of applications and enrollments. Ensuring that your institution is well known and widely recognized is vital to a healthy advertising plan for students.
Institutions need to make a conscious effort to develop their brand awareness in order to reach potential students, build a widespread reputation and attract more recruits.
Discover 5 advantages for your company's marketing strategy :
1. Distinguish your establishment from the crowd
The higher education market is saturated, and with tuition fees constantly on the rise, potential students are thinking more carefully about where to invest their money and time. The decision-making process for recruits is more complex than ever.
Without a strategy to promote your school's visibilityyour school will be just one option among many.
Branding that emphasizes your school's unique message and features helps you stand out from the crowd and gives potential students more reasons to choose you.
Focus on the specific benefits your facility can offer and what makes you the best choice.
2. Extend your marketing reach
Many faculty members will tell you that branding is unnecessary and inappropriate in the world of education. This couldn't be further from the truth. When it comes to recruiting studentsbrand visibility can help attract more students.
The top five ways in which members of Generation Z seek out universities are online university resources, school websites, the influence of teachers and counselors, the influence of parents and family, and peer opinion.
Armed with this knowledge, marketers must realize that it's not enough to rely on reputation alone; if you want your establishment to be part of influential conversations, it's vital to promote your brand.
Awareness enables you to spread your message to a wider base and extend your marketing reach.
3. Create a sense of community
A great brand isn't just about images or logos; it's about culture, community and brand promise. Think about the values and promises your school creates. These are the concepts you want potential students to associate with your brand.
Members of Generation Z value personalization and engagement. They're not just looking for an education, but also a community, a place to thrive and a world of engagement.
Establishing a strong brand story that highlights the community interaction and underlying values offered by your school will resonate with Generation Z and generate brand awareness and recognition.
4. Creating ROI from marketing expenditure
Student advertising is an expensive business. The amount spent on marketing by higher education establishments has doubled since 2001, with a median price of 800,000 euros. This increase is accompanied by a high ROI. Communications agency Lipman Hearne has shown that when universities invest heavily in marketing strategies, devoting more than 6% of the total annual budget to student recruitment marketing, enrolment and alumni donations increase.
Experts agree that strategic marketing strategies and increased brand awareness guarantee a high ROI and lead to more applications and registrations.
5. Use intelligent solutions
Programmatic advertising applied to higher education automates the delivery of school and employer branding, programs or other communications, across all relevant media environments (social networks, websites and mobile applications). Once the right people have been targeted with the right message, at the right time and in the right place, they will click on the ad to arrive at the destination page (website, registration page, brochure download, events, etc.) in order to perform the desired action, which is most often the completion of a form.
A programmatic HR marketing automation solution like Seeqle enables schools to promote their program and brand in a targeted way through automation :
- Detection of relevant students across the web based on the largest HR targeting database (socio-demographic, behavioral and contextual criteria).
- Distribute communications in the form of attractive advertisements, in the right place at the right time, across the entire web, where your target audience navigates millions of websites, mobile applications and social networks every day.
Awareness will benefit your school by increasing return on investment, strengthening brand and name recognition, spreading values and reaching a variety of potential students.
Make brand awareness a priority for your school; use online resources, social networks and advertising campaigns to share your brand story and ensure that your school's name and message are remembered.
👉 Find out in this case study how programmatic advertising helped the University of Namur raise its profile and visibility among students.
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