What Digital Marketing Looks Like For Schools

What is digital marketing and what can it do for your school? Put simply, it’s the use of the internet and digital communication to reach customers.

While accurate, this definition is far too broad for any useful application. In this blog post, we give a basic overview of what digital marketing means from the perspective of a school looking for real outcomes in admissions, income generation, and school reputation.

Step One: Establishing Clear School Marketing Goals

Before investing in digital marketing, you need to have a clear understanding of what you are hoping to achieve for your school. Do you want to increase admissions, attract better teachers, or enhance your school’s reputation? This is important as the marketing approach you take will differ for each.

This isn’t solely about messaging. There are a whole range of factors that comprise your marketing strategy.

Step Two: Using Multiple Digital Channels

Digital marketing covers a range of different communications platforms, each one with the potential to reach different audiences and achieve different goals.

For this reason, you can’t rely on one single channel to reach a significant proportion of your audience. Good digital marketing relies on the ability to communicate efficiently across a range of channels, including:

• Social media channels, each with their different advantages and disadvantages
• Email
• The school website

When working with a new client at Eduprise, one of the first actions we take is a comprehensive review of their social media strategy, if one exists, and ensuring they are using a range of channels to communicate.

Step Three: Creating the Content

Once you know your goals, and have your platforms set up, the next stage of digital marketing is creating the right content.

To get the most out of the work you put in, it’s essential that you plan ahead according to key dates throughout the year.

This kind of plan is often referred to as an editorial calendar, and it allows you to work more efficiently, getting ahead of stories, whilst giving you flexibility to also work on ad-hoc campaigns.

Depending on the type of event you are communicating about, your copywriters will need to make specific considerations. For example, find out how to write for:

• Fundraising initiatives
• Good news stories
• Introducing new principals
• Press releases
• Recruiting staff.

You may also want to consider different content mediums for different purposes, for example: videos for school tours or crowdcast for live events.

Step Four: Exploring Social Media Advertising

Paid social media marketing is another option available for schools who are looking to have a big impact in a short space of time.

The main benefit of paid social media marketing is that you can target a very specific audience. That makes it ideal for campaigns such as admissions drives and it also means you can keep costs low.

Recently, we ran a paid social media campaign to invite admissions for a school’s nursery. Spending only £80, the advertisement directly generated 21 enquiries for the nursery. Reaching over 28,000 parents in the local community, the campaign also dramatically increased the wider awareness of the nursery, potentially impacting admissions in the future.

Find out more about the benefits of paid social media advertising over traditional advertising here.

Step Five: Review and Refine

It’s very rare for digital marketing to be successful from the off. It’s all about trial and error until you find the approach that works for you. As you put out campaigns, it’s crucial to reflect on the successes and disappointments, and adjust your strategy in response.

You should be using analytic tools to see which marketing campaigns generated page views and clicks, and which fell short of the desired impact.

As well as looking at the data, you should also keep track of engagement with your communications and listen to the feedback. How are parents reacting to your social media posts, do they like using your website, how likely are they to open your emails? Knowing the answers to these questions can be invaluable for improving your marketing over time.

And finally… Need Help Making a Start?

The possibilities afforded by digital marketing are huge, and can have a truly dramatic impact on your school’s success.

At Eduprise, we help schools and trusts make that crucial first step into digital marketing, before continuing to support you as your presence grows.

If you’d like to know more about how we can support your organisation’s digital marketing efforts, visit our services page now.