The Covid-19 outbreak struck the educational system like a hurricane that completely changed the geography of the industry. At the moment, even many prestigious schools are striving to meet their admission targets – despite having set defined and attainable goals! One of the causes for this circumstance is competition – which has now grown manifold due to the realm of online classes. 

To win you must evaluate and enhance your marketing initiatives if you want to outperform your rivals and meet the demands of guardians. Any marketing strategy should be flexible enough to adjust to changing family aspirations. Your marketing plan must demonstrate your superiority over the competitors and this necessitates that your prior strategies will have to be modified, reworked, or even completely deleted. 

In this article, we will discuss some amazing school marketing ideas, which are directly related to current patterns in school branding and will help you greatly increase your admission rate. 

What Do You Mean By Marketing Strategy? 

A marketing strategy is a detailed plan created specifically to meet the institution’s marketing goals. It is founded on innovative thinking and creativity. The main aims of creating a tailored marketing strategy are:

• It enables a company to focus its limited assets and expenditures on the most promising prospects to boost sales.
• It gives the company a competitive advantage over rivals and aids in the creation of products and solutions with the highest likelihood of turning a profit. 
• The goal of marketing strategy is to reach out to prospective clients and persuade them to buy products and facilities.
• An efficient marketing strategy works by creating your brand image and promoting awareness about it.

Marketing that encourages and assists groups of families to utilise the quality educational services of your school for their kids is known as education or admission marketing. The correct education marketing approach can help your educational institute go viral and pique people’s curiosity. 

Why Choose Admission Marketing?

Everyone is aware that the main source of revenue for any school is its admissions and enrollments, therefore admission marketing is a MUST! Admission marketing for schools is somewhat on the trickier side because it requires informing, connecting, and persuading both guardians and learners at various levels. Therefore, by imparting their managerial and analytical expertise to the admissions department, marketing and PR experts have a great potential to impact this crucial process.

Also, a latest nationwide poll found that schools and institutions ” that are more focused on brand awareness and advertising to stay in business have had a significant increase in the number of enrollments as compared to the prior years”.

The reason for this is that they are better able to engage and educate the parents about the unique facilities and services they offer. Thus, the focus and expenditure in many schools is changing, with some prestigious schools engaging expert branding executives from the business world.

Top Marketing Ideas for Schools to Get More Admissions

Every school’s main goal is to give students an outstanding educational experience, but they also need to make money so they can stay in business. So, here we have mentioned some tips and tricks that can help you ace your admission marketing campaign.

1. Find your target audience

Good market knowledge equates to customer loyalty and engagement. Choose the best-suited families and students to attract as your potential customers for your institution. You need to have a solid knowledge of who the parents and pupils will be, as it will be easier to approach and convince them 

if you have a precise understanding. This will enable you to prioritise and sell to the youngsters’ and guardians’ demands in a way that takes into account their needs and wants.

2. Engage the parents

One of the most important strategies to improve admissions is to provide personal support and counselling. Focus on interacting with them through RWA activities or any other type of social event that fosters communication. Meeting the families of your existing students can help your school’s marketing initiatives. 

Try to understand their worries so you can treat their problem areas. Once you’ve identified all of their potential pain areas, create advertisements that address those issues and leverage their positive comments to establish credibility.

3. Design merchandise with your school logo

Whether or not you realise it, the clothing you choose for your students communicates something about your brand identity. The students wearing branded merchandise show those around you that they belong to your institution and if they have a good reputation then it speaks volumes about your academic institution. 

Also, the sight of a well-known brand name could make other parents who aren’t sure whether their kids should join your organisation interested. This can make for a fantastic pitching introduction.

4. Use billboards to catch attention

Billboard advertising should be included in a school’s strategic marketing plan since it helps build market presence and motivates individuals to take action. An advertisement for a school can be interacted with in a variety of ways by potential parents, and if it leaves them with a favourable impression of the institution, they will undoubtedly visit. 

The goal of the billboard advertisement should be to evoke an emotional response in the viewer in order to gain a competitive edge, particularly if the organisation finds itself in a highly saturated market.

5. Gather feedback from existing students and their families

Consumers are cautious to make the next move in the absence of trust. These days 95% of customers check internet ratings before entering a store or making a purchase. Customer reviews should therefore be a key component of any university marketing strategy.

 To motivate students and parents to give reviews online, make the rating procedure as simple as possible. Parents will feel more confident enrolling their children in your school if you can provide evidence that supports the legitimacy and dependability of your institution.

6. Spend some time making a valuable digital presence

Social media sites have evolved greatly and they now offer a wide range of tools for advertising higher education. Letting visitors inside information and informing them about the facilities offered by you can spark curiosity in your institution. Whatever social media channel you choose to use, your objective must consistently be to build trust with your potential customers by producing interesting content. 

You may also execute paid social media ads. The main benefit is that if you write well-structured advertisement copy, your marketing initiatives can be extremely tailored to your audience and persuasive enough to drive conversions. 

7. Create interesting and educational video content

Textual stuff is less attractive and engaging than graphical information. Also, videos receive more interaction than any other type of advertising, so start making little adjustments to your marketing plans for your blogs and social media platforms. Upload videos of the facilities and classrooms on your webpage or social networks. 

They will be able to see the resources that are offered at your institution. You can also upload milestones, pictures of excellent performers, and professors outlining their successes to give yourself more validity.

8. Engage in social welfare at regular intervals

Participating in social welfare events with your employees is a fantastic approach to building a brand reputation. Take the initiative and sponsor an event rather than just tagging along. Organise a drive to collect old clothing or partner with a charity to conduct a fundraiser. 

When you’re the organiser, you may successfully manage the press and media to promote your institution. Give attendees of the event gifts, flyers, coupons, and discount cards from your institution.

9. Make effective use of print media

Another powerful tool for promoting your academic institution is print media. Send a news article to a publication or newspaper that caters to your target market. Press releases are a straightforward method to highlight a significant occasion or achievement for your school, and the correct magazine may give you much-needed exposure. Additionally, to draw attention, be sure that your press releases are positive. 

10. Involve the Alumni network

Eventually, no one will appreciate what advertisement you put for yourself. They demand evidence before they can believe you. Allow your past students to speak up for you. The students may choose your school if you share real-life stories of achievement from your alumni. Your alumni serve as the face of your university and when they have a decent reputation in the community and promote you, your legitimacy rises.

To Wrap Up

With the strategies and advice for institutional marketing discussed above, you may boost student enrolment and surpass your competition. Be sure to compile a checklist of the important things for making your advertising and media campaign future-ready as your academic institution starts to prepare its strategies for the upcoming school term.

Prepping and carrying out all these things will, no doubt, require work and attention. However, if used effectively and persistently over time, the mentioned school marketing strategies and trends can help your institution reach its maximum potential.