Essential Digital Marketing Strategies for Student Recruitment. Philippe Taza CEO Higher Education Marketing

Transcription

1 Essential Digital Marketing Strategies for Student Recruitment Philippe Taza CEO Higher Education Marketing

2 Today s Presentation What is Inbound Marketing? Persona Development Content Strategy Analytics to Measure and Improve Your Results Optimizing your Website for SEO Leveraging Social Media to Attract and Engage Marketing Available resources

3 What is Inbound Marketing?

4 The Inbound Marketing Process

5 Why Inbound Marketing? Today s typical prospective students are digitally literate, informed, and engaged They expect consistent messaging & outreach tailored to their interests, goals, & concerns Students want an open window into your institution s mission rather than overt self-promotion/selling Meaningful dialogue and relationship-building with your school community, from their first encounter, to enrollment, and beyond

6 Persona Development: Identify your Target Audience(s) Segment prospects by: program, level, source country, etc. & research their distinct characteristics:

7 Persona Development: Research Tools 1. Survey your admissions & recruitment team for their insights 2. Survey/poll your students & alumni directly 3. Use journey-mapping/heat-mapping to track key touchpoints 4. Conduct market research to better understand what is impacting decision-making

8 Persona Development: Survey Current Students and Alumni to Find Common Characteristics Examples of questions to ask during this process: What was your main motivation for pursuing education? What has been the most rewarding aspect of your experience? What challenges have you encountered during your studies? How have your studies helped your career? How long did it take you to find employment after graduating?

9 Persona Development: Find the Unique Selling Points of Your Institution

10 Persona Development: Identify Potential Barriers to Enrollment

11 Persona Development: Consolidate Data into Profiles PROSPECTIVE MASTERS STUDENT

12 Persona Development: Tap Into Common Interests, Goals, and Desires

13 Persona Development: Addressing Common Pain Points

14 Persona Development: Use Personas to Develop Key Messages

15 Set up Your Landing Pages for Persona Segmentation The user selection should feed your CRM to trigger personalized content

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17 The Channel Report The Channels report under Acquisition, gives you macro level insights into the various channels you are using to attract traffic to your website.

18 What are the Main Channels? Organic Search: SEO Traffic from search engines links in campaigns Direct: users enter the URL directly in the browser Referral: traffic from other sites yours is linked on Social: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Paid Search: Google AdWords, Bing ads, etc.

19 Common Website Goals For Educational Institutions Online application form Ask a question form Contact us form Paid advertising inquiry form Online payment gateway Live chat event PDF Brochure download event

20 Setting up Website Goals

21 Use Lead Capture Forms to Capitalize on Your Website Traffic and Measure Conversions in GA

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23 Create Targeted Posts That Appeal Directly to Their Motivations

24 Content Example - Blogs 1. Provide career/study tips, industry news, and other custom content your personas will love 2. Generate respect, trust, and loyalty with posts that engage & inform, but are never salesy 3. Build your presence on social (as readers share and like your posts) 4. Drive traffic to your site when students find your posts during their online search process

25 Content Strategy: Use Student-Generated Content Invite current students to share their personal experiences: adds authenticity & sparks interest Solicit blog posts, videos & photostories from student ambassadors Ask students to contribute content in multiple languages to recruit internationally Publish on website & share through social media

26 Content Strategy: Student Experience Bloggers Current students chronicle their journey through various training programs Offers inside access to prospective applicants Provides motivation to prospects who may be on the fence Great for sharing across social media!

27 Content Strategy: Always Prioritize Visuals! Videos & photographs are more engaging to students & more shareable than text alone (use them across ALL channels) Infographics make complex info digestible through images, charts, diagrams, quotes, and stats (interactive is the latest trend) Transform blog posts into visual content: infographics, newsletters, Slideshares, etc. to maximize their impact

28 Promote Your Content

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30 What is SEO & its connection to inbound? The process of optimizing website content, design, & performance to generate visitor traffic from organic (versus paid) search engine results SEO is vital for ensuring your content and website get found online by prospective students

31 Look for Keywords Your Primary Personas Might Search For

32 Keyword Research

33 Look for Keywords Your Personas Might Search For

34 Keyword Research

35 On Page SEO Example

36 Google Search Engine Result Page - SERP Keyword Title Meta description Google My Business

37 Measuring Your SEO Efforts

38 Measuring Your SEO Efforts Year over Year Year over year comparison is very useful to measure the health of your SEO Traffic and conversions from that channel

39 Evaluate Your Organic Search Queries

40 Evaluate Your Organic Search Queries

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42 Social Media Strategy & Development Social media amplifies your college brand, provides communities for engaging personas, helps promote your content, & supports SEO

43 Use Personas to Focus Your Social Initiatives

44 Build Your Brand with Simple Social Contests Brand-building contests could include campus photography/video, showing off college pride, or what you like most about your college i.e. What s your favourite place on campus?

45 Social Content Sharing Workflow Publish content on your website Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

46 Measure the Social Activity Directed to Your Website

47 Separate Your Facebook Ad Initiatives

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49 Marketing Options One-off s to individual leads/students E-newsletters sent to your database Automated marketing workflows Personalize your automated s

50 Focus on Persona Concerns During the Lead Nurturing Process

51 Curate your Blogs in your Newsletters Bring your users back to your website by linking to your Blog posts

52 Measure Your E-newsletters Measure the activity from your efforts by effectively tagging your links with the URL Builder:

53 Automated Marketing: How Does it Work? Automated drip marketing sends prospects a series of carefully customized messages over time, sequenced to guide leads down the enrollment funnel Each message is crafted with your personas unique needs & goals in mind, and can help resolve enrollment roadblocks during each stage of their decision-making process Start simple with an auto-response, building a relationship with timely messaging that provides links to relevant, inspiring content (and prompts to take next steps - CTAs)

54 You Can Create Autoresponders By Program The program field determines which auto responder the new lead will get

55 Measure your Campaigns

56 Marketing: Personalize your Correspondence Begin with a personalized greeting Close with a personalized & professional sign-off Robert E. Mathiasen, Ph.D. Distance Education Recruiter Office of Online & Distance Education University of Nebraska Lincoln bobmathiasen@online.unl.edu Slide 56

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58 Some Questions Before Getting Started Should you run your campaigns in English or in the local language? Do you have the internal resources to follow up with inquiries that come in from the local languages? What network should you use to reach your potential students: Google, Facebook, Baidu, etc.? To which page should you direct users to?

59 Use Your Personas to Localize Your Campaigns

60 Organize Your Campaigns by Country & Language

61 Facebook Ads That Drive Inquiries

62 Separate Your Facebook Initiatives with the Campaign URL Builder

63 Campaign URL Builder

64 Use Responsive Landing Pages for Your Campaigns Desktop View Mobile View

65 Do you use a CRM to manage your potential student inquiries? New leads are entered in the CRM in real time

66 Separate Applications from Inquiries Completed application forms can be automatically sent for processing

67 Separate Applications from Inquiries Inquiries may need to be handled by different staff than applications

68 Stages in the Admissions Process These are the common stages which typical leads and applications go through.

69 Conclusion Understand your audience Inbound integrates Content, SEO, , Social Media & Analytics Create high quality, visual-rich, personalized content Optimize your content for maximum exposure through search Leverage and amplify your content across social media Measure your results and continuously improve

70 Have questions about this presentation? I m easy to reach at: Philippe Taza Tel: ext:104 ptaza@higher-education-marketing.com

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