Attracting students to private schools has become increasingly hard. Mergers and acquisitions create strong educational groups with a high capacity to invest in marketing actions for private schools, making competitiveness hard for those who still keep their roots or are part of a smaller educational group.
Using an Educational CRM no longer makes a big difference in contacting leads and students, highlighting the need for drastic changes in the way you communicate with your future and current students.
Do you want to know what these changes are and how to attract more students with educational digital marketing?
The importance of experience
Every year, thousands of parents and students begin the search for the perfect school. And how do you ensure that yours is the chosen one? Offering a unique experience relationship with your brand, of course!
The user experience is the result of all interactions the user has with your school, from the first contact to the last day of their relationship with the brand. It affects the behavior of these people, awakens emotions and brings consequences, such as loyalty.
You deal with the parents as well as the students, so you have to win both. Build the plans for getting students in a way that reaches each of them. That means making what the school says omnichannel, building self-service technologies and using data analysis to personalize experiences.
Omnichannel marketing has also proved its worth in schools. It builds a bond and pulls the public in. According to a study published in Jurnal Vokasi Indonesia, the use of many joined-up channels lets a higher education school offer a student journey that runs smooth and feels personal. It meets what students expect in a digital age. Word travels better, and the school holds a firmer place in today's market.
Now that you know the importance of promoting a unique experience for your audience, let’s get your hands dirty?
Caption: Illustration of a hand holding a giant magnet on a screen, attracting people, symbolizing online student recruitment.
Marketing actions for private schools
There are dozens of educational digital marketing strategies that you can use to attract students in private schools. We select those that bring the greatest return and can be put into practice quickly, especially if you have specialized educational marketing consultancy.
Inbound marketing in education
The first move in school digital marketing is inbound marketing. Why? Because people are tired of marketing that cuts in. It breaks into the buying journey and pushes a product before anyone is ready to choose.
Implement the inbound marketing in education It means attracting your audience with the greatest asset your private school has: knowledge. Inbound marketing uses the production of useful and relevant content for the public in order to attract them to digital channels and thus bring traffic to your educational institution's website.
Here, having truly omnichannel communication, that is, with all of your school's communication channels integrated into a single intelligence center (BI), makes all the difference.
Your marketing and sales team will be able to follow the entire trajectory of any lead, prospect and student at your institution and build personalized forms of communication, based on what your audience really wants and needs.
Inbound Sales
Inbound sales came to replace the mechanical use of educational CRM and transform the data you have into sales intelligence. In inbound sales, inbound marketing strategies are used to attract, delight and convert leads into customers, attracting more students to your school.
The central idea is to stop shooting everywhere and see who buys the idea of your institution and start talking only with those who are really interested and could become a student at the school.
This change in focus allows you to cut marketing and sales efforts, make the enrollment process more assertive and even cut marketing costs so that your educational institution becomes more profitable.
Mobile marketing
According to recent data from the Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br), in 2024, 84% of Brazilians aged 10 or over will access the internet via smartphone, and in many cases, it will be the only means of connection for around 60% of users. This change further reinforces the importance of mobile-first strategies to attract new students, considering that their first contact with your institution will most likely be via a small screen.
On top of that, social networks are everywhere, used by a public that gets younger and more wired every year. They carry Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Messenger in their pocket.
If you really want to build student recruitment strategies With digital marketing, you should consider mobile as your first option. Both in your brand's online presence and the biggest conversion point of any educational institution: your private school's website.
A site that fits any screen, looks good, and puts what people need within easy reach. Remember most of them hold a 4.7-inch screen. Get that right and your mobile marketing for private schools is on solid ground.
Know how to slice your channels, and know which ones your public really lives on. That alone makes your school's digital marketing land closer to the mark.
Educational marketing consultancy
To further increase the effectiveness of your educational digital marketing actions, consider having a educational marketing consultancy as a partner.
A team specialized in attracting students and up to date with the latest digital marketing technologies can bring the difference you are looking for to fill your classrooms.
Do you think this could be costly for your private school? Here at 4RevOps we have the ideal solution for all types and sizes of educational institutions: from elementary schools to large educational groups, including language schools, technical schools and, of course, universities.
How to attract more students to private schools with digital marketing?
Why is student experience important in student recruitment?
The experience colors every dealing a student or a parent has with the school. It sways who enrolls and who stays. Reach across channels, let people serve themselves, and make each contact personal. Engagement goes up, and so does the school's standing.
How does inbound marketing help attract students to private schools?
Inbound marketing attracts potential students by producing useful and relevant content, avoiding intrusive approaches. This strategy brings qualified traffic to the school's website and creates a relationship of trust throughout the decision-making process.
What is inbound sales and how can it be applied to education?
Inbound sales is the practice of using marketing data to direct the sales team to focus only on truly qualified leads. This cuts efforts, makes the enrollment process more assertive, and increases the institution's profitability.
Why is mobile marketing essential for attracting students today?
With most Brazilians accessing the internet via cell phones, it is key that the school website is responsive and that communication strategies rank mobile devices. This ensures a better experience for the public, increasing the chance of conversions.
How can an educational marketing consultancy help in student recruitment?
Specialists such as Mkt4Edu build digital marketing to fit each kind of school. They help put modern plans in place that work, bring in more students, and make the marketing money go further.
Portugal