Capturing leads in education has been 4RevOps' core business since the beginning of our activities.
Since then, we have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do in marketing and sales campaigns. In fact, we have seen inbound sales become the main and most effective sales strategy for educational institutions.
Discover the key insights you'll find in this blog post.
Continue reading and learn how to scale your enrollments with these 8 inbound sales tactics!
1. Active Listening
Active listening or, in good Portuguese, active listening, is the process of paying more attention to what the student has to say than to what you want to say.
This change in perspective places the student at the center of the sales process and allows rapport to be established, that is, a relationship of mutual trust, which reinforces the potential student's bond with your institution.
Active listening is essential for the success of inbound sales in higher education because the educational consultant has the chance to get to know the prospect in more detail, understand their difficulties, their dreams and their expectations regarding graduation.
This way, enrollment is completed with better quality and the student feels more confident with the decision.
2. Copywriting
Copywriting is a writing technique that aims to overcome customer objections through persuasive texts, which take the reader to the next step in the process of shopping day.
It is important to make it clear that this is not about trying to convince the student at any cost. A good copywriting strategy generates value, adds information, and clarifies doubts.
The educational consultant uses copywriting to maintain a dialogue with leads and prospects, using the marketing automation as a support tool to keep them nourished throughout the entire purchasing journey.
3. Assignment Selling
Assignment selling, or sales by assignment, is an indispensable component in inbound sales. It's about encouraging leads and prospects to learn more about your educational institution, its courses and infrastructure, before they come to see a consultant.
As you may have noticed, strategies for inbound marketing and content marketing, such as the production of e-books, infographics, cases and other pieces of content, with the aim of educating these students.
This way, when the educational consultant assists them, they do not need to repeat information such as the qualifications of the teaching staff, forms of entry and curriculum matrix. Service becomes more assertive and registration is carried out in less time.
4. Social Selling
Social selling, or social sales, are sales strategies applied to social networks, platforms where the majority of users are exactly the age group that an educational institution seeks to address. Therefore, it is another inbound sales tactic to be applied when attracting students to educational institutions.
Once again, it is necessary to emphasize that this strategy does not consist of approaching social media users with ready-made proposals or sending massive advertising messages.
The idea is to establish contact, nurture a relationship and generate engagement with this audience so that each lead walks naturally through the process of the sales funnel.
READ THESE ARTICLES TOO:
- How to capture leads with inbound sales in the education sector;
- How to capture qualified leads in a digital marketing campaign?
- What is CRM and how can you use it to boost your student’s capture?
5. Smarketing
Alignment between marketing and sales, also called smarketing, is essential to increase the recruitment of students to educational institutions as both sectors seek the same objective: generating more enrollments.
For your inbound sales strategy in higher education to be successful, marketing must do its part by creating ways to attract students interested in entering a degree and transforming them into qualified leads for the inbound sales team.
Continuity of work occurs with closer contact with consultants, nurturing prospects with sales letters and emails more focused on the conversion itself.
6. CRM
The concept of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) goes far beyond the use of customer management software. The term refers to a set of strategies that aim to provide value to the student by placing them at the center of all processes at their educational institution.
This way, it is possible to understand what needs your educational institution can meet, what types of differences it can offer and how to promote two-way communication, based on active listening and continuous feedback.
CRM as an inbound sales strategy for educational institutions provides precious data for customizing sales strategies capturing leads in education, such as the behavioral profile of the educational institution's audience, most frequently asked questions and the nutrition time needed to reach enrollment.
7. Lead scoring
Lead scoring consists of segmenting your lead base according to the purchasing journey, identifying those who are most prepared to enter higher education and, consequently, become students.
This inbound sales tactic can be applied in different ways, but the center of it is to set a score for each lead and each interaction they have with your educational institution. When the score reaches the “qualified lead” level, your team of consultants takes action to achieve conversion.
8. Offer consultancy, not courses
In their eagerness to close more enrollments and hit ongoing intake targets, many sales teams literally “push” courses that have nothing to do with the student’s profile. That's why in inbound sales, we don't talk about salespeople or the sales team. We talk about educational consultants.
The role of the sales team is to guide students, providing all types of information that helps them make better choices, according to their needs, dreams and desires.
More than closing a goal, the educational consultant must have a long-term vision, enrolling those students who will certainly remain at the institution until graduation.
Consultative sales are focused on quality, much more than the quantity of students enrolled. It's better to have a room with 20 students who have attended your educational institution for the next 4 years than to have a room with 60 who won't make it halfway through the course, do you agree?
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