Inbound marketing is a great way to guide prospective students through the enrollment process. If you follow Hubspot’s effective inbound marketing methodology, you know that the first step is to attract the right people to your educational institution. Using your keyword research, blog, and social publishing platforms, you can turn strangers into potential students. Here’s how.
1. Give Potential Students the Information They’re Searching For
If you want to improve your higher ed marketing strategy, you need potential students to find your school.
Today’s students are more information-hungry than any previous generation. They’re constantly scouring the search engines when they have a question to which they want an immediate answer. If your higher ed marketing strategy isn’t working too well, maybe you’re not providing the information those students are searching for.
What interests students in your target market? Maybe they’re looking for educational funding or a school that offers the extracurricular activities they love.
Conduct keyword research to find out what potential students want to know. Then publish blog posts that answer those questions quickly and succinctly, but thoroughly.
2. Guide Your Prospects Toward a Specific Action
Each time you write a blog post, think about how you want the reader to respond. Do you want them to request a brochure, sign up for your newsletter, or visit your curriculum page?
Make sure each blog posts guides your prospects toward a specific action. You can change that action from one blog post to another, but make it specific to each article.
The best way to do this is to make your call to action relevant to the blog content. Don’t just tack a call to action onto the end of your blog post; instead, make sure they relate to one another so visitors will be more likely to follow through.
3. Try Different Types of Blog Content
Your higher ed marketing campaign depends on your ability to attract different types of students. Some people like to read text-heavy blog posts, but others would rather watch videos or scan infographics.
Use a mix if content types on your blog. You might even work content types into your schedule. For instance, you might post text articles on Mondays and Wednesdays, videos on Tuesdays, and link roundups on Thursdays.
Guide: How to Use Blogging to Attract Students to your School
4. Connect Your Blog to Social Media Platforms
Students are social animals — they’re constantly connecting with friends, relatives, businesses, and schools online. If you want your higher ed inbound marketing strategy to work, you need to get social with potential students.
Link to your blog posts from the social media platforms you use. Don’t just post a title and a link, though; instead, use those posts to engage your followers. Ask questions, start conversations, and give opinions.
5. Invite Your Readers to Share
Every higher education institution can benefit from social proof. If you share your blog posts, you might get a little attention and a few retweets. However, if a prospective student shares your content, you’ll amplify that signal much farther.
Why? Because students trust each other. They value one another’s opinions. Plus, they’re more likely to believe a fellow student’s word than the word of a college or university marketer.
If you’re struggling to implement a higher ed marketing campaign, starting at the beginning can help. Attract the right students to your website using your blog, specific keywords, and social publishing efforts to start the enrollment process.
