Looking Ahead at Your Education Marketing Plan for 2019
Failing to plan is planning to fail. But where do you even begin
with your education marketing plan? Tackle the blank sheet in front
of you with this quick guide.
For many businesses and households, it’s time to start looking
ahead to a new year. But for those of us in enrollment marketing,
we’re in the middle of our academic year.
Time to take a look at our progress over the last six months…
and begin preparations for next fall.
I know you’re busy with so many other priorities, and there
are always fires that need to be stomped out. But you can only
position yourself for enrollment marketing success by having a
well-devised education marketing plan.
Marketing is not a game of chance.
Because you’re not always guaranteed the results you want,
enrollment marketing can seem like a gamble.
While sometimes you’ll get lucky in the short-term, long-term
success comes to those who prepare and implement their education
marketing plan well from year to year.
Like all good plans, it
begins with a look backward.
Step #1: Evaluate your performance this past academic year.
To get where you want to be, start where you are. Get to know
the basics
of an education marketing plan, and then analyze your
performance by reviewing
your priorities and Key Performance Indicators.
Is your enrollment marketing bringing in enough new
students?
There are all kinds of ways to measure your progress in
enrollment marketing — but the fundamental metric is
enrollment.
Evaluate your funnel from top to bottom. How many new students
are enrolling at your school? Where are the pain points?
If you’re not getting enough inquiries at the top of the
funnel, then you might have a traffic problem. To correct that, put
more focus
on content marketing in your education marketing plan to
generate more leads.
You can also generate more excitement on social
media by planning a couple giveaways throughout the year.
If you have plenty of traffic to your website but few
prospective students are giving you their information, that means
you’re struggling in the middle of your funnel. Try planning
out gated
content offers such as an eBook to entice visitors to trade
their contact info for your valuable resource.
Which channels performed best for you?
Look at your marketing channels closely and see which ones are
working best, which ones need cut, and which ones need more
resources to be successful.
- Which social media platform is working out best?
- Do you have a presence on all the social
media platforms where your audience is hanging out? - Which ones are performing better, paid
or free? - If paid channels have the upper hand, is using them sustainable
for your budget going forward? - Are there platforms you want to start out on this year that
will need resources allocated to them for a successful launch?
Was your budget sufficient?
If not, ask for more in the next budget cycle or cut back on
some expenses if that’s not workable. No matter how brilliant
your strategy is, it won’t work if you don’t have the budget
for it.
Step #2: Work out your budget
To come up with your budget,
use the audience-first approach. Ask yourself the following
questions:
Who is your audience?
Knowing your audience will help you determine what channels they
are hanging out on. This means that you’ll know how much to
budget for those specific channels.
What are your organization’s priorities and KPIs?
Having social
media key performance indicators, or KPIs, is helpful in two
ways. First, it helps the marketing team measure success.
For example, if your institution’s goal was to increase
Twitter clickthrough rates by 5% but you managed 4%, you know
you’ve done fairly well. Secondly, it gives management and the
marketing team a common goal.
What tools and expertise do you need to achieve your
goals?
To achieve your goals, you need to invest in tools like
marketing automation
tools and metrics
software. Make sure you accommodate them in your budget.
What work are you going to outsource?
Outsourcing has so many benefits. Decide which part of your
work will be done in-house and what will need external expertise.
Calculate the cost of hiring outside agencies or freelancers.
Step #3: Latch on to industry trends
To stay competitive you’ve got to keep up with the trends.
Here are the three big things that are catching on right
now: Augmented
reality, Voice-assisted technology, and Blockchain.
Augmented reality
With this technology, your college can come alive to prospective
students in an amazing way. You can do virtual tours of your
campus. Imagine showing off your dorms, cafeteria, and sports
facilities to prospective students at the next college fair!
Voice-assisted technology
Higher education marketers need to quickly come to grips with
this innovation. Many people now have voice-ready devices in their
homes and hands.
More and more people are talking into their devices to find
answers to their questions. Whether it’s Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s
Echo and Alexa, the technology is now readily available.
This means higher education websites need to be optimized for
voice search so they show up in search engines or they’ll lose
the competitive edge.
Blockchain
There’s more to Blockchain than Bitcoin and virtual
currencies. It’s the next big thing. I believe it’ll change
the education sector in unimaginable ways.
For example, instead of having a seal on your transcript,
it’ll actually be in the cloud in a Blockchain that’s uniquely
tied to your identity and can never be altered. You would have a
key to access it of course. That’s just one example. I’m sure
there are many other ways for education marketers to take advantage
of this technology.
With emerging technologies, it’s crucial to be an early
adopter – otherwise, you’ll lose ground on your
competitors.
Planning for Success
Planning for marketing success can be tricky and taxing. But
don’t get discouraged or overwhelmed.
There’s a lot to enrollment marketing. But if you take it one
step at a time, you’ll get your plan done and save yourself a ton
of frustration in the future by having it all written out ahead of
time.
Once you start seeing the fruits of all your hard work, you’ll
be glad you took the time to plan properly.
Want to Improve Your Digital Marketing Results?
Then you’ve got to know how to write for the web. That’s why
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Featured image by Rido via Adobe
Stock
What’s next image by MarekPhotoDesign.com via Adobe
Stock
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Looking Ahead at Your Education Marketing Plan for 2019
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