Communicating the same message day after day to a blanket audience through advertising no longer works as it used to, due to technology. Technology has greatly disrupted how schools interact with their parent communities, and exactly how and when they interact with a brand – be it Internet, TV, radio, mobile, or print.
Related: School Websites, The Hub of your School Digital Marketing Strategy
The question now is, how do schools create integrated marketing communications campaigns that will reach their target audience to get their message heard?
Below are 5 strategies you can start using to communicate more effectively online.:
1. Relationship Building: The use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, techniques and automation for revenue enhancement represents a considerable change for many schools. Most schools are moving from paper based systems, or perhaps Excel spreadsheets, to an integrated database approach. One of the challenges in adopting new systems is establishing and maintaining a single customer view. This is a critical strategy because today’s parents often interact with your brand in a variety of ways that involve more than one touch point. It is of utmost importance that you understand behaviour across all channels, at each and every touch point.
2. Better Data: Begin to build rich customer profiles to encapsulate your customers’ needs, behaviours, and ways they prefer to interact. Personalise your prospective parent’s journey by delivering relevant experiences based on what you know about your customer. When you focus on delivering content in context, you begin to achieve the real aim, which is maximising engagement, enrolments and revenue.
3. Content Marketing: Regardless of platform, your school must strive to create stories that will attract the attention of your target audience. These strategies can help you make a strong brand story:
a) Use a hook to pull readers in, tell a story, and deliver an ending worthy of the story build up.
b) Aim to create the best content you can each time to build your authority.
c) Make your content contagious. Ask: if you wouldn’t share it, why would someone else?
Related: 3 Key Areas to Focus Your School’s Brand Reputation Management
4. Brand Loyalty: Schools build loyalty by being sensitive to students’ needs, and providing a level of personality that engages students and parents at the right time and place.
Design memorable experiences for your prospective parents through customer journey mapping—a relatively new marketing discipline that combines touch point mapping with customer experience design and customer strategy.
5. Marketing Automation: Schools are increasingly adopting new technology to provide the power and flexibility to quickly launch targeted campaigns across multiple marketing channels to generate more revenue with less manual effort. Key marketing automation features you should utilize are lead nurturing, integration with CRM, social media and mobile platforms, and analytics and reporting capabilities.
Written by Toka O. @SwoopStudios
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