BlogDigital Marketing / Inbound Marketing

Rising Phase of Digital Marketing in Education Sector

By Riya Arora
November 9, 2017

How often do you come across a situation when you see a brand using old-school marketing tactics? We guess that it’s not so frequent as it used to be. Ever since digital platforms have taken center stage, offline marketing/traditional marketing has taken a backseat. Digital marketing not only helps a brand to promote themselves to the right audience but also strengthens the authority of the brand and improves their business procedures. There’s a widespread belief that the education sector doesn’t depend on marketing, but – as odd as it may sound – it’s simply not true. With online education practices making a noticeable impact in the industry, there has been a lot of changes when it comes to how students consume information. If we compare today’s scenario with how the education industry was ten years ago, we can confidently say that it’s a complete revolution. The way in which information is consumed and people interact with each other has completely transformed with the advent of the digital landscape. This has directly influenced how universities and colleges reach out to their TG. Digital marketing is the best possible solution for educational institutes to mark their presence and attract students towards them.

Here are a few reasons why and how digital marketing can help educational institutes to market themselves better:

1. Reach your audience where they are comfortable

The Internet has changed the paradigms of how we look at things. Anything we want and need is now available online. This is especially true for the younger generation, who are completely hooked to the online world and spend most of their time using social media platforms. Therefore, marketing at the platforms where your audience will surely be present will pay off.

2. Digital marketing is more educational and informative and less of sales

Unlike traditional methods, digital marketing isn’t supposed to look like a sales pitch to parents and students. Today, when people have an attention span which lasts less than 7 seconds, it is impossible to keep them engaged with a typical sales pitch or long articles. It has to be engaging and informative to keep the audience hooked on your content.

3. Endless opportunities to engage a wider audience

With digital marketing tips and tricks at hand, an institute can reach out to a greater audience than it can connect with traditional strategies. Colleges can reach out to students at remote locations, and in places that they can’t reach physically. This will help them get more inquiries from a more significant geographic landscape.

4. Trackable results

Often, educational institutes end up spending a fortune on their marketing activities to attract students towards them and are never actually able to measure the return on their investments. With digital marketing, institutes can decide the metrics of their marketing spends and measure the ROI of the same. Once they know what’s working and what’s not, institutes can focus on the strategies that are truly generating dividends to amplify their results exponentially.

5. Marking authority

Using digital platforms, educational institutes can establish themselves as an authority in the domain and increase their awareness amongst their audience. When a brand establishes an authority over a specific domain, they don’t have to shout and declare this achievement to the world to convey a message. Whatever they say is read and considered by many. Similarly, when an institute identifies its TG and establishes their authority, they don’t have to go out and pitch themselves to people. The perfect way to do this is to use the inbound digital marketing tactics. For example: Over an extended period, Indian School of Business has established themselves as the premier school for business management, and didn't have to pitch themselves anymore to students since, at this point, students were mostly coming to them.

6. Mapping customer journey is a master trick of digital marketing

The process of generating leads and converting these leads into a successful business is complex, and mapping the customer journey helps simplify this process. The same model works for educational institutes, where mapping the journey of getting an inquiry from a person seeking admission to convert him/her to a student is essential. If an institute can map this journey, then they can correctly identify and understand the disconnect between the two points, and work to improve this particular aspect. While we have mentioned quite a few ways on how digital marketing can help an educational institute to market themselves better, here are a few case studies about how these institutes opted for digital platforms and increased their admissions with a sizeable number. Further, if you wish to understand better on how digital marketing can help your institute increase its reach to a wider audience, you can visit here.