Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

Who is your primary target audience? Where? What makes your institution unique? Why should someone in your target audience choose you instead of a competitor?

In the past, different institutions rarely had to engage in brand promoting or other marketing endeavors. Before there were not nearly as many schools as there are today so the competition for attracting new students was fairly low.
Now times have changed. With so many online schools and other smaller, more personal institutions, education institutions of all kind have to compete to attract more people to their institutions.
Luckily, building brand awareness for your education institution is not nearly as impossible and challenging as you might think. With the right digital marketing tools, you can create a successful brand image for your institution and promote it to the best students out there.
Here is your complete guide to educational institution branding online.

Create buyer personas and outline journey:

Your institute does not cater solely to one type of student, and neither should your brand. If you want to drive brand awareness, you have to understand the people that you want to be excited or interested in your brand.
The best way to do this is to create buyer personas of your students as they move through the decision journey. This will help you better understand what your students need from you at different stages of the application process. A student who’s just begun to look at schools does not have the same needs as a student who is just about ready to commit to a school.
Take time and map out how you think students move through the application process and create buyer personas based around each step in the process. For each persona, think about:
• How aware of your institution should your persona be?
• What are your persona’s biggest concerns right now?
• What questions does your persona have?
• How could your institution help them answer these questions?
When you stop and think about how your prospective students change and evolve throughout the application process, you’ll be better equipped to help them while promoting your own brand simultaneously.

Believe in your message:

Once you have an idea about who you’re promoting to and how they may change over time, you will need to create a strong brand, tagline or message that will capture what students can expect from your institution.
This theme or message will be the foundation of your brand awareness campaign so think about what skills you want your students to gain while enrolled and what great opportunities they’ll be eligible for upon graduation.
Your message or slogan doesn’t have to be too complex. You want to base your content around this, so make your slogan snappy and open-ended.

Be in control of your image:

Images that represent your brand can be extremely influential. In most cases, these are the first images prospective student have of your campus, so it’s important to make a great first impression.
The images on your site, ads and social media profiles should all be authentic images. Avoid using stock photos at all costs. Students can usually tell when these images are fake. They want to see your real campus and the students who fill it. If you haven’t already, use a professional camera and take pictures of the campus or hire a professional photographer to capture the essence of your campus.
Once you have photos, start using them on your promotional materials, especially ads. We’ll talk about how to do this next.

Multi-channel marketing:

To promote your brand and build awareness, you need to have multiple marketing channels available to you. While having a website is key, your brand will never grow to such heights if you don’t promote it across other sites on the internet.
Multi-channel marketing will bring together all the topics we’ve previously covered so that you can better reach your target audience with your brand awareness campaign. Learn more about the three essential platforms you need to be on to make the most of multi-channel marketing:

1. Your website:

Your website should be treated like home base and should proudly display your branding message. There should be no 404 errors on any pages, and the content should be informational and relevant. If you don’t have one already, start a blog on your website. We’ll discuss content in the next section.

2. Facebook:

Of all the social media platforms, Facebook is probably the most important. Facebook offers a great ad service so you can remarket to your followers, invite them on campus tours and urge them to sign up for information sessions. You can also use your images on your ads as well as profile to show followers what your campus looks like during different times of the year.

3. Google Ads/Adroll:

Get your site, message and image on multiple platforms at once. Using Google Adwords, you can follow your website visitors as they surf the web and send them targeted messages urging them to sign up for information sessions, read promoted content and attend tours.

Provide the best help:

Go back to your buyer personas and look at what questions you guessed your prospective students might have. Now it’s time to answer those questions by creating useful content that is both helpful and in line with your brand. This will help students see your institution as one that cares about their wellbeing and education.
Your blog should be your first content engine and the best way to help students get the answers they need without having to email your staff. Brainstorm creative ways to address certain topics
These topics will meet the needs of students at different stages of the application process. A student who’s just started the search might be interested in the great opportunities that your institution offers while students who are concerned with financials have probably narrowed down their school choices and are ready to crunch numbers. Students looking to finalise their decisions might be interested in more recreational perks that your campus offers, such as being close to great restaurants and other fun things to do.
Of course, you won’t be able to meet the needs of all your prospective students, but if you’re frequently posting new content, then you should be able to hit most buyer personas without too much issue.
To promote your content, you can use your social media sites as well as Google Adwords to get your content out to new users. Remember with social media, you should be promoting not only your content but other blogs and news articles that your followers might find interesting and relevant. Again, you want your students to know that you have their best interests in mind.
Building your brand awareness is a lengthy, ongoing process, but as students come to rely on you for information and even advice, you’ll find that your institute’s image will improve and your institution's brand message will mean much more than just a marketing slogan.

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