7 Secret Tips - How To Use Content Marketing in Education Industry?

From the recent research statistics presented by Demand Metric, it is clear that content marketing costs businesses 62% less when compared to other marketing techniques. They also added that it generates 3X leads for every dollar spent! Apart from these numbers, ideally education industry needs to use valuable content strategy to promote their business. When I talk about the education industry, it includes schools, universities, training institutes, education-based companies, etc. Before getting into the 7 secret tips, I highly recommend you to learn about why content marketing is a must for the education sector.

• You need to reach a new market audience every year. If you have the systematic content strategy in place, the process of generating leads become recurring and easy.

• With the emergence of new schools, colleges, and institutes the competition is at the peak. The best way to differentiate yours is by having an engaging content platform and website.

• Students and parents expect detailed information before making admissions. Having online credibility in place, you can easily attract the target audience.

• Your market is always curious to learn about the daily happenings of your organisation. With the engaging social media presence, you can share the news and content updates regularly.

In simple words, when the students and parents learn about you in prior, they give first preference to your organisation. The only reason being that you have already educated them through online media. For all those who want to implement the content marketing strategy, here are the 7 curated secret tips.

Informative and Engaging Website

The first action a student or parent takes is to search your website on Google. As the famous saying goes - the First Impression Is The Best Impression. Embrace their attention through the website design as well as content. In fact, it is a fundamental step you are supposed to take care of. Your website must be responsive, engaging, and informative.

How to make a responsive website?

Make sure that your website works well on all types of devices. Ask your web developer to check about this factor. There should not be any delay when visitors loads different web pages.

How to make an engaging website?

There are a plethora of AI chatbots available in today's market. As soon as a new visitor enters the website, the chat box opens and communicates based on the standard questions/answers pre-set. Using this tool, you can collect the information (name, phone number, email id, queries) automatically without your presence on the other end. Make every visitor feel awesome and offer them a memorable website journey. The creativity lies in the type of content (questions and answers) you put in front of them. At our digital marketing company, we conduct detailed market analysis and understand what students or parents expect when they visit the website. Based on the analysis, the content is developed for chatbox interaction.

How to make an informative website?

Once you understand what your target market expects before making admissions, it is very easy to win their hearts. Divide your website into different pages and provide detailed information. It varies from one organization(schools/colleges/institutes) to other. For instance, the information can be about fees, infrastructure, faculty, extra curriculum, etc.

Attractive Blog Posts

Blog posts are the non-promotional type of content. It is mainly written to attract the target visitors to a website through informative content on specific industry topics. By doing so, you will develop the trust factor in the market. The establishment of thought leadership in the industry promotes your organization automatically. As a result, the process of convincing the students or parents is strengthened through blogs. Some examples are - career-related blogs, job market-related blogs, etc

SEO Optimized Content

SEO is also known as search engine optimization. Students or parents use keywords such as "best schools in India", "best engineering college", "Top MBA college", "Best Big Data Training", etc. These are just examples but there are many other keywords using which people can find you online. Make sure you are visible when the market searches for a related keyword. This is possible only when you have optimized content on the website. See how your competitors are already using an SEO optimized content to appear on the first page of Google. We have observed that google my business listing is extremely important for educational organisations to attract a local audience. Your visibility on the internet starts from the high quality and well-planned content. Have you implemented this?

Interactive Social Media Content

Do you have a social media presence? What kind of content do you post to build online credibility? In the first place, the social media channel selection depends on the target market. You must not forget that social media is a hub for youth as well as parents in today's digital era. Take up this opportunity to build your online community and attract a new audience. Do this by rolling out paid social media campaigns and also organically (free). You can steal their attention only if you have the right social media content strategy in place. Be as creative as possible to let the community trust you. Social media platforms provide two-way communication. Answer the questions genuinely and showcase the high-quality education provided by your organization.

E-Book For Lead Generation

The e-book is a small digital copy that can be used to generate leads. Moreover, it is a one-time investment. Prepare an e-book on the topics like career assistance, alumni success stories, etc and deliver it to your website visitors in exchange for the contact information. Highlight your unique education services in the e-book with respective illustrations. This shortens the decision making process since the majority of it happens when they read your ebook. The compelling copy of ebook will make the visitors come back and get admitted without any second thought.

Powerful Email Content

You will already have hundreds and thousands of students' and parent's email database from previous batches. Imagine the professional and personal network of each student or parents. This is the reason why you should not forget about the alumni and their family. Create compelling and educative email copy to grab their attention. Also, you can share the blog posts or e-book developed into your e-mail database. Make them talk about your organization and let their network come and approach you. This works like a magic because an e-mail content triggers word of mouth among the network!

Video Content Speaks Reality

Are you aware of what a video can do to your organisation? Through videos, you will let the target audience learn about the real face behind the organisation brand name. The videos can be based on tutorial types, high profile faculty member speaking, Alumni testimonials and their success stories, the tour of your campus, infrastructure overview, etc. What happens when you share such videos? You are not giving any of your target audience a chance to go through a second thought. They are impressed at one go and decision of making admission is done. However, all this comes under video content marketing which every educational organisation can leverage upon.

Final Words

The primary step is to develop an informative, engaging and educative content. But, this is just the beginning. The content strategy for the educational industry goes through 4 stages namely planning, creation, implementation, and analysis. Every content marketing agency will take care of all these phases and measure the success. If you own a great content but not visible to the potential audience, then it absolutely does not make any sense. I hope that these 7 tips on how you can use the content marketing in the education industry will help you.