An internet marketing plan is an essential component of a private school’s total marketing mix. If you’re a private school principal, administrator, or board member and entirely new to online marketing for private schools, getting started might seem like a daunting process as internet marketing is constantly evolving.
Independent school marketing may include numerous offline local advertising approaches. Still, to optimize enrollment in today’s economy, a school must incorporate a good share of internet marketing strategies.
What Is Internet Marketing?
Many people confuse internet marketing with internet advertising. In reality, internet advertising is just one component of a comprehensive internet marketing or digital marketing plan. These may consist of market research, public relations, media planning, community involvement, enrollment strategy, and customer support can all be parts of comprehensive internet marketing plans.
Internet Marketing for Private Schools: The Basics
Below are the basics that private schools of any size should be aware of as you build the foundation of your internet marketing for your school’s strategy. Now, results will definitely vary, but the information in this section will be valuable to anyone.
Understand Your Private School’s Exact Needs and Goals
Your families, students, and prospective students are the lifeblood of your independent school. Therefore, you need to build your marketing strategy around them.
The first step of marketing a private school is understanding what your parents and students want, which can be challenging when dealing with a diverse audience.
Marketing is strategic, and you must have highly focused goals to succeed.
Get to Know Your Families and Students
Before jumping into your internet marketing for a private school strategy, having a conversation with your existing parents is necessary.
How did they find out about your school? What transformed them from interested prospects into paying families? And what do they value or care about?
You’ll likely find and hear the most compelling stories about how your school has helped to solve some of your student’s most pressing problems.
As you get to know your families better, you will want to also get demographic information such as age, gender, profession, location, and who possibly makes most of the purchase decisions for their household.
Your goal here is to discover who are your core parents and dig deep into what kind of experience they want online.
Develop Buyer Personas
Once you get feedback from your families, you’ll find no such thing as a one-size-fits-all model.
Each family and student has unique traits, needs, and preferences. Your digital marketing initiatives must reach each of these segments or buyer personas.
A buyer persona comprises your buyers’ demographic, psychological, and behavioral characteristics.
The goal is to set yourself up to maximize online tools to reach these different buyer personas. And if you want a handy guide to start building one, we have a free buyer persona guide here.
Make a Plan
By developing and making a comprehensive marketing plan, you will be ahead of the curve! When I say you need to create a plan, you don’t want to treat it like spaghetti and just throw things at the wall and see what sticks. Therefore, the only way you’ll be able to know what is successful is through consistent execution and tracking.
What Internet Marketing Strategy Is Best for My Private School?
Now that you have developed your goals and buyer personas, you can identify where your students, parents, and prospects spend their time online. It needs to be noted that your digital prospects and client base might be vastly different than you’re used to targeting. Therefore, your budget will be critical when deciding which internet marketing strategies to pursue.
When determining which online marketing strategy is best for your small business, don’t be afraid to try out a few various approaches. Look at the results to see which methods are the most effective and ensure you’re getting a great return on investment (ROI). Some techniques can be challenging to quantify, but be consistent with your measurement method.
You should review your internet marketing plan at least once a year (ideally quarterly) to ensure it is current and still fits your school’s needs.
Earned vs. Owned vs. Paid
Many digital marketing strategies can be broken down into three categories: earned, paid, and owned.
But they can also intersect. Titan Growth has a great graphic to demonstrate this idea:
(Source: TitanGrowth)
- Earned media will be distributed content such as mentions of your school online by blogs, social media posts, reviews, etc.
- Paid media is advertising, plain and simple; think PPC and Social Media advertising.
- Owned media is your website and places where you control the content.
Below, we’ll explain a few ways you can execute these three digital marketing strategies.
Owned Media
As I mentioned before, owned media is your website and places where you can control the content; these can include but aren’t limited to:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often a term thrown around by web designers, digital marketing agencies, or anyone with a basic understanding of the web. But what does it really mean?
Search Engine Land defines SEO as:
the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.
One note that needs to be addressed is that you still need to create content about your school, even if you are doing “SEO.” Therefore SEO and content marketing are like peanut butter and jelly; they just go together.
Understanding what visitors are searching for and incorporating those queries, keywords, or keyword phrases into your content is one way to improve your SEO content.
However, SEO does not stop with keywords. Getting your content to appear in search engines is both an art and a science. See Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO for a more in-depth explanation.
Content Marketing
Content marketing focuses on providing prospective students and their parents with general information and information about your goods or services. While your competition attempts to sell their school, those who can educate on the benefits of private school education are likelier to enroll more students. This works so well because our brains are wired to resist being sold to.
Where printed brochures and flyers were commonly used for content marketing in the past, today’s strategy is based on presenting valuable, relevant articles and information on your private school’s website that advise and attract potential parents and students while also serving as a call to action.
Email Marketing
Email marketing has been one of the best ways to reach prospective students, their parents, and current students. While it can be used to promote your products and services electronically, it is also an excellent way to keep your audience informed about updates and announcements.
Earned and Paid
The following items blur the line between earned and paid as they have components of both.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing (SMM) is easy to say but harder to do, especially now. While everyone talks about social media, the truth is that integrating social media effectively maybe even more challenging.
Specific industries and businesses lend themself to the social and instant updates that social media provides. For Independent schools, the bottom line is that you must remember that social media marketing is about building relationships with your families and students, not just promoting your school all the time. Use the platform to listen to and interact with them.
Paid
Pay-Per-Click Marketing
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is the practice of running online advertisements in which the business or school only pays if the ad is clicked on. There are various types of internet ads, including those featured at the top and bottom of the search results, advertisements that show up in mobile apps, promotions that run before videos, or display ads.
Some perks of PPC marketing include the fact that the business only pays for results and that ads can be targeted to specific geographic areas.
The Bottom Line
Many internet marketing strategies are outsourced to agencies. Most private schools don’t have the time or staff to dedicate to it. It is also challenging to stay on the multiple and seemingly daily changes that transpire associated with keeping up with the ever-changing and evolving internet and search engines. Email and content marketing are very much possible to DIY, but it never hurts to ask experts for advice to get you started.
If you are a private school principal, administrator, or board member, you should examine the aforementioned aspects of internet marketing. Create a strategy and integrate it with your existing marketing efforts. Depending on your school, some marketing areas will be more important and effective than others. However, if you don’t have the resources to handle your digital marketing needs in-house, consider hiring an agency to help. All it takes is to fill out a short form for a free no, cost consultation.
