The Digital Shift: How Online Platforms Are Revolutionizing School Marketing

For a nation (India) that is estimated to have a population of 1,441,267,622 as of June 19, 2024, according to a report by Worldometer, 60% of that population have access to the internet, which is around 864.76 million people. The digital revolution in India has found its way to school marketing. And, why would it not be?

It can be assumed that 45% of the people who have access to the internet in India are from the age group 25-54. And this broad age group is the age group of parents. So, what convenient and cost-effective way would be for your school marketing to reach out to those parents?!

Every parent will always want the best for his or her child and to earn the trust of those parents, your school needs to showcase all its facilities and qualities to the parents because they are the customers even though their children will be the consumers. Therefore, these online platforms are the most accurate way to track how many parents your school can reach and how many parents like that approach. If that approach is not favoured by many then it can be tracked and altered too, unlike traditional marketing efforts. This is the beauty of school marketing through online platforms.

Why Digital Marketing? Advantages of Online School Marketing

With the inception of the internet in our lives, all our lives got connected through a world wide web. The barriers of language and distance are no longer an issue, everyone can connect with everyone in just a few clicks or more. Owing to that, here is the list of benefits a school can leverage from digital marketing:

• World Wide Reach: With the help of the internet, schools can bypass geographical boundaries and reach out to a vast audience, including potential areas and target groups who might not have been aware of your school before.
• Customized Communication: Schools can leverage the advantages of digital platforms to benefit from advanced targeting options, allowing them to tailor custom messages according to specific demographics and interests.
• More Engagement: Engaging with potential customers has been simplified with online platforms. Ranging from interactive content to social media interaction to online events, all these forms of communication tend to bring in more engagement.
• Trackable Results: Measuring website traffic, social media analytics, and generation of leads can be assessed thoroughly with tools to measure the effectiveness of the online campaigns and make informed data-driven decisions.
• Cost-Cutting: Online marketing strategies have an efficient return than traditional marketing and are way more cost-effective compared to them.

What are the top online platforms for school marketing?

The top platforms that can benefit a school for their online marketing purposes are:

• School Website: Your school website is your digital identity. To make a lasting impression the website must ensure that it is user-friendly, visually stunning, and must have complete information about the school's curriculum, faculty, and facilities.
• Social Media Platforms: Schools can take advantage of social media platforms like Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter to share their news and updates. They can also showcase the achievements of their students and the activities they partake in daily. This can help the parents to develop trust in the school’s brand as they would be aware of all the benefits the school provides.
• Content Marketing: Create valuable content that will not only resonate with the parents but will also address their pain points and provide solutions through blog posts, infographics, and videos. It can also be used to promote the school’s values and ideologies.
• Email Marketing: Schools can also reach directly to the electronic mailboxes of their targeted groups through email communications. It can be newsletters, event invitations, and even alumni stories.
• Online Reputation Management and Directories: These directories and online reputation management platforms have the potential to make conversions happen. The ratings and reviews of the existing client base serve as social proof and help in acquiring new clients.

Digital Marketing Strategy For Schools

Going beyond social media posting and online directories to acquire clients organically, an effective digital marketing strategy can turn things around for schools. All they need to consider is the following:

• Setting Goals: The first thing of any digital marketing strategy is to determine what is the purpose or objective that needs to be achieved. Once that goal is set, the rest of the strategy can be built on that.
• Identifying The Target Audience: It is said that this step is the most crucial of all. Identifying the right target audience is almost half the job. Depending on the goal, the target audience must be defined and if it can be done, rightly, potential leads are bound to come.
• Preparing a Content Calendar: A robust content calendar must be prepared so that it will align with the goal of the Digital Marketing strategy and engage the target audience to spend more time with the school’s social media handles through engagement.
• Metrics and Analysis: Constantly monitoring the key metrics to check progress and optimize the digital marketing strategy for optimal results.

Leveraging The Technology - The Future of School Marketing:

Beyond the realms of Digital Marketing, the technology can be leveraged for the benefit of schools. What might have been a limitation in the real world might not be a limitation in the digital world. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Online Virtual Tours: Digital technology can be leveraged to provide virtual tours of your school online for anyone interested. These immersive virtual tours can showcase all the facilities the school provides in an engaging way for the parents to experience the school’s learning environment.
• Customized Marketing Automation: Marketing automation can be put to good use to automate marketing communications specifically for parents based on their interests and needs.

Challenges in Digital Marketing for Schools: 

Digital Marketing may sound all fancy and engaging but there are some challenges to it as well. As schools, here is the list of issues that can be faced while trying to do online marketing.:

Scarcity of Resources: Schools often invest their resources in their curriculums and staff so allocating a budget for robust digital marketing often proves tiresome for them.

Data Privacy Issues: Schools must also consider all the legality that is related to data privacy regulations for the students known as FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) while collecting and using students’ results for marketing promotions.

Standing out from the rest: To keep the brand identity of the school unique from the crowd, the school needs to do something unique or innovative. This turns out to be a challenge for schools. It is bound to be because when the whole purpose of a school is to follow a set of guidelines and they evaluate it based on who followed the guidelines better than the others. So, finding a unique differentiator for the school is a herculean task.

Calculating ROI: Whether the digital marketing strategy is bringing in results or not can only be determined by its metrics and it is a complex process. A dedicated resource is required to evaluate this. 

Going with the Latest Trends: It is difficult to predict what digital trend will rule the charts. Following up with the latest trends in digital marketing, when the landscape is constantly evolving. Keeping track of that and leveraging that requires continuous understanding and adaptation.

Now that we have talked about the challenges in digital marketing a school might come across, let’s dive deeper into the possible solutions that might make digital marketing easy for schools. 

Here are some tips:

• Aim for Organic Growth: Focus on search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to increase the website's visibility on the search engine results page and also drive traffic to the school’s website without being dependent on paid advertising.
• Taking the help of the Existing Staff: Take advantage of the expertise and skills of the existing staff members who have been doing this for the school and use their experience in creating a similar pattern to drive more acquisitions.
• Use Free Online Marketing Tools: With the advent of AI, digital marketing strategies have been easy to formulate and develop. Take advantage of these AI tools and models to fill in the gap.
• Presentation: What separates your school from others is how you present the differentiators to your target audience. That’s what separates your school from others.

How to build a strong brand for school online? 

To build a brand anywhere, in any domain it has to figure out what makes a brand or what is a brand. Well, to make it easier to understand a brand’s existence in the physical world is determined by its existence in the psychological world of the people. It sounds confusing but it is what it is because there are no parameters or criteria to be met to be a brand. And, if there were such parameters then also it cannot be certified that this company or product is a brand. A brand is nothing but the impression people have about it.

So, to establish your school as a brand you have to make sure that the impression your school is leaving in the minds of the people is an everlasting one. To achieve that digitally, here are some key aspects to keep in mind to build a strong school brand online:

• Share Your School’s Story: What is the story behind your school and what difference does it want to make or what impact it wants to have? This is the base pillar of your school that will determine how strong the school’s brand is going to be. The core values of your school is what your school believes in and these core values should be reflected always by the school. That’s how the brand identity will be created.
• Determining the Brand’s Voice: This is a bit complicated yet so simple. A brand’s voice is how the brand communicates with everyone be it online or offline. The tonality and approach of the communication is used by the target audience if the school is forward-thinking and innovative or not. The brand’s voice must speak the tone of its target audience.
• Visual Representation: This is another crucial aspect of brand identity. Your school’s logo and brand style guide make your school brand’s identity stuck in the mind of the school’s target audience. 
• Highlight Your Achievements: Showcase all the achievements of your school and its students. Also, showcase everything that creates a unique brand identity for your school.
• Engage with the audience: All brands must take time to engage with their audience regularly. Be it on social media or any other networking platform. Engaging with the students or in relevant discussions and sharing meaningful insights can improve brand visibility.
• Choose Storytelling: Everything in this world has a story and it is their story that makes us connect with them. So, the storytelling approach is crucial in connecting with people. It can be testimonials of the parents, success stories of students, and sharing ideals of teachers to promote the human aspect of your school.
• Honesty is Key: Your school must be honest and kind in all its dealings. In the end, people remember the brand by the impact they have on them or made them feel. Being transparent commands respect from your audience.
• Become a thought leader: Share all the wisdom your school possesses and expertise in establishing your school as a thought leader in the education sector through valuable content like blog posts, webinars, or online courses.

Now that you know what should be done and why should it be done, let’s focus on how it could be done. Firstly, you need to bring in experts to the team who know the digital game and despite its benefits, it is an infrastructure-heavy and over-the-budget process because at least 4 experts would be needed to be brought along.

However, if you are looking for a high-quality but cost-effective solution and haven’t found it yet then your journey down the rabbit hole (reading this blog) hasn’t been in vain. Here’s why?!

Let us introduce you to the future of school marketing! 

Buzzapp - Your buzzness partner!

Buzzapp is a platform where a parent meets with any school from the comfort of their home or from anywhere else.  All they need is to download and sign in to Buzzapp and they can not only access information of any school but also connect with those school/s with just a few clicks. And, if you are a school, you can use Buzzapp to manage all the leads and queries seamlessly through WhatsApp blasts. Schools can also share their stories of success and achievements through Buzzapp so that everyone reading those stories would understand what are the core values or ideologies of the school.

From a school’s perspective, Buzzapp not only lays the groundwork for your school’s digital marketing strategy but also assists you in every step of the process. When it comes to marketing, the entire thing is condensed into a funnel. Each part of the funnel represents a category of your target audience with your brand, at the moment. Starting with spreading awareness among your potential audience to help them consider making a payment (purchase) with your school, Buzzapp will create a roadmap ensuring a successful transition of your potential customers into a brand advocate.

Buzzapp is the conjuncture where education meets technology. This state-of-the-art, multi-platform marketing application for schools is developed through advanced machine learning algorithms. These algorithms help schools generate twice as many leads as they would normally get from other marketing methods. Twice as many leads mean more number of admissions as well. It also allows for effective referral marketing programs for the schools.

In other words, it can be stated that Buzzapp is the admission solution every school has been searching for. But, it doesn’t end there. Buzzapp also provides a backend platform for schools to connect and communicate with the generated leads and is powered by a referral system for all its benefactors.

And, if you want to establish and maintain your school’s brand presence in the digital realm then you can be at rest because Buzzapp will also shoulder that responsibility. From, creating and managing all the social media platforms to building the school’s website with just a click. Buzzapp will transform your school into a technology-backed digital brand.

So, if you would like to consider a free demo of Buzzapp to see if it meets your school's needs we are just a call away.