Tips from the Frontline; Education Sector Marketing
Tips for running a successful student recruitment campaign for the education sector.
From tight budgets to ever-changing student audiences and the growing complexity of available digital channels, education sector marketing has never been so challenging for some of our clients. Fluro has deep experience of creating campaigns with real kick in the Further and Higher Education sectors. Here are six of the best tips and tricks we’ve learnt from the frontline.
Stay on it 365
It sounds obvious, but you need a strategy. You’d be surprised how many education establishments approach recruitment every year in an unstructured way. Candidate recruitment isn’t a one-off activity that happens around an open day. You need to take candidates on a journey with your establishment. That means your marketing strategy should include activities that hit at key points in the recruitment cycle, from the start of the new September term. It pays to plan at least a term in advance.
Tell a great story
One critical way to make all your marketing work harder is to make it join up under one creative theme. Have a big idea and keep the theme running across all the channels you use to approach your audience. Better recall and a better budget return will be yours. Which leads nicely into tip 3…
Be super social
Obviously, young people live on their phones. Your recruitment campaigns should too. You Tube, Twitter, Facebook are good standards. Consider the potential of Instagram too, where the demographic you need is most likely to live. Employ hash-tags to link social feeds.
A great prospectus still matters
In the digital world, a great printed prospectus is still a vital communication tool — though obviously you need great online version of it too. Make sure it’s themed in with your overarching campaign.
The power of peers
Students believe students so why not use your current recruits to pull in the next generation. Testimonial videos, quotes all work to bring your marketing activity alive in the real world.
Get optimised
We’ve saved perhaps the most important one for last. How are prospective students going to know about your great courses and glowing peer reviews? By Googling you of course. Working with an experienced SEO partner to make sure that you have a first-class ranking is worth its weight in gold.
Take a look at the successful recruitment campaign that Fluro has recently run for the Buckinghamshire College Group.
