3 Education Marketing Techniques To Upsurge College Enrollments

Choosing a college is a life-changing decision for any student. That’s why students leave no stone unturned in terms of researching about the shortlisted colleges. Today, Information of any college is available just a few clicks away. Thanks to affordable smartphones and easy internet accessibility

According to Google, 91% of students find out the information on colleges and courses through the internet. The sources of online information are Education portals, Website, Social Media pages, Media portals, Reviews, Blogs, Discussion Forums etc. Data is available in abundance for students to make the best career decision. 

Indian higher education system has expanded at a fast pace by adding nearly 20,000 colleges and more than 8 million students in a decade from 2000–01 to 2010–11. As of 2020, India has over 1000 universities including the central, state, deemed and private universities (Source- Wikipedia). Further, the share of private universities has been significantly increasing. 

As there are so many options for a student to choose from, it becomes challenging for colleges to stand out. How do colleges increase enrolments every year amidst the cut-throat competition?  

Don’t rely only on push marketing activities during admissions season rather formulate 360 marketing strategies for the entire year.

Consistent marketing activities should be executed along with proper tracking in the website analytics tool. The marketing approach and techniques must follow the PDCA cycle- Plan, Do, Check and Act. 

Let’s take a look at top 3 effective marketing techniques for the colleges for maximizing the college enrolments: 

Create and maintain your owned and earned online assets 

Students start researching online about the institutes during Non-admissions season. It is imperative for colleges to maintain their owned & earned assets while their target groups are researching.  

The owned online assets are websites & blogs which need to be updated regularly. The website builds credibility while the blog acts as the traffic generation tool. The students' experience matters a lot when they visit the blog or website college.  

Hence, both blog and website should be mobile and browser optimized with minimum loading time and must be beautifully designed with the proper navigation option. 

It’s very important to use the admissions-related keywords in blog articles which students search frequently on Google SERP. This really helps in generating quality traffic even before the admissions season begins. That’s the early mover advantage for colleges which act at the right time. 

Earned assets can be built through regular social media updates, increasing page followers and showcasing the institute as a thought leader on media portals. Number of Enrollments is directly proportional to the generated pool of prospective and engaged target audience.  

Therefore, maintaining owned and earned assets for the entire year is necessary.  

Track all your marketing efforts  

Web analytics tool like Google Analytics is vital for measuring the outcome of all the marketing efforts put across several channels. The ROI driven approach helps in maximizing the enrolments for the institute. But until and unless you don’t measure, you can’t improve! 

The student online journey needs to be tracked for the appropriate budget allocation of channels. Each marketing channel should engage students in their journey from awareness to consideration and eventually to the conversion stage. 

Creating the urgency to fill the application form is the best technique to maximize enrollments. Countdown campaign can be run just a week before the application deadline. Fear of missing out makes the prospects take an immediate decision. 

Nurturing of prospects and building a strong relationship  

The student nurturing activities are SMS, Emailers, Newsletters, Voice blast and Whats app session. Students should get regular updates on admissions and other information to make the final decision of college selection. Parents can also be targeted as they are also the key decision-makers.   

For a lead, free preparation guide for the entrance exam can be offered, while for a registered candidate, free certification from the college name can be provided. This marketing approach is called 'Lead Magnet' which is effective in building a strong relationship with the prospects. 

We can conclude that the above 3 marketing techniques not only maximize the paid applications count but also improve the ratio of paid to just registered applicants. Better the implementation of such techniques, higher the enrollments you can expect. 

Apurv Verma

Guest Author The author is VP Operations, SRV Media Pvt Ltd