Schools are becoming more competitive because more and more schools are opening. Therefore, you need the best school advertisement ideas to get ahead of the competition. Although there are different education advertisement ideas you can use to attract students and build your brand, educational institutions need aggressive marketing strategies to be effective. This calls for the use of current technologies and tools to create engaging educational content to make the task easier. This is why school owners are investing in school advertisements. A typical educational institute spends about 11% of its annual revenue on their digital marketing activities.
In addition, a survey report published on Statista about advertising in the educational services industry in the U.S revealed that in 2019, 19.6 billion dollars was spent on advertising. This is an increase from the 16.2 billion dollars spent in 2018. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.4% to reach US$194 million in 2020.
How School Advertisements are different than other ads?
School advertisements are part of a promotion strategy for educational institutions as well as digitalization and adoption of nowadays trends of transforming and moving online like more and more educational institutions choose Studocu.com to share files and find prospective students seeking different types of educational degrees. The purpose of school advertisement is to create awareness for your school’s existence and to entice prospects to enroll. Investing in effective education advertisement ideas helps to maintain an excellent reputation for your school.
Below are 5 effective school advertising ideas for educational institutions such as Colleges, Online classes providers, and Universities.
5 Effective Education advertising ideas
1. Facebook Ads
Many schools are already using Facebook for promotion and to interact with students and parents. However, using Facebook ads can help you reach more young audience. This is because Facebook boasts of over 2.7 billion monthly users as of the second quarter of 2020. Out of these numbers, 1.95 million can be reached with ads. It will interest you to know that majority of your school audience is on Facebook. Check the data below.
Above is the profile of the Facebook advertising audience. It literally has all the audience suitable for educational advertisements such as Colleges and Universities.
With a Facebook ad, you can get more enrollment. It also cost less than traditional TV and print ads and it has high impressions too. It exposes your school to reach more audience that will be a good fit for your school.
The content for school advertisements on Facebook includes admission dates, open days, specific courses, school events such as fundraising activities, Christmas Fayre, etc. The list is endless. These ads for education can be targeted at people who are a perfect audience for your school.
There are different ways to advertise on Facebook, such as
Page like Ads: It helps to drive users to like your School Facebook page. This is great for driving awareness.
Carousel ads: It helps to display your images (about 10) in one ad. Helps in generating engagements.
Facebook Lead ads: It is a lead generation ads that help you get more prospective students
Facebook engagement ads: It helps to boost your Facebook page posts to increase engagements such as likes, comments, and shares.
Facebook image ads: This helps to drive users to websites or apps.
Below is an example of a Facebook school advertisement from the University of SW Australia.
Facebook ads for colleges strategies
1. Set the right goals for your advertising objectives
The first thing you need to do before using Facebook advertising for your school is to have a goal in place. The goal can be to create awareness for your school, reach more students, get more traffic to your school website, get more prospective students, etc. Selecting the right goal and objective will increase your chances of success on Facebook.
2. Choose the right audience
Facebook gives you different targeting options such as location targeting, interest and behavior targeting, demographic targeting, connection targeting, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences. Two of the best audiences that give the best results in Facebook advertising is the Custom audiences and Lookalike audiences.
Facebook Custom Audiences
The Facebook Custom Audiences is a tool you can use to create a list of audiences who have shown interest in your business. They are customers from your autoresponders or CRMs, website visitors, app and email subscribers, and offline customers. You can use this list to create a targeted audience for your Facebook ads.
This ensures that you get more qualified leads at a reduced cost, drive targeted traffic to your school website and offline location, and increase mobile app installs. To set up the Facebook Custom audiences for your ads, read the Step-By-Step Guide to Facebook Custom Audiences.
One significant thing about the Custom Audience set up is that Leadsbridge has a tool that will help to automatically build your custom audience. It is called the Custom Audiences Sync tool. With it, you can sync your CRM or autoresponder with the Facebook Custom audiences so you don’t have to create it manually. It also automatically updates your list.
Facebook Lookalike Audiences
The Facebook Lookalike Audiences is a tool that will help you reach new prospects with similar demographics, interests, and activities of your current students. Facebook Lookalike Audiences works by allowing you to import the list of students from your source audience such as CRM or autoresponder, mobile app users, Facebook page users, and website visitors. You can then create Lookalike Audiences from the source.
When you do this, Facebook helps to search through its database for users who have similar attributes to the people on your list. This helps you to create a targeted audience that will convert.
Use Leadsbridge’s Custom Audience Sync tool to automatically create the Lookalike audience. This makes it fast and devoid of errors. Learn how to create Facebook Lookalike Audiences by reading this post – How to use Facebook Lookalike Audiences.
3. Set the right budget
Facebook provides different budget plans for ads. You can use pay per click, or pay per impression. Choose the number of days you want your ad to run and the specified budget for it. Facebook can adjust your budget along the line depending on the interest your ad is generating. However, it will not go over the total amount you planned to spend.
A good example of a school that uses Facebook ads and Custom Audiences to get more leads and grow the school within a lean sales structure is the Next Academy.
They ran an ad for a year to connect their target audience and they achieve a 35% lower cost per lead and 3x return on ad spend.
2. Google Ads
Google ads are another school advertisement ideas you don’t want to miss. They are seen all over the internet on websites, Gmail, Google search, YouTube Videos, etc. Sure, you may have invested heavily in SEO strategies for your school website, Google ads are a great way to get more inquiries and prospective students.
Google ads make about $8 profit from every $1 spent on the platform. It will interest you to know that 56% of prospective students start their research on Google and the average prospective student engages with over 1000 digital touchpoints when researching programs in a 6-week period. They do this before they fill out a lead form.
There are different Google Ads such as
Search campaigns: With Google’s 3.5 billion searches per day, you get to reach people who are searching for schools or courses on the Google search. It is effective in driving traffic and leads to your school website.
Display campaigns: This helps you to reach people with engaging images as they browse the internet. It takes the search campaign to another level. It allows you to retarget audiences appropriately.
Video campaigns: With video campaigns, you can show ads on YouTube videos and other websites. This helps to boost general awareness of your school and get more prospective students.
App campaigns: This allows you to get more app users for your school app if you have one.
Local campaigns help you get prospective students from your physical location as the ad is targeted to appear on search, display, google maps, and YouTube.
Smart campaigns: This allows you to create ads with Google helping you to get the best targeting for your ads.
Below are Google ads strategies for school advertisements.
Google ads for education strategies
1. Use automated bidding to help save time and money
Automated bidding allows you to match your campaign bidding to the goals.
2. Use location-based bid modifiers to target your prospect locations.
For instance, if your school is located in California, you can use the location-based bid modifiers to set a higher bid for it in order to get more conversions from the location.
3. Target students by using demographic targeting:
Google allows you to target prospective students based on age, gender, status, and household income. The accuracy of your targeting determines your reach for quality leads from your ads.
4. Structure your account around your school programs rather than using general keywords.
Google ads also have Google Lead Ads forms that work like Facebook Lead Ads. You can read more about it in this post – Google Lead Form Ads – the complete, always-updated guide to Google lead generation.
Find an example of Google search ads for school advertisement below. Searching for Universities in New York brought a search ad shown below.
When you click on it, it leads to a landing page on the website, directing traffic directly to the website.
3. Video ads for Education
Video is an effective tool for ads for colleges and other educational establishments. Do you know that 85% of the US internet audience watches videos online and the 25-34 (millennial) age group watches the most online videos and men spend 40% more time watching videos on the internet than women Videos also drive a 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs. It will interest you to know that 86% of universities and colleges have a presence on YouTube. Most importantly, prospective students are 60% more likely to move down the funnel after watching online videos relevant to a program.
The statistics above make video advertisement the best for school advertisement ideas. With videos, you can expand your reach and attract prospective students to apply to your schools.
The content for school advertisement you can use for your school video is school performances and events, curriculum video tutorials, teacher vlogging, Charity events, Award ceremonies and prize giving, and school prom.
Video content can be displayed on your website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and video emails.
Below is an example of a video ad on YouTube from the Centralpenn College.
Below are video strategies that will help you create the best ad for education.
1. Effective video planning for school advertisement:
The first thing you need to do is to prepare your key messages, style, and the people to feature. Feature staff or students in your school education ads.
2. Plan your video filming
The location of your video shooting is very important. Use the best clean spot in your school. Ensure you use a good camera that will give you good shots in the video.
3. Edit your videos to be short and snappy
This is because 5% of video watchers can switch off after a minute and 60% by 2 minutes. The graphics used should captivate and reinforce the school brand and theme. You can add a music background to the video to enhance it.
4. Share your videos on your different platforms
This includes websites, emails, Social media platforms, and YouTube.
4. Use popular podcasts to display ads for Colleges
Do you know that there are over 1 million active podcasts with over 30 million episodes? A study also revealed that 51% of the US population have listened to a podcast with 32% listening every month. This data shows podcasts are becoming very popular, just like videos. It is also very popular among your people within the age range of 18 – 24, 25-34, and 35-44. The most interesting thing is that podcast consumers love ads on podcasts. Find the stats below.
Podcast ads for colleges is a great way to get into prospective students mind as they listen. For example, if you are looking for prospective students to enroll in your graduate business course, advertise on some popular business podcasts that cater to a similar audience, and create awareness for your school program.
Below are useful strategies you can use to get the best from your podcast school advertisement.
1. Advertise on Podcasts that cater to your audience
The first strategy you need to follow to get the best from podcast school advertisement is to look for podcasts that cater to your audience, It is not about the size of the audience, but the quality that will generate the best result for your school.
2. Choose the best ad type for the podcast
There are two types of podcasts ads – the baked-in ads and the dynamically inserted ad. The baked-in ad is read by the host during the show while the dynamically inserted ads are inserted at the end of the show through an ad server. You need to choose the best ad type that will generate better results for you. A research revealed that the baked-in ad is 3.5 times more effective than the dynamically inserted ads. So choose wisely!
3. Know your budget and track your ROI
Podcast school advertisement is not free, it costs money. Ensure you know the goals you want to achieve through the ads before you set out to look for the podcasts. Second, since it is not free, you need to calculate your budget. When you have a budget in place to invest in the podcast ad, measure your ROI. Consider integrating digital tools like QR codes in your podcast scripts or promotional materials to make tracking engagement easier. Using The QR Code Generator allows you to create customized codes that can link directly to enrollment pages, information requests, or virtual tour bookings, making it easier to track and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.
5. Advertisements on school websites to create awareness and interaction
Having an up-to-date website for your school is very important. A long time ago, parents make inquiries directly from schools. In this age of technology, anyone can search and be directed to school websites. This is why you need to create an information-rich website showcasing your school name, contact information, application instructions, and other relevant information. Below is the website of the University of Brown, U.S
The strategies below will help you get the best from your website.
1. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly.
This is because a large percentage of people now use the mobile phone to browse the internet.
2. Ensure your website is SEO friendly.
Search engine optimization is important for you in order to drive targeted traffic from search engines to your website. This is where you need a proper keyword strategy to create top-notch content useful for your audience and will also rank on search engines.
3. Share your website content:
The content on your website will not generate any result without promotion. Ensure you promote your website in emails, social media networks, and other relevant places to drive traffic back to the website.
Conclusion
School advertisement is very important to stand out from the competition, build awareness, get more leads, and prospective students. There are effective education advertisement ideas you can employ such as the use of Facebook ads, Google Ads, Video ads, Podcast ads, and Website advertisement. You don’t have to use all the ideas at once. Take them one after the other and test them out, then choose the best education advertisement idea that works for you.
