Marketing your school and its programs through various digital media is an absolute necessity. How much of a necessity? Well, data has shown that digital advertising can increase your “brand” awareness by 80%.
Further, consumers are 155% more likely to search your “brand” after they’ve seen your marketing efforts…
And are 70% more likely to convert once they are retargeted with ads after visiting your website.[1]
But, as you’re probably well aware of, there are many pitfalls when it comes to digital marketing; and it’s rather easy to make big, costly mistakes if you don’t stay on top of your efforts.
Today, Conversion Media Group, a nationwide leader in higher education enrollment initiatives, will go over a few very common errors we see in digital marketing, and we’ll show you a proven way to help boost your schools enrollments.
But before we show you the proven way to increase enrollments, let’s start with some of the digital marketing mistakes you should avoid.
Here we go…
Don’t focus solely on paid ads. While you can place, manage, and measure your paid ads (in near real-time), you’ll want to have your content team create and distribute original, organic content that is not viewed as “advertising” by your target audience.
Instead of paid ads alone, you should create “longer-term” content that’s fun, interesting, and valuable. Of course, your organic content (especially SEO focused content) may not give you immediate, measurable results…
But ignoring this kind of messaging will hurt you in the long run.
Next up, email. Do not ignore your email lists, and always continue to grow and segment them.
Remember, before any prospective students enroll, they’re just that… prospects. You should be continually contacting your prospects and nurturing your relationships with them through email.
By emailing them good, actionable, and informative content, you’ll greatly up your chances at converting them into students. In fact, during the enrollment process, 53% of prospective students say they’ll contact a school via email.[2]
It’s why you should always include an above the fold “contact us” link, as well. With that many prospects saying they’ll contact you, give them the opportunity.
Social. Be careful how you use social media. Your social channels should never be a place where the only thing a prospective student sees is a pitch for your programs.
Instead, you’ll want to mix in creative, fun, engaging and informative content that offers value. The more valuable your free content is, the more valuable the prospective student will view you. Value converts.
Staying on the topic of social media, never forget to respond to social media comments. By checking on comments daily, you’ll quickly tell which are SPAM and bots, etc. Delete them.
But if real people have real comments and real questions, you’ll want to comment and answer back. See, by engaging with your social audience, you’re creating “brand” trust. Meaning prospective students will know you’ll be there when they need you. Trust converts.
Now, you may already be creating video content and posting on your socials, but you absolutely must avoid doing only that. You should also be creating video content for your website and each of your programs’ landing pages.
You see, having video on your landing pages has been shown to lead to an 80% increase in conversion rates.[3]
But that conversion rate increase may only work if your website, all your landing pages and all your videos are optimized for mobile users.
Well over 60% of web traffic now comes from mobile devices. If your site and video aren’t optimized for mobile, those visitors will leave, almost immediately.
Clearly, these are just a few of the marketing mistakes you should avoid. There are hundreds more. But these are some of the most common errors we see. Errors your team can quickly fix.
And by fixing them, you should see better prospect engagement, better enrollment results and a better ROI on your digital marketing efforts.
Now…
What about the “proven” way to boost enrollments?
That’s where we, Conversion Media Group, come in.
You see, we are not only digital marketing experts and one of America’s leaders in higher education enrollment initiatives…
But we own and operate US-based contact centers. What’s a US-based contact center, and how are they used for enrollment initiatives?
Well, you can read all about them HERE. But, in a nutshell, we have a large staff of expert enrollment agents that talk with hundreds of prospective students on the telephone, every week (sometimes thousands of them).
Our representatives fully understand the needs, goals and desires of the students they speak with, as well as the schools we represent.
The moment these prospects show real, genuine, and actionable interest in your school and its programs, we transfer the call directly into your enrollment department.
Meaning, your enrollment specialists will be talking directly to prospective students we’ve already nurtured, informed, and got excited about you…
Students who are ready to take the next step!
So, if you’re ready to take the next step to see exactly what Conversion Media Group can do for your enrollments simply call us today at 1-800-419-3201
Or you can contact us HERE and one of our experts, live transfer educational lead generation experts will get back with you asap.
Here’s to your enrollment success!
Conversion Media Group is a performance based digital agency with owned and operated US-based contact centers. No matter what business or vertical you’re in, we have the capability to drive highly qualified leads and live transfer leads directly to your sales or enrollment team.
[1] 180+ Powerful Digital Marketing Statistics for 2024 – WordStream
[2] 2021 High School E-Expectations (ruffalonl.com)
[3] Crucial Insights: 50+ Social Media Video Statistics | Sprinklr