The higher education sector in Egypt is in constant change, The number of universities 10 years ago is not comparable to the number of universities right now, and that’s why universities need to do university marketing plans to go the extra mile in their marketing efforts to meet their enrollment goals.
Besides the obvious reasons for increasing enrollment numbers, a university marketing plan is also essential in getting your message out to the public, increasing brand awareness, and building loyalty amongst students, parents, staff, faculty, and alumni. It also helps you in creating the right expectations so you can have a high student retention rate.
Whether your university is using offline higher education marketing strategies such as; open house, billboards, and TV advertisements, or using online marketing methods such as; social media marketing, SEO and content marketing, or even a mixture of both, you still need an efficient detailed university marketing plan so you can optimize your resources and get the best results.
SMART goals stand for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely goals. By having SMART goals your team will know what to focus their resources on, utilize their efforts on what’s important, and make it easier to measure your higher education marketing strategies level of success. An example of a SMART goal is: “Increase web traffic by 10% in the next three months.”
Your plan should include three types of goals; short-term goals which are set to be achieved in less than a year, intermediate goals that can take from 1 year up to 5 years, and long-term goals that take more than 5 years, other words, they are the main direction and major strategies of your university marketing plan Remember that your marketing goals have to be aligned with the higher education marketing strategy goals and business plan.
You have to know who you are targeting your message to before creating it; are you talking to students or parents? What are their demographics? Where are they located? Which channels do they use? What are the challenges they face? By answering these questions, you can start creating your buyer personas.
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional character of your ideal customer that gives you a clear picture of who you're marketing to and clarifies their needs and wants.
Here's an example of a buyer persona to help you understand how to create yours:
Using students as "social media ambassadors" is another new strategy that many universities are implementing to increase their social media reach.
Feature your lovely campus - Do you have a lovely campus? Display it on social media. Many students believe that the campus environment influences their decision-making process.
Alumni successes on your social channels are an excellent way to both support and keep in touch with alumni, as well as to attract new students.
You could try making interest-based Facebook groups. Consider creating and promoting hashtags for specific events and departments.
Use email marketing to make potential students feel as if you're guiding them through their college preparation. Make an automated email series based on where they are in the application process.
Marketing automation tools can assist you in optimizing email and reaching out to more prospective students. they enable you to customize messages and send emails when they are most likely to be read. Furthermore, these tools will prevent your emails from being routed to the spam folder.
A/B testing can also be used to determine which messages are more effective with your target audience. A/B testing allows you to narrow your focus while also sharpening your brand's voice and messaging to appeal to different student groups.
Engaging in webinars is an awesome way to attract students from every corner of the world even before they arrive on campus. With webinars, you can provide valuable information to prospective students while also giving them a taste of what it's like to learn at your institution.
User-generated posts are a similar strategy to focusing on social media, but they are implemented differently in the long run. Once you've determined which platform hosts the majority of your current and prospective students, look for content created by them. What are they saying about your school? This can influence how your school is perceived by outsiders.
Every school has a distinct identity. It is how outsiders perceive the university. Each has a unique approach to its brand, and you should strive to stand out from the crowd. Determine how you want to be perceived in order to define your brand's image. Your college should give a speech. This 'voice' transforms it into a person, which people can use to simplify their perceptions of your school.
Students are the heart and soul of your university. There would be no school without them. It is critical to remember their significance and to express gratitude to your population. A marketing strategy that is solely focused on them will target both current and prospective students.
Going to college is an adventure. Most prospective students would appreciate any assistance they could get in preparing for their university experience. Make the most of the chance to help them get ready for college through downloadable guides that they can read even when they are not connected to the internet.
Because young people have less patience and a shorter attention span, it's a good idea to present information in the form of easy-to-digest infographics.
Analyzing your market is a key factor in developing a strong marketing plan. By conducting market research, you will learn which channels other universities are using, how successful they are in meeting their goals, and their strengths and weaknesses.
But be careful not to get overwhelmed by the competitors’ data and lose focus of the main purpose which is using the data you collect to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses and the market’s opportunities and threats.
Your strategies should address your goals, reach your target audience, and create value for your university’s brand persona. You should start by taking every goal and planning the path of actions needed to achieve it. Create key performance indicators (KPIs) so you can measure each action’s performance over time. As for the channels you should use to deliver your message; choose them based on your buyer personas.
There’s a 50% increase in the average amount spent on marketing since 2001, so before asking why you should use marketing strategies for higher education, you need to ask how much are you willing to pay in marketing.
When creating your marketing budget, make sure you're only spending money on activities that are directly related to your current marketing strategies for higher education goals. Advertising and promotion are expensive so pick the options that will give you the best value and highest return on investment (ROI).
To ensure you are on the right track, you have to conduct an evaluation and calculate ROI every specific amount of time that best fits your team; could be every month or every quarter.
Choosing tracking tools can be tricky but you should try to find the best tools fitted to your strategies and stick to them. Working with a lot of tools can disrupt your data and make it harder to analyze them.
For example, if you are conducting an online campaign you can use ‘Google Analytics’ or ‘HubSpot’ to generate data about your website visitors such as the pages they viewed, time spent on the site, traffic source (email, search engine organic search, search engine paid ads, social media or other) and demographic information. You can also use ‘SurveyMonkey’ to create surveys and send them to students in your university to get their opinions on your marketing strategies for higher education efforts.
The “Tell us how you heard about us” question is always helpful in knowing what are the best channels whether online or offline potential students to learn about you. You can have it in your admission sheet to ensure that everyone answers it and you get the most accurate results.
That’s it! These are the steps you need to create a successful marketing plan for your university. Don’t forget that the best marketing strategies for higher education outline realistic marketing goals, strategies, and actions based on information and research about your students and your industry. However, the plan is only as good as your team’s commitment to implementing it so involve them in the process and empower them to give you the greatest results.
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