Without engaging school website content and a strong social media presence, it may be tough to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and ultimately convert more prospects.
Websites are no longer the only way to share your brand’s message. One major way to promote your school is through social media. With social media, it’s easy to stay in contact with prospective families and your community. In fact, it’s the best way. 53.6% of the world’s population uses social media and the average daily usage is 2 hours and 25 minutes—so if you want to reach as many people as possible, it’s a must-have marketing tool!
However, social media can be time-consuming. It also spans so many diverse tasks, ranging from data-based activities like tracking analytics, to creative jobs such as designing graphics.
In this article, I’ll be looking at how you can increase engagement on your school content. There are a number of school marketing tools that you can use to do this, and I’m going to take a bit of time to explain what each one does and give an example of what they can be used for.
What school communications teams have to do (hint: it’s a lot)
Communications/PR/Marketing teams at schools function differently than the ones of a regular business that’s selling products or services.
Your organisation is selling education and, on any given day, you might need to use marketing to:
- Increase student enrolment by engaging with high school and prospective students on social media. One way to do this is to organise a chat with other staff about your school’s enrolment process.
- Keep alumni active in the school community by moderating designated social media profiles for the alumni network. You can make it easy for your old graduates to stay involved with the institution through small tasks like this.
- Share news and promote events to keep your audience up-to-date on what is happening at school. It’s easy to stay connected with information like this!
- Develop and manage your school’s reputation by looking out for criticisms or negative messages and reacting appropriately.
- Foster community between students by starting conversations through social networking, and connecting people – that also includes parents and educators.
Want to know the marketing strategies you can use to increase your enrolments?Check out our five strategies that will help you make the most of your digital marketing and your time, bringing your organisation together with the right students
What are the characteristics of a good marketing tool?
Marketing tools are the backbone of any successful campaign. In this article I will help you find the right marketing tools for your school by pointing out key features you should keep in mind when looking around. Although the term “marketing tool” is very general and can apply to a wide range of services, there are a few key features that your tools should have:
It saves you time.
School marketing tools should really save you time and allow you to focus on other important aspects of your school. Plus, they should produce better results than you could without it! When it comes to marketing automation tools, look for the kind that automate certain tasks, such as scheduling posts or sending follow-up emails. Then make sure that when they take these shortcuts, the tasks still get done right and don’t skimp on quality.
It helps you increase brand awareness.
One of the biggest benefits of school marketing tools is the ability to increase your brand awareness, which is why each marketing tool you select should make sure to provide you with insights on how it can help with your brand promotion.
Maybe your tool of choice is an editing platform that can help you create images to match the rest of your social media feed. Or, maybe it’s an Instagram scheduler like Later so you can preview your profile before you posting images. Whatever the case may be, marketing tools should focus largely on brand awareness.
It’s easy to use.
School marketing tools are only a time-saver if they’re easy to use. You should have intuitive, easy-to-use marketing tools that allow everyone in your school – including your teaching staff and accountants – to work on the different aspects of marketing at any given time without extra training.
Many marketing tools provide tutorials on their websites. Others, such as Google Analytics, have top-notch customer service so you can get immediate expert advice if you need help getting off the ground.
It’s affordable.
School marketing tools should be affordable and many of the best ones are, even free! For example, Insta-stories creators like Unfold are free and allow for customisation in your posts with things like stickers. So there’s really no reason not to use them!
When you use marketing tools, there’s no need to go back and forth with the accounting department to get your budget approved. Most marketing tools are already budget-friendly so all you need to do is sign up.
It keeps you organised.
One of the best things about school marketing tools is that they’ll save you time. It’s important to choose ones that are efficient, tidy and provide high-quality content. This way you’ll be making the most of them.
When you’re running a school marketing campaign, staying organised is critical for success. One of the ways marketing tools can save you time is by keeping you organised. Marketing tools can help you by making it easy to schedule posts and plan campaigns ahead of time. If you’re on a tight schedule or working with a small budget, this is a must.
For example, graphic design website Canva saves your designs so you can go back and edit them later.
5 School Marketing Tools To Increase Engagement
The best way to increase engagement on your school content is to use marketing tools. The following list has 5 of the top free marketing tools that you can use to strategically drive traffic and increase engagement.
1. Canva
Price: Free, or starts at $9.95/month
Visual content will help establish your online school identity. Ever wanted to create custom, on-brand graphics for your school’s social media? You can do it, and easily too. Just head over to Canva and start designing! The website has dozens of templates for graphics from Facebook Banners to Instagram Stories to Twitter Posts. This gives you a good starting point if you want to make graphics but don’t know where to start.
Beyond Web can even help you ramp up your next social media campaign by creating beautifully designed pre-made Canva templates specifically designed for Facebook & Instagram. Having a varied selection of branded templates on hand for your social media strategy helps you achieve brand consistency and will speed up your content creation process!
2. Unfold
Price: Free
Described as “a toolkit for storytellers”, Unfold is an iOS and Android app that helps you create beautiful templates for Instagram stories. Bringing your creative visions to life is the driving idea behind Unfold.
Unfold is a photo editor and video maker for stories that offers a collection of 400+ award-winning Instagram story templates. Create beautiful collages for IG Stories, schedule posts with an easy-to-use feed planner and use designs, filters, fonts and tools to take your school content to the next level.
Creating stylish collages have become an essential part of any school social media strategy to engage with followers and give off a professional vibe. Unfold is the ideal app for these types of tasks!
3. Later
Price: Free, or starts at $7.50/month
Later is the all-in-one social marketing platform for the top social networks. Plan, analyse, and publish your content in a few clicks, so you can save time and grow your school brand!
Scheduling your social media content is as simple as dragging-and-dropping. No, seriously. Later will tell you your unique Best Time to Post, so you can schedule in batches and publish without a hitch.
No time to create content? No problem. Later helps you find on-brand content, add your own personal touch, and share to your Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest social channels in just a few clicks.
You can also track your analytics, which will help you figure out the best time of day to post, and the best hashtags to use. The Linkin.bio turns your Instagram profile into a mini website, complete with analytics. You’ll know exactly which posts are driving traffic, and where your followers are converting.
4: Google Analytics
Price: Free
If you want to back up your school website decisions with sound data, you can make use of Google Analytics. What was once just for business purposes has some great benefits for your school website. It can really help you to get statistical data on the website, while also managing its content without any hassle. Schools can benefit from more visitors, better design, and a better understanding of who they’re marketing to. All this means increased time on the website and increased engagement for the school.
There’s an old saying put forth by many philosophers — know thyself. This ancient wisdom applies to your website too. You should know how your website works and what content it has in order to make improvements. Better understanding of your school website will provide a better user experience.
Understanding what is popular and not on your school website, where visitors are coming from and what they are looking for means you will be able to design more effective pages which will directly affect your engagement.
If you’re like a lot of business owners or marketers and find Google Analytics overwhelming, Pocket Insights is great tool to help you understand your metrics. You can get get weekly or monthly email report sent directly to your inbox so you don’t have to log in to your Google Analytics account! Sit back & they will deliver all the key website metrics straight to your inbox, It’s that simple.
5: HubSpot Blog Topic Generator
Price: Free
Blog Ideas Generator by Hubspot is a simple way to generate a topic. In those moments when you’re stuck, this generator will give you some ideas to help you find your next blog post.
With this free tool, you are provided with up to 5 new ideas for any 3 keywords or phrases. To offer these ideas, simply enter your 3 keywords in the provided box section and you will be rewarded with invaluable tips & suggestions for your school website content.
If you want to change the results, go back, and insert the set of keywords again. Be specific if you are looking for some exact content. This isn’t an ideal tool if you are looking for a dozen of new topics, but for starters, this is the best to be found.
Wrapping Up
Choosing the perfect marketing tool for your school can be hard. There are many different tools out there with diverse features and pricing. Ultimately, it’s your job to figure out which option will work best for you and your school, considering things like budget, campaign type, and specific needs.
School marketers are always faced with lots of challenges—especially how to increase student enrolments. If these 5 marketing tools are properly utilised, they will differentiate you from the competition, helping you to build stronger relationships with current and prospective students. If your marketing strategies need a refresh, the digital marketing professionals at Beyond Web can help you.
We specialise in building the best school websites for top schools across Australia and Europe, delivering industry-leading websites tailored to your school’s needs. Contact us today to schedule a free 45 minute website consultation.
