Digital Marketing for Schools - Award-Winning Case Study

Marketing a school has become a modern-day necessity for educational institutions to thrive. It is a way of communicating with your desired audience and arguably the best way to build your brand. In this case study, we'll be sharing insight into the work award-winning digital marketing campaigns we have achieved for Arbor school.

Why schools need digital marketing

Our experience working with the education sector has highlighted the importance of digital marketing for schools, especially when it comes to student acquisition and enrolment. 

By implementing digital strategies for numerous schools, we understand the needs of schools, the needs of parents, and the ways that marketing can bridge that gap. With an approach that incorporates science with storytelling, our team of marketers works to ensure your school's goals are realized.

A plethora of options for parents

The reality is, parents have many choices when it comes to schooling for their children. They also have a world of research potential using online searches. Deciding upon your child's academic career is one of the most significant decisions a parent can make. Hence this is a decision that is not taken lightly. With the increasing emergence of schools and the demands from families, it is within a school's best interest to market itself.

Marketing a school is a way of communicating with your audience. Not only can you reach them to form meaningful relationships with them, but you can also showcase what your school has to offer. Sharing what makes your school unique and the best choice is what will set your school apart, so schools are required to share this information, both the intangible and tangible aspects of it. That is to say, your school's spirit and culture can be just as crucial as its facilities and teaching resources.

When researching schools, parents will want to trust in the credibility of a school. Having an online presence helps build that. This means your website needs to be in order. In terms of the parents' journey, they will either come across your website via search engines or be directed there from other channels. Once there, you need to present them with a convincing digital front for this relationship to progress. This constitutes all that digital marketing can help you achieve.

Dubai, in particular, is currently experiencing a surge in new schools, with fewer students available to enroll at each of these options. With a global recession coming into effect, parents are also facing challenges when it comes to budgeting. It is also a city that is incredibly connected, with internet and social media usage rates well above the global average. This is what makes educational marketing essential for schools, as their place within a city like Dubai could depend upon.

With many schools wanting to achieve marketing success without having to hire a marketing team, they are outsourcing this function to digital marketing agencies.

Award-winning marketing for schools

Nexa has produced award-winning marketing campaigns with schools and universities including The American University of Sharjah, Ajman University, Study Group International, SAE Institute, International Schools Partnership (ISP), Al Najah Education and STEM for Kids as well as countless independent schools. We also implement HubSpot for Schools, with more than 18 successful implementations from CRM through to marketing automation services. Here's a look at a video we've created for Horizon English School. 

Arbor school case study

Arbor launched as a new school based in Dubai teaching the British curriculum, just over two years ago. It is a dynamic school that seeks to prepare its students for the world of tomorrow, while "nurturing a core belief in environmental mindfulness, responsibility and the importance of sustainability." When working with Arbor, we devised a marketing plan for this ecological and experiential school.

• What Arbor needed: Students to enroll as soon as the school opened.
• In marketing terms: With Arbor being a new school, we needed to establish its brand awareness in the marketplace, build credibility in the brand and generate high-quality leads for enrollments.

Our marketing strategy for Arbor was based upon reaching the desired audience of parents looking for a school for their children, who had a matching income and location in proximity to the school. Nexa's award-winning campaign comprised of these four elements:

• Awareness: Generating awareness through social media, geo-location targeting, SEO, and marketing campaigns.
• Event support: Creating and hosting events to create awareness for the school.
• Always-on campaigns: Campaigns, including open days and 'meet the team' seminars.
• International campaigns: The sharing of internationally relevant campaigns, driven by lead generation registration forms, webinars, social media marketing, and search engine marketing.

The results we achieved

• 1,673 leads for Arbor school in 10 months, which is a low investment partnership high payoff.
• A cost of 0.87 dirhams per click.
• Through Nexa's partnership with HubSpot, we were able to set up automation to develop a continuous flow of communication between leads who were qualified. This process included creating alerts for each parent who visited the fees page.
• Sales prospects for Arbor school at various stages of the sales funnel through direct traffic, paid search, offline sources, organic search, and paid SEO.
• Over 59,000 visitors in the awareness stage, 1673 interested prospects, 412 decision stage opportunities, and activities in the form of 261 enrolments, with 38 set for the following year.

Nexa's Recommendations for Schools

Each school will have its own needs and goals that need to be reached. While the above worked well for Arbor, various other digital marketing strategies can be applied accordingly. When working with an agency, they may implement any one of these digital marketing techniques for your school's marketing:

• Social media marketing: Social media platforms build brand perceptions and online communities, both of which are important for a school to have. It is also an effective way to advertise and communicate with your audiences. The content shared here should display your school's unique qualities and uphold its reputation.
• Content marketing: Creating content that parents will find valuable is the key to this long-term marketing method. It will help your school by satisfying your audience, as well as the search engines. Content that is created should be high-quality and diverse to appeal to different needs, be engaging and informative, and to develop your school's standing online.
• Search engine marketing: Search engine marketing is crucial because these ads can offer faster ways of reaching the top of search results for your audiences. This works well in conjunction with other marketing tools and will increase the traffic to your website when targeted accurately.
• Lead generation: Digital marketing is all about creating valuable exchanges of information. By using content marketing, for instance, you can generate leads. The process of attaining and nurturing these relationships is important as it guides your audience through the journey from interested family to enrolled student.
• Email marketing: Emailing is a more formal and direct means of communication with an audience, which makes it perfect for the families of prospective students. Using a CRM system can help you to regulate and manage these emails. This form of communication has high click-through rates when done currently, and is one of the most important marketing tools for schools.
• Digital PR: Expanding upon the reputation and image of your school's brand is essential. To do this, you'll need to work with affiliates, influencers, and media. You can share advertorials in magazines, for instance, or ask parental influencers to share posts on your school to increase your reach and perception.

To wrap things up

Education marketing is a necessity and for many schools, the way to produce the best results is to partner with a digital marketing agency. With the goal being on growing your school and maintaining its position as the best option for children's futures, an agency can help you produce high-yielding results. From awareness campaigns and events, the results speak for themselves.

Work with an agency that has experience with education marketing - Book a meeting with us to level up your school's marketing.