When I joined Znbound, I was given a project on Higher Education industry wherein I had to do intensive research on the opportunities, challenges, growth and scope of that sector. I did my research, wrote blogs, created an ebook - How to Attract Quality Students and interviewed many industry experts to gain an insight of what actually happens in the industry.

After completing my project I was lucky enough to get an opportunity of handling a Higher Education client, where I could actually use my research and plan various campaigns to attract quality students.Today, having experienced it all, I would like to share some tips on creating a successful marketing campaign for higher education.

5 tips on creating a marketing campaign for higher education:-

‍1. Make sure you know your buyer persona

‍A Buyer persona is the customer base you want to serve to or attract. In my case it was an analytics course for which I had to get enrollments, after a lot of research, speaking to ex students and professors, I found that people who are either bored of their job/role and are looking for a new opportunity, they end up enrolling themselves for that course (after all it's one of the most booming sector presently). I also noticed that some people do it just for time pass but do end up in drawing a higher salary. Since it was an executive course of business analytics, I also noticed that my persona was majorly from IT industry, having work experience from 2 -10 years and are looking for a course which they can do without quitting their job. So when you know your buyer persona thoroughly, no one can stop you from creating the right marketing campaign.

2. Marketing campaign > Current tent-pole > Success

So we created three sets of Ads in our campaign,

‍#1. A single ad with course features,

‍#2. Carousel Ad with again the features and

‍#3. A Baahubali Ad intriguing the readers on how Baahubali cracked Rs.1000 Cr.Well, the result was obvious, 85% of our leads came through the third ad. This is a proof that if you're creating the campaign related to what's going on around you currently, you would get better results, because people easily relate to it.

3. Targeting on point

Who would want junk leads in their data? No one right? Make sure your targeting is accurate and on-point so that even if you get 10 leads, at least 6 of them are good. Accurate targeting can only be done when you know your buyer persona in and out. So Tip 1 holds a lot of importance.

4. Write educational blogs

What do people look for while searching for a course for their higher education? Information! And a lot if it! Who wouldn't want to read a blog where they're getting educated about a course they're thinking of pursuing. If it's an analytics course, write 100 blogs on related topics and believe me, you'll get leads like never before. But make sure your blogs are unique, that you're giving the readers something new which they won't get in the other 1000 blogs available online. Uniqueness is what will make your blog stand out. And you can do that only when you have deep insights of the industry and the topic. In my case, I spoke to various professors, counselors, ex students and existing students to get a sense of what kind of people are my aim.

5. Measure and Analyze

Analysis is the key to successful higher education marketing strategies. Analyzing your results at each step will help you avoid wrong decisions. How does it work? Well, just think about it, if you're analyzing your results at each step, you'd know what's working out and what's not. The moment you realize something is not working, you can immediately change and save on your unnecessary spends from your marketing budget. I have noticed that people create such good campaigns but hardly take out time for properly analyzing them which in turn results in poor campaign performance. Take my words, rigorous analysis is what will get you good results and make your campaigns successful.I hope the tips were helpful.

Do you have more to share? Or some feedback?Use the comment box below :)