A One-Size-Fits-All Approach Doesn’t Fit Digital Marketing
Blog
|February 1, 2018When it comes to creating a digital campaign for enrollment marketing, it’s easy to assume that all tactics are created equal. In a previous blog post, we told you why digital media was a crucial element of your higher education marketing strategy, but now we have some bad news: Not all digital media is comparable.
Since we use digital media at all stages of the enrollment funnel and at all levels of education, it’s essential that each digital program takes a tailored approach. The digital tactics that may appeal to an incoming college freshman are very different than what may appeal to a mid-level executive looking to enroll in an MBA program.
According to Spark451’s 2017 College-Bound Student Survey of high school seniors, Instagram was the most influential social media platform in making a college decision, followed closely by Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube. According to a 2015 survey by WeRSM, 61% of LinkedIn users are between the ages of 30 and 64, so while Instagram may be the top influencer for a high school senior, a potential MBA candidate or graduate student is more likely to be influenced by compelling LinkedIn content.
When it comes to forming a digital media strategy, the most important thing to consider is your audience. Where do they hang out online? What social media platforms do they use? Are they on desktop or mobile? What keywords are they searching? These are all questions that Spark451’s digital media team members ask themselves on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to digital media. In fact, if something fit last year, it may not even fit this year. This was something the Spark451 team experienced this past fall, when we ran supplemental senior search campaigns driving students directly to apply. Despite this being something we had done in the past, our results were…depressing.
In an attempt to combat these underwhelming results, we looked at what we were expecting potential students to do. We were counting on high school seniors to click an ad and begin a college application. Talk about a huge ask.
We then shifted our approach, driving students to a simple landing page. If they filled out the form, they’d be redirected to the application. Additionally, if they completed the form, we could market to them in other ways, such as retargeting and e-communications.
Lo and behold, in comparing the number of conversions from a month before this change to a month after, our conversions increased over 1,000%.
The most successful digital marketing campaigns are those that are fluid and agile. When we’re mired down in our ideas of what should work or what has worked, we may be missing out on testing what will work.
That’s where Spark451 comes in. With our experienced account services and dedicated digital media teams, we can craft a digital media campaign tailored to your needs and get the results you want.
Why Use Digital Marketing in Enrollment Marketing?
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|July 12, 2016While all of these are still crucial to the implementation of a successful campaign, there’s a new kid in town that’s here to stay. Meet (or re-introduce yourself to) digital media.
Considering that the target market of most colleges and universities is the 16-25 age group, it’s safe to assume that nearly 100 percent of that population regularly uses the internet. Digital media allows colleges and universities to easily reach their intended audiences, from parents to prospective students, where they already are.
Due to its youth and ever-changing nature, digital media is often treated like a misunderstood child. Yet, rather than write it off as too difficult or impossible to control, it should be embraced and studied. As mentioned above, digital media allows an advertiser to reach prospective students wherever they already are. You can use digital media to grab a user’s attention on their favorite website, through a Google search, on their Facebook newsfeed, or even in their email inbox.
As we implement various digital media strategies across our clients’ campaigns, we are continually amazed by their performance. We are regularly experiencing results from digital media that surpass those of our email campaigns. For example, by using a multi-channel digital media campaign, one of our clients recently saw record attendance at an open house that exceeded their previous high by more than 25 percent. Curious as to what drives the performance of digital media?
The answer is simple: targeting.
Digital media allows you to target prospects based on a wide array of characteristics. The specifics depend on the publisher, but such factors typically include geographic location, age, level of education, major, and more.
Love it or hate it, we live in a world that is overflowing with data, and it’s important to utilize that available information in order to strengthen a campaign. Such data may be self-disclosed on a site like Facebook; it may be obtained from a user visiting a website; or it may simply be a name found on a mailing list. For example, Spark451’s “audience building” digital media campaigns have become a staple of a successful search campaign, using such list data to further reinforce a message to an existing list of suspects or prospects.
Taking it a step further, while a print piece may be piled on a desk somewhere and an email lost in the abyss of a user’s spam folder, digital media is the cape-wearing superhero, swooping in to save the day. A digital media ad can subtly, or not-so-subtly, remind a student of your school. A non-intrusive ad may show up in their Instagram newsfeed, while a website banner on weather.com may remind them of that otherwise forgotten print piece. Just as an email campaign should be used to complement a printed piece, digital media should serve as yet another piece of the marketing puzzle.
In this age of social media and the internet, it’s not enough to simply rest on the laurels of what’s worked best in the past. The most successful campaigns are those that use various marketing components to reach students across all devices, platforms, and mediums in a complementary union. If you were to look at enrollment marketing as a tool belt, you already have print and email tucked safely inside like a hammer and wrench. Now, it’s time to add digital media like a fancy new electric drill.
