Facebook has been transformed as a platform. It used to be a platform where friends connect with others and share photographs and highlights of their lives. A lot of this has changed since brands joined and have been able to add Facebook ads as part of their digital marketing strategy.
Schools can leverage Facebook to drive admissions. A good ad makes the user stop scrolling. Every click, like, comment, and share counts. It makes users want to discover more about your brand and find out what makes you different from your competitors. However, your ad needs to have specific qualities to spark the interest of parents and students.
In this guide we explore what makes a good social media ad for schools.
A well-defined goal for your social media ad
First things first, before starting bidding you need to ask what you want to achieve and what action you want parents or students to take after seeing your ad.
Is it getting more page likes, or engagement on a particular post, or you want to lead parents to your website, or build awareness of your open days?
Your ad goals will define your copy, visuals, target audience, budget, and call-to-action.
Meta Ads Manager gives you options for your ad’s objectives based on the outcome you want to achieve.
Meta announced that starting from January 2024 the 11 categories of ad objectives are now consolidated into 6. As a result, you will not be able to duplicate or import campaigns where you used the original objectives. The six new objectives are awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, app promotion, and sales.
Ad targeting
Use smaller audiences. Ads appear on Facebook’s user’s timelines based on their website visits, and engagement with posts – which show their specific preferences. So using ads can help you reach an audience who may never have seen your posts organically.
By well defining your audience you increase your chances of helping your School to be noticed by parents that are more likely to respond to your ads. For example, someone who has never spotted your School online is unlikely to convert into an admission.
You may want to retarget the audience who engaged with your website and reconnect with them or you may want to target lookalike audiences who are similar to your customer’s profile.
Once you define ‘who’ to target, you’re ready to define ‘where’. Define your target audience based on where on their customer journey are at this moment.
Your ad copy needs to be tailored based on these two questions ‘who’ and ‘where’. By answering the ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions in your ad strategy, you’ll be able to create targeted and compelling ad copies that resonate with your audience, increasing the chances of conversions for your School.
Relevant ad image or video
The image or video will make your target audience read your text. Don’t leave your audience second-guessing what your ad is about. Using the right combination of content text and image or video you make it clear to your prospective students and parents what your offer is.
Use short-description of your offer
Parents have busy lives and their attention span is very short. Don’t expect them to go over your text. Use less words to describe your offer.
One clear CTA
Don’t confuse your audience with different CTAs. You should set one clear CTA that will lead your target audience to make the right action.
If you want to direct parents to your website to apply for their children, you shouldn’t say “like our page” and “visit our website”. Your text should be for example “Apply Now”. If you want to increase your open day attendees, you should call parents to secure their spots.
Add a relevant landing page
You want to provide a seamless experience for your users. By linking a relevant landing page to your ad, you’ll ensure you guide your users to make the right action.
For example, if you want to promote your open days, you can develop a landing page for each event where you can provide the exact date and time of your event and a brief overview of the event agenda.
Give specific information with different sections on your landing page such as “What to Expect,” “A welcome message from our Head”, “Meet Our Staff,” “How to Register”, “Achievements”, and “School life”.
Creating impactful social media ads is crucial for your digital marketing strategy when it comes to building engagement and trust with prospective parents and students. But this is not that simple as it sounds as it requires expertise and the development of the right strategy to meet the goals of your marketing plan.
If you need help with developing a social media ad strategy, our team can help. Digithrive For Schools has helped many schools increase their enrolments and open day sign-ups whilst decreasing their ad spend. Contact us here