Content marketing for schools

You may have heard the phrase, “Content is king” if you have ever worked with a marketing agency. Content can be anything from entertaining Tweets to fun videos on Instagram, to longer blogs on your school’s website.

But, content on its own is not enough to create awareness or visibility for your school. It needs to be paired with content marketing, in order to engage and inform your target audience and drive them to take your desired action.

But, why is content so important, and why do you need a content marketing strategy?

content marketing

What is content marketing?

School content marketing is an awareness strategy that focuses on producing relevant, valuable, and high-quality content for prospective students and parents who are searching for information.

An effective content marketing strategy uses this content to generate website traffic from an engaged audience that relies on their valuable information.

A key component of a content marketing strategy is, of course, the content but the strategy will dictate whether the content is shared on social media channels, used in emailers and newsletters, or used in ads online.

Distribution and content go hand-in-hand

Content is only as strong as its distribution. Distributing content on the right channels at the right time to the right target audience is the goal of any content marketing strategy. Creating targeted campaigns for your school content marketing is ideal, and goes hand-in-hand with crafting specific audiences and topics for your content.

Simple creating and posting content is not a strong content marketing strategy, and it certainly won’t resonate with current students or prospective students.

A content marketing strategy states exactly what you will create content about, where you will post the content, and whether it will be shared on platforms other than your school’s website.

What are the benefits of Content Marketing?

According to industry trends, content creation is a top priority for marketers, with content marketing making up the majority of clients’ budgets. Consistent, relevant, and engaging content can impact your target market decision making more than any other form of digital marketing.

Build Audience Loyalty

Great content with a sound content marketing plan can be highly effective at building loyalty with prospective and current families. Topical content, thought leadership content, evergreen content, and educational resources with updated information create positive experiences for your audience, which lead to brand loyalty and can drive traffic in significant numbers to your website content.

Improved Conversions From Original Content

The type of content that you post influences your conversions, helping your audience engage with you over other schools. For example, a blog post that brings in traffic can be combined with original visuals created specifically for the post or you could use study tips from your own students or successful alumni on your social media platforms for truly customised content. Always include a call to action to guide your readers on their next step.

Better Visibility

SEO and content marketing are always better together, and content marketing can have a direct impact on your school’s online visibility. The more you create content that is consistent, relevant, and that offers valuable information, the better your SEO results will be. With a strong content marketing strategy and definitive optimisation goals, your school will perform better in search engine results.

How can I use content marketing?

Creating content is only one part of content marketing. Using it effectively is another important part of the equation.

Digithrive knows how to use different methods of content marketing for the education sector, including evergreen content, creating bespoke landing pages, and using optimised, custom images where needed.

Create Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is designed to maintain interest from readers over a long period of time because the information in this content will not change no matter what year it is or what changes have occurred over time.

Evergreen content should be informative, shareable, and answer common education-related questions asked on search engines. It can also be optimised with keywords and phrases to improve its search engine rankings.

Go Visual

Content marketing is not just about text-heavy blog posts or articles – content includes videos, photographs, infographics, and other visual elements.

Posting photographs of a sports day, a classroom, or an extracurricular event on social media with relevant captions and keywords is a great way to visually showcase why, at first glance, your school is the best choice for your potential student’s needs.

Get Blogging

Blog posts are nothing new when it comes to content marketing, but they are often overlooked for brighter, flashier content options.

Using blog posts to share authentic, original stories about campus life, student success, or about a favourite teacher will give further insights into your school. Avoid writing blogs that are obviously selling your school and focus on providing engaging and relevant information.

Well-Timed Testimonials

Alumni testimonials or testimonials of current students can be shared across a multitude of platforms and can highlight how your school’s values make a difference for all students.

Positive testimonials can be shared on social media platforms and can live on your website on their own page, and when posted on your Google My Business page, they can improve search engine results and your authority in the eyes of potential parents and students.

Think Strategy First

Before you start writing blogs about students, teachers, and other stories, you will need to create a content marketing strategy – of course, that is where Digithrive comes in!

Segmenting content by target audience (prospective students, applicants, current students, parents, faculty and alumni) and by platforms that best suits their current customer journey. One video or blog post can be broken up into smaller bite-sized pieces of content to be shared across social media platforms or emailers, creating more awareness and interest for different audiences.

How have we used content marketing for clients?

Digithrive is a holistic digital marketing agency for schools, and this can be seen clearly in our content marketing results for clients, like St. Helen’s School.

St Helen’s is a leading independent day school for girls aged 3-18 and is a member of the Girls’ Schools Association.

They came to Digithrive with a range of marketing and business goals, including an increase in Open Day visit bookings, more admission enquiries for private visits, and an increase in website traffic.

We tackled their requests using our full marketing stack, with a focus on content marketing. We incorporated both local SEO and PPC campaigns to build website traffic, boost brand awareness and generate leads.

Our team created bespoke landing pages with strategic content for lead generation campaigns across social platforms, as well as incorporating retargeting ads to website visitors.

St. Helen’s School saw impressive results, with 1.7 million impressions, 1 800 click-throughs, and 32 qualified leads.

Let Digithrive for Schools start your content marketing journey with the perfect opening line.

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