Top Digital Marketing Tools To Accelerate Your Institution Growth

For schools and educational institutes looking to accelerate their growth in 2020, one of the best tools available to them is digital marketing tools. Not only are digital marking tools effective but they also offer great benefits to smaller organization especially educational institutions who may be short on the manpower resources and with a limited marketing budget. 

The use of digital marketing tools helps institutions with the perfect set of digital tools that give with a competitive edge while ensuring a high ROI – irrespective of whether you are investing your finances or your time.

There are numerous digital marketing tools that are available to the new age marketer that will help them reach their growth goals with ease and minimum investment. 

• Engaging And Relevant Content

Marketing gurus often say that “Content Is King” and this is especially true in the digital marketing realm. Today, it is essential for institutional marketers to realize that as compared to advertisements, people are more likely to put their trust in reputable content. This calls for creating engaging and informative content that is appreciated by your target audience. The use of blogs as a medium of creating and sharing content not only serves as a platform for knowledge sharing but it also helps create a leadership position for the institution.

• The Use Of Keyword Search

Today, for all of us Google is the foremost source of information for any answer that we are looking for. Therefore, it is essential that an institution or school develop a robust Keyword Search Strategy or Search Engine Optimisation strategy to attract the right audiences. This essentially means understanding the keywords or phrases that an individual would put into the search bar when looking for information and then strategically integrating the same words and phrases into the website content and blogs.

• Using Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free-to-use tool that websites can use to track and analyze data about their traffic. It allows the institution to understand the number of visitors visiting the site, the source of the visitors (referrals or organic search, etc.), the keywords used by these visitors and the time spent on the pages of your website.

This equips your digital marketing team with the right information to customize the website to attract more visitors and ensure that they spend a longer time on the site.

• Integrating Chatbots 

Chatbots are best described as software applications that mimic written or spoken human speech for the purposes of simulating interaction with a real person. These chatbots are an effective digital marketing tool that ensures that customers get the right information that they are looking for at the earliest. According to forecasts by Gartner, 85% of customer interactions will be handled without a human by 2020.

• AI-Powered Solutions

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the newest tools from the future that digital marketers are using to promote their institutions. Artificial Intelligence helps by analyzing the data and predicting the behaviors of the target audience. AI eliminates guesswork from the marketing efforts and uses algorithms to increase productivity, ROI and create a better experience for the audience. AI helps to create digital marketing strategies will help brands market your brand more effectively and stand out from the clutter of other brands.

• Virtual Tours Of The Institution

Very often it is impossible for parents or students to visit the school or the educational institution for a school tour. For times like this schools and colleges can incorporate virtual tours into their website. This allows the parents and students an opportunity to view their schools from any geographical location and feel connected to the school and the faculty. Besides virtual tours, schools also have the option of incorporating 3D images of their classrooms on the website so that parents can familiarise themselves with the school facilities and amenities.

• Establishing A Social Media Presence 

Social media plays an important tool in helps educational institutions reach out to their target audience. Social media sites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram can prove to be very advantageous in helping schools to reach to potential students and their parents with the right engaging content that is friendly and informative. These platforms are very photo and video-friendly over time and can easily be updated with minimum effort. 

• Regular Social Media Monitoring

While it is easy to create and build a social media presence, it is also important for institutions to invest some time and effort in monitoring these platforms. Regular monitoring of social media sites ensures that schools can proactively address inquiries and well as grievances. While this can be done manually, larger institutions can invest in tools such as Hootsuite, SocialMention, and Tweetdeck that help the school look for ‘mentions’ across social media platforms.

• Increasing Parental Engagement with the School

Parental engagement is critical for the growth of the educational institution. Today, parents want to be involved in the academic life of their children and it is imperative for schools to understand this and look for digital tools that can optimize this communication. School management systems that have a communication module integrated into the software make it easy for the teachers to keep parents updated about the progress of the students. It also allows parents to communicate with the teachers when concerns or any doubts arise. This transparency in engagement and communication helps augment the trust that parents have in the schools and accelerates growth over time.

The use of digital marketing tools provides numerous benefits to the institutions. They help build an online presence for the school, build brand awareness, enhance productivity and engage the audience. This is all done with an aim to accelerate growth for the organization and achieve success for the coming years ahead.