Be top of the class: our five marketing tips for the start of term

We want to start by wishing everyone returning to work in schools, colleges and universities all the best for the term ahead. Start the year at the top of the class with our education marketing tips for the new term!

The Spring term is a busy time in education, especially for those handling marketing and admissions. In the UK, the Spring term involves the deadline for university applications, confirmation of places at state primary and secondary schools, and high numbers of international student enquiries.

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Here are five marketing top tips to get your Spring 2020 term off to the best start:

Review your strategies
When you return to your desk after the Christmas break, with the echoes of Mariah Carey still ringing in your ears, it can be tricky to pick up where you left off. Make time in your first week of term to run through your marketing strategy and see what tasks you can leave in 2019 and what you need to do to move forward. Reminding yourself (and your team) of goals is a great way to get motivated, prioritise this time and make sure that you finish the week with a clear action plan of what you need to do in the coming weeks and months. In our experience, an effective marketing strategy is detailed and considers, or is built on, the following:
- Market analysis
- Buyer persona analysis
- Content strategy
- Website development
- Social media strategy
- Conversational strategy
- Conversion paths
- Lead nurturing
- Marketing technology/automation tools
- Metrics, reporting and analytics

Content, content, content!
Implementing an inbound marketing strategy is the key to growing student numbers as customers expect the highest level of service, convenience and personalisation. Make sure your students and their parents feel valued at every touch-point by planning content designed to meet their needs.

Each interaction with your website or social channels must deliver something that your customer wants to hear in that moment, on that platform. Spend some time considering what questions your students are asking at each stage of their journey towards studying with you and write dedicated, time-specific content to answer those questions. Social media channels and blogs are the obvious place to start, then think outside of the box a bit more with vlogs, podcasts, downloadable resources (eBook, anybody?), mail-drops, editorial in local press or maybe just a really helpful infographic!

Planning your content for the term ahead will keep you and your team motivated and provide inspiration when creativity runs dry. Take a look at our school and college blog ideas as a starting point.
Take stock and identify where to focus your efforts
There's no better time for a spring clean of your enquiries than the new Spring term, whether you are using an intelligent CRM system to manage your leads or have a master spreadsheet containing all of your contacts.

Take a look at who has been quiet lately and pick up the phone, send an email with some helpful advice about your admissions process or encourage them to subscribe to your blog to keep in the loop (don't forget to consider the relevant data permissions of your contacts for marketing communications). You could implement Lead Scoring so that your can focus your time on those who are the most likely to convert, although in my experience, some of the least likely enquiries can convert unexpectedly so it is always a good idea to reach out to everyone who is still showing an interest and see if there is anything you can do to help.

It is a good opportunity to remove any enquiries that are no longer interested too, nothing feels better than some fresh, clean data at the start of a new term/year/decade!
Put yourself in your customer's shoes
It's always the right time to remind yourself of who you are actually marketing to! In the busyness of a functioning marketing/admissions office, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day functions of your department. Time spent on persona development is time well spent!

Use HubSpot's free intuitive 'Make My Persona' Tool which will help you to build a clear picture of who it is you are aiming to attract, what interests them and where they access their information. Use this insight to inform your marketing activities and reap the rewards.
Automate where you can
Your time is valuable so use it wisely... easier said than done when you have wide ranging responsibilities and a never ending 'to do' list! I am a firm believer in working smarter using technology, a little bit of innovation goes a long way! No matter what systems you are using, there are ways to streamline.

If you find yourself spending ages writing emails to your prospective students, spend a few minutes copying your most used paragraphs and sentences into a document or email that you can save - then just copy and paste them into your messages as required. Create some email templates and save them so that the next time you need to send them, it takes a few clicks instead of a few minutes writing them from scratch. Manage your social media platforms all in one place to save time hopping between systems and schedule your posts in advance to ensure consistency and to prevent you having to hop between tasks when a post needs to go live.

We recommend using one platform for everything* - HubSpot has been tried and tested in education marketing and admissions with exciting results. Use it to automate almost anything - from emails to team task creation, use the CRM functionality to nurture relationships with your prospective parents and handle the admissions process; use clever tracking that shows a enquirers journey through your website, to form completion (lead capture) and every interaction beyond; manage your social media channels in one place and create results-driven landing pages and call-to-actions. No need for multiple systems or online marketing tools.
*Capabilities vary depending on which HubSpot products you are using.