Planning marketing content for your college in advance, is an excellent way to tailor your content to your potential parents and students. In any digital marketing campaign planning is essential to make sure your target audiences are reached, and your vision is communicated effectively.
Creating a 12-month digital marketing plan of what content will be released and when, will help you achieve your long and short-term goals so you can increase your conversion rates.
Your conversion rate is the number of prospects that complete an action as a result of your marketing efforts - this could be attending your open event, applying or enrolling with your college. With many of these actions being completed digitally, you can track actions to conversions easily.
Many applications can calculate your conversion rates for you, from impressions to clicks, leads captured to sign ups. Increased conversion rates across various touch points will have a direct impact on your student recruitment numbers. High conversion rates can help you to analyse which of your marketing efforts are working and are driving students to your college.
Planning content for digital marketing strategy is nothing new. It is always important to plan so that targets are met, and college branding is consistent throughout all content and events. So why 12 months? It may seem like a long time ahead to plan for, but planning ahead can help you take a more strategic approach to your marketing campaigns.
One reason for implementing a 12-month plan is that conversions and impact, particularly in education, take time. Building an effective marketing campaign requires research. Encouraging your team to set aside time from their schedule to work together on planning can be tricky, especially working remotely, but planning campaigns together for the next 12 months will ensure that targets are met and your team know which projects and campaigns to prioritise.
Planning 12-months ahead also allows you the time to get your website polished and create a build up for your recruitment events. Plan your conversion paths for each event, how are you going to promote it? What is your strategy for capturing leads? What is do your follow-up comms look like? Which metrics will your be focusing on to measure your success? By allowing time to work on a 12-month plan, you can ensure you have ample opportunity to get your campaign executed effectively and results reported promptly.
A good way to begin with a 12-month plan is to break the year down into quarters, think about each quarter independently - what will need to be achieved first in order to meet planned events later in the year? It is likely that you will initially need to spend time reworking your website, researching, or collecting information through questionnaires.
As with any marketing efforts, the success is in the planning. Download our free Content Audit and Planner tool:
Considering your college marketing strategy? Arrange a free digital marketing consultation for some quick wins and actionable advice.