Using parent, pupil and alumni testimonials in education marketing

Testimonials are a vital part of your school’s marketing strategy. You may already be familiar with testimonials and have a few on your website, but this is no longer enough to stand out from competitors. Testimonials should be integrated across all of your channels to appeal to every persona on their journey with you. We’ll dive into the details of the benefits of testimonials, how to collect them using HubSpot, and how to use them in your school marketing. 

Why use testimonials?

Testimonials are one of the most powerful tools for your school’s marketing strategy. They can be used to close the deal with potential prospects and have many benefits: 

• Builds trust- Hearing current students, parents and alumni rave about your school will reinforce that your institution is the perfect fit for your prospects. 
• Steers away from self-promotion- Self-promotion is good, but too much can feel like a sales pitch; endorsements from others overcomes this and makes your school credible.    
• Easy to collect and implement- With the use of HubSpot feedback forms and HubSpot for Canva, testimonials are easy to gather and implement into marketing campaigns. 
• Free- No need to worry if you’re on a tight budget, testimonials are free to collect!

How to collect testimonials

There are several ways to collect testimonials; no matter which strategy you use, it is important to personalise your message to the student, parent or alumni. Following the inbound methodology, you want to continue to delight your audience, and tailored messages will foster these relationships. It will also increase the likelihood of them giving an outstanding testimonial. HubSpot is a great tool to automate personalised messages, saving you lots of time to work on other areas of your marketing strategy. 

Some methods of collecting testimonials are:

• Email- Use HubSpot email automation to send a personal invite to students, parents or alumni. You may wish to schedule these emails to be sent after particular events such as sports day, parents evening, or alumni reunions. Events in particular will provide a good talking point, and if they are mentioned in testimonials, they will showcase the exciting activities that your school has to offer. 
• Website- It is essential to include a feedback form on your website. Using a clear call to action on your website will enable a flow of testimonials throughout the year. HubSpot can help you to design effective calls to action. 
• Social media- Many current students and alumni will be following your school on various social media platforms. Post out a link to your feedback form and testimonials will come flooding in. These kinds of social media posts also create the image that you value the views of your students – making your school even more appealing to prospects! 
• Video- Video is extremely compelling and is the best way to communicate a student, parent, or alumni’s enthusiasm for your school. It’s recommended that this method is saved for specific, stand out students/alumni, which you may already have in mind (perhaps someone who has contributed greatly to the school). These testimonials can be short conversations and could include personal stories from alumni about how the school inspired them. Also, don’t forget to ensure that your videos are optimised for mobile viewing, you don’t want these technicalities to trip you up after all your hard work creating a video! 

How to use testimonials in your school marketing 

Remember that your testimonials should be showcased across all of your marketing channels. They should also be conveyed in a variety of different formats such as video, short snippets, infographics, and blog posts. Some ideas include:

Website

Firstly, if you haven’t already got a dedicated page on your website for testimonials, create one now! This makes it easy for prospects to navigate to this valuable information, as they will definitely be looking for it while they weigh up their enrolment options. 

After this, it is useful to integrate testimonials across the site as this encourages longer page visits and can generate leads; use HubSpot to track progress in your website traffic and conversion rates. The homepage is a good place to start, but your school will stand out if you include testimonials on specific academic program pages. Although these may take more time to collect, these personal messages about a course couldn’t be more appealing to your prospects, as they will be able to relate to current students’ passion for the subject. 

Social media

There are so many options when it comes to social media. Facebook reviews are a natural place to look for testimonials, and you may find that your school already has several endorsements here. Use HubSpot to be notified of any additional reviews so that they can be updated across other channels. 

Infographics are well suited to Instagram posts, and short video snippets will perform well on Instagram stories. When you highlight video testimonials on your feed, don’t forget to accompany your posts with useful links to your website to continue the conversation with your prospects. 

Use HubSpot to track engagement and schedule your posts to be published at a time when your audience will see them, to get the most out of your social media strategy.

Open days 

Open days are a great chance to show testimonial videos during presentations/talks. Current students often help out on open days, so this is the perfect time for them to endorse your school in person. If you are hosting virtual open days, break out rooms tailored to specific courses or queries will ensure the same experience is achieved. 

Prospectus 

Strike a balance between institutional messaging and authentic student stories to boost the credibility of your school to prospects; testimonials will prevent your prospectus from sounding like a sales pitch. However, make sure that the selected testimonials reinforce your school’s values and vision to cement prospects’ trust.

Use Canva in HubSpot 

Finally, the partnership of HubSpot and Canva deserves a special mention. The integration of Canva into HubSpot is the perfect pairing to make your marketing efforts more efficient and effective. With the simple click of a button, you can design banners, social graphics and ads, and post them directly from HubSpot. You may already be a fan of Canva and have some existing designs saved. Within the HubSpot portal, you can quickly resize your creations to suit the type of content you wish to post. 

This handy tool allows you to create stunning visuals for your testimonials with a simple drag and drop interface. It is so straightforward to use that anyone on your team can get involved. This integration gives your team autonomy whilst ensuring that your visuals don’t lose sight of your school’s brand. 

Book a consultation to see how HubSpot can improve your school’s marketing strategy. We can also offer a one-to-one tutorial on how to use Canva for HubSpot.