Why Should the Education Sector Adopt Marketing Automation?

23 Aug 2018

Discover how Marketing Automation can be used as a core tool to help drive enrolments in the education sector. While they certainly still have their place, traditional methods of driving student enrolment such as printed prospectuses are not always as effective in today’s technology-driven world.

Marketing Automation provides sixth forms, colleges and universities in the education sector with the tools they need to effectively attract, communicate and track engagement with potential students.

You can nurture the relationship with potential students by providing them with relevant content that is informative. And this, therefore, helps them to make the decision on where to study. Thus helping to drive student enrolments.

Why Marketing Automation for student enrolment in the Education Sector?

One of the main benefits of Marketing Automation is the insight it provides into who is visiting your website. As rather than just telling you 500 people visited your website Marketing Automation platforms like SharpSpring can identify your visitors. This means you can match their email address to their IP address giving you their name and the ability to track how they engage with you.

Turning website visitors into actual individuals helps you see how potential students are engaging with you. And with this, you can identify how likely they are to enrol by assigning a lead score.

Identifying a lead score can help you understand where individuals are in the decision-making process. Seeing whether they are a cold lead, warm lead or hot lead based on how they have interacted with the content they have received from you. Knowing this information can help you identify when to contact them to progress them further along the enrolment process.

For example, a potential student with a hot lead score, tells you that they are ready to make a decision about their education. This is the best time to make contact with them to take them from a potential student to an enrolled student.

So how can you convert a hot lead? You can set up your Marketing Automation to automatically send a dynamic email from your enrolment team. These emails will invite those hot lead scores to come and view the facilities and discuss their future with you.

How to communicate with prospective students

These days, prospective students have grown up with technology. They have used it from a very young age, and so it is important that you communicate with them in a way they will relate to. Therefore sixth forms, colleges and universities need to adapt and adopt new methods of communication.

Marketing Automation can help them do this when teamed with Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing. Young adults today are looking for one-click information, they want answers and they want them fast. Delivering the right messages to potential students at the right time can help drive enrolment.

Delivering the right messages

Understanding your audience and their interests is key. While some students may not know what they want to study, others will have a very clear idea. It is important that you ask potential students about their interests at an early stage. For example, if a student has stated they are interested in engineering, then send them information about your engineering courses.

This approach helps you ensure you are sending the right messages to potential students and it can keep them engaged. Also, asking about their extracurricular interests can help you inform them about the clubs and events you have to offer.

Communicating at the right time

It is also important to know where a potential student is in their journey. Have they just finished their exams, just got their results or not even taken their exams yet? Knowing where they are in their journey can allow you to ensure that your communication is relevant.

Understanding the potential student’s journey can also help you to tailor helpful content to them. You can build your relationship by supplying study guides, revision tips or advice on choosing the right college or university.

Targeting students by behaviour

As well as targeting potential students by interest, Marketing Automation lets you target them by their behaviours too. By tracking how students engage with your emails and website you can better understand the information they are interested in and the areas they want more information, which can help you tailor the content you send them to help them progress along the funnel to enrol.

Even if they don’t enrol, tracking and monitoring their engagement can provide valuable insights that can help you develop your strategy.

Request your free SharpSpring Demo

Learn how SharpSpring works, what it can do, why businesses in the education sector need it, how the different features and functions work, what it costs, and much more. This won’t cost anything, just 20 minutes of your time, in return, you’ll be truly amazed by what Marketing Automation will do for your business. So why not request your free demo now.

Perfect is a SharpSpring Platinum Partner and Leading Customer Acquisition Agency specialising in Sales Lead Generation, through Marketing Automation.