Spread the Word: How to Promote Your School
One of the greatest challenges a college or university faces is how to advertise. Marketing campaigns can be extremely expensive, and if you are not careful, you end up paying tons of money for ads that do not reach the right audience or that do not achieve the goals you set. Last week we discussed the history of marketing and advertising, so today we are going to look at advertising in higher education. This article marks the end of the Irrigating Deserts blog posts, and we feel there is no better way to conclude than to give some relevant and practical tips for how to advertise your college or a program within it. You can implement this -- and all the other helpful information from Irrigating Deserts -- at your school to continue improving your academics and growing your institution.
The first thing you must determine are your goals for the ad campaign. It is vital to lay out what you are hoping to accomplish so that you have an easy way to assess whether or not the advertisements are effective. For example, increasing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a useful tool to be sure your college is appearing when people search keywords that relate to what you offer. Be sure to determine specific keyboards that point to your university's strengths and unique offerings. Other goals include increased website traffic, a certain number of new social media followers, or an increase in online applications.
Next, you need to know who your target audience is. This will impact the advertisements themselves as well as how you advertise and on what platforms. Higher Education Marketing says, "While it can be tempting to try and reach every possible applicant with your school's ads, it is much more effective to target narrow, specific audiences." In order to accomplish this purpose and recognize who to reach, this website recommends creating mock profiles for various categories of the target audience. These profiles include information such as age, gender, background, goals, and what they are looking for in a university or degree program. After assessing this data, you can design ads specifically targeting people with these demographics and goals.
After determining the target audience, you must decide what platforms to advertise on. More now than ever, people are turning to their phones for almost everything. Entertainment, social media, music, web surfing -- most of us use our phones for all of these functions and more. Advertising platforms should reflect the norms of the day, so it is important that colleges take into consideration where their target audience goes for information. Instead of focusing almost entirely on TV or radio ads, colleges should consider social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.
Besides ads for various websites and media platforms, colleges should use their social media accounts to promote aspects of student life or new degree programs that will attract potential applicants. For example, Boyce College recently announced two new degree programs. They posted about it on Instagram and Twitter, and President Albert Mohler posted a video about the new programs on his personal accounts. In addition, the college has reached out to well-known evangelical influencers to promote these programs. Finding influencers that your target audience respects to share about your school is a great way to raise awareness for a college or program among a specific circle of people.
Through careful evaluation of goals and objectives, target audience, and media platforms, your university can have a successful advertising campaign. Sadly, this concludes our journey together here at Irrigating Deserts. It has been a joy for our team to work alongside each other to research and produce content for those in Christian higher education. We would like to thank you, reader, for joining us during this journey; we hope the information we've provided has been insightful and practical. May you be filled with joy and enthusiasm for your job as you continue to "irrigate deserts" by pouring into students and others in the academic world.
by Natalia Bosch