BY Anthony Campisi | December 28th, 2023

Improve your university’s brand awareness

The way higher education institutions market themselves to prospects has changed dramatically in a short amount of time. The rise of social media and the growing importance of content marketing, especially video marketing, has forced colleges to grapple with new ways to improve their university’s brand awareness and reach prospects effectively.

So, how should schools go about building brand awareness in a more complex and multifaceted digital world? The key is actually to embrace it. By using effective digital marketing strategies, you’ll be able to increase your brand awareness quickly and cost-effectively.

Let’s take a quick look at a few ways to do just that:

Create a detailed brand awareness strategy

First and foremost, don’t fly blind with your brand awareness strategy. Instead, draw up a detailed roadmap that includes timelines, metrics, types of content, and next steps to stay accountable and execute your strategy thoughtfully.

Be sure to conduct thorough research and develop detailed personas when crafting your brand awareness strategy too. It’s also a good idea to set measurable goals for content production, such as publishing two blog posts per week, and for metrics, such as increasing conversions by 50 percent within a year.

Create and share engaging and compelling content

Once you’ve done your research, created personas, and mapped out a detailed strategy, it’s time to start creating and sharing compelling content. This is at the crux of any successful brand awareness strategy.

Focus on creating engaging and useful content tailored to your target audience in the form of blog posts, eBooks, social media posts, email newsletters, videos, infographics, podcasts, and more. With a healthy mix of content published on a steady cadence, your institution can boost its inbound marketing and grow its brand awareness very effectively.

Focus on SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for building brand awareness over the long term.

You can boost your site’s SEO by blogging and creating quality content more frequently, targeting valuable keywords and topics with your content, optimizing your metatags, building outbound links, and ensuring your site is fast, mobile-friendly, and free of any major technical errors. By consistently doing SEO, your institution’s website will climb higher in the search results, ultimately boosting your brand awareness.

Leverage social media channels

Social media marketing is critical for building brand awareness.

Strive to post on channels like X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok regularly and use relevant hashtags where appropriate. Content that works well on social media includes everything from blog posts to video testimonials to longform guides. Finally, don’t forget to actively engage with social media users rather than just post content. Answer questions, post polls, and in general try to engage with your target audience to humanize your school’s brand.

Use paid advertising effectively

Paid ads are another great way to build brand awareness, working alongside SEO to boost your content’s visibility.

Paid advertising on both search engines like Google and social media channels, particularly LinkedIn, can help you reach your audience very quickly and effectively and should be a key part of your brand awareness strategy. Another good idea is boosting content such as blog posts, videos, and longform guides on LinkedIn, which can greatly expand their reach to your target audience.

Improve your university’s brand awareness today

With a detailed strategy and engaging content, you can improve your university’s brand awareness today quickly and cost-effectively. Need a hand doing it? GPRS has the expertise and resources to increase your institution’s brand awareness so you can ultimately boost enrollments and revenue. Contact us today to find out more.

BY Anthony Campisi | November 30th, 2023

What you need to know about higher education content marketing

Content is king when it comes to promoting a university to a target audience – but just how do you go about higher education content marketing effectively?

By creating and distributing engaging and useful content tailored to your target audience, you can do everything from building brand awareness to boosting conversions to educating prospects about the key details of your programs. Ultimately, all of this can play a crucial role in increasing enrollment, but the trick is doing it effectively. As prospects are bombarded with content online, via social media, email, and other channels, creating content that really stands out and reaches them is imperative.

To that end, here are a few strategies and ideas for creating content that truly stands out and engages with your target audience!

Optimize your blog

Blogging is a crucial tool at your disposal for effective higher education content marketing. Topics could include your program’s history, campus culture, the benefits of enrolling, interviews with professors and alumni, and much more.

To optimize your blog, be sure to take search engine optimization (SEO) into account and conduct thorough keyword and topic research beforehand. Establishing a content calendar to publish content on a steady cadence is another good idea to stay accountable and keep tabs on key metrics like views, dwell time, and conversions.

Create valuable longform content

Longform content like eBooks, guides, and whitepapers are great for bringing more in-depth information to your target audience efficiently and effectively.

Topics for longform content could include campus life, your school’s local community, career options, and the like. Another advantage of longform content is that it’s easy to distribute via email or social media and can also be gated, making it useful for lead capturing.

Leverage case studies and testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from students and alumni are an excellent way to humanize your school’s programs and add a more personalized touch. By highlighting real-life examples of students and alumni, schools can help prospects imagine themselves in your program and boost the odds of their enrollment.

When creating case studies and testimonials, focus on the success stories of students and alumni profiled and relate them directly back to your program. Also, remember to share this content on social media and email to increase its reach to prospective students.

Create engaging videos

Given the popularity of social media channels like YouTube and TikTok and the changing nature of how content is consumed, video marketing has never been more important than right now.

Embrace this trend and leverage video marketing to its fullest potential. Some ideas include video case studies and testimonials, campus tours, interviews with faculty, campus events, and more. Keep in mind that shorter videos tend to convert at a higher rate and that sharing on social media is crucial.

Share useful infographics on social media

Finally, don’t overlook the power of infographics.

They’re a great way to communicate key information in a visual, simple, and engaging way. Before creating them, create an outline for each one that focuses on telling a relevant story, and be sure to make it visually appealing with the right colors and fonts. After creating an infographic, share it on social media channels like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram to ensure it reaches as wide an audience as possible.

Boost your higher education content marketing strategy today

The bottom line is that content marketing is crucial for promoting your school, and its programs. Interested in optimizing your content strategy? Contact GPRS today to leverage our resources and experience in this area.

Tag: Content Marketing Strategy

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts