Education Marketing Overview

Education Marketing

Education marketing is very different to corporate. The customer lifecycle, the target audience, the annual timelines and even the senior leadership team; all require a different mindset compared to corporate marketing. This means, if you have never worked in education and are thrust in, it can take time to adjust.

The cycles in education can be chartered on an annual basis. You create an annual plan of events and campaigns, which can for the most part, be repeated year on year. Yes, check your audiences at the start of the academic year, run advertising to check they are responding to similar and if not, adjust accordingly but the customer touchpoints do not change. A brief overview of 16-18 education marketing main campaigns looks like this:

Autumn term

• Release marketing and promo for applications for the next academic year (all created in Summer term)
• Run campaigns to promote Open Events – analysis and adjust
• Run your main open events
• Monitor applications
• Support events accordingly

Spring term

• Regular analysis of applications, run promos accordingly
• Run/promote open events
• Start creating for the next academic cohort
• Run ‘not too late to apply’ campaigns
• Support events accordingly

Summer term

• Continue ‘not too late to apply’ campaigns
• Produce new promo for the autumn term release – prospectus etc
• Work with curriculum to ensure website is updated with courses
• Run enrolment campaigns
• Support events accordingly

These do not include day-to-day activities such as: content creation, course promo, student profiling, events and trips coverage, social media, branding, recruitment and so much more.

All seems straightforward you might think. But within FE, many of those Colleges are now Groups, so multiple campuses and they also offer Adult and Higher Education, which again have their own lifecycles and customer touchpoints. This also does not include the School Liaison that goes on to secure a regular pipeline of students from local secondary schools. Looking ahead and preparation is key within marketing education. For example, it can take a whole term to get a Prospectus finalised as teaching staff are doing their day job – teaching – and don’t need marketing asking questions all the time!

Why choose Micca Marketing as your education partner?

Michelle, our Founder, has worked in the sector for many years, she would bring a wealth of experience, streamlining ideas and ways to cut costs and still have the same outcome. That industry experience is priceless.

A lot of the team have also worked in education, so understand how to ensure your brand stands out in a crowded market.

We understand your timelines and constraints; your unique targets; sudden needs to release a course mid-year; who marketing should be working with – they should not be a standalone department!; your workloads; marketing platforms and so much more.

Budgets and Planning

Money is always a factor but outsourcing the bulk of your marketing would reduce your costs. Colleges all have very differing budgets and therefore we would work with you to create a plan unique to your college and one that works for you.

It might be that you need some support with the internal teams, that is easily done.

You might need the marketing strategy and planning documents done, no problem.

Build a new website, create and implement social media, event planning, create a new brand, produce a prospectus, whatever it is, Micca Marketing can support you.

Outsourcing is the new way

We are not saying you can outsource everything, as within education you need someone on the ground to capture the internal events and build relationships. You can use a marketing partner to produce the elements of the role that can be done away from the office.

Budgets are tight, reducing staffing costs, you could save funds but still grow your marketing reach and engagement which would result in an increase in enrolments.

Talk to us today and find out how we could help you grow.