StudyQA — Digital Marketing as a way to attract more international students

International students are highly valuable to any university. However, today, international student enrollment is becoming increasingly competitive due to the increasing number of educational institutions.

What can universities do to attract as many worthy candidates as possible and make them part of the student community? First of all, it is important that information about the institution is constantly present in the daily life of potential students, building trust and loyalty to the brand. This could be achieved through digital marketing services. It’s important to create an online presence and guide students through the funnel. On average the funnel takes 12 months, from the moment the student start searching for the program until he applies. Right digital marketing strategy is a key to a successful development and student recruiting. Here are some key digital services that you need to use to attract and increase the number of applicants:

Lead generation. Today, “lead generation” is one of the most powerful tools for quickly collecting potential students who meet the criteria of a particular educational institution. Define “your customer” and attract the right students for your university. Segmentation in Lead generation campaigns could be as narrow as possible. Define their hobbies, interests, occupation, geography, age, and so on to be sure that these are the students your university is looking for.

Social Media Marketing: Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Vk.com. Fact - 82% of international students go to social networks before sending a request to the university. All social networks today have a huge number of parameters for targeting in order to target international students. Social networks give a lot of possibilities to interact with potential students, showing the real life in the university, answering their questions, sharing the latest news. The strategy and content should be different for every platform, even though the audience might be crossing.

Listing. The easiest way of creating an online presence is to get listed the programs on educational platforms, where students are looking for the programs. The most important thing is to check where the traffic is coming from to these portals, because it might not be your targeted geo and won’t bring you any enrollments.  

Analysis. It is very important to study your competitors, analyze what they are doing. This can help you find areas you need to develop. With the help of companies and service optimization tools, you can find keywords that lead to an increase in the volume of traffic to your website.

The best way to promote your university is to use the right mix of available digital marketing services. Our team of specialists can help you to develop the right strategy that would fit all your needs, boost your online presence and will lead to greater number of enrolled international students.

Check all our services here.