StudyQA — Interview with experts in digital marketing in Higher Education

What contributes to university promotion?

We met with experts in higher education marketing - Tatyana and Yana, who help applicants learn about foreign educational institutions. And asked them a couple of questions about how they attract the attention of potential students to universities and help them not to get lost with such a multiple choice.

How should students meet universities?

Tatyana: Choosing a university is not a quick process, so the more close contact there is between the student and the university, the better it will affect the decision of the applicant. A student should learn as much information as possible about what a particular university can offer him. To do this, we hold webinars and orientation events.

We also try to attract as many young people as possible to the process. This marketing tactic is called lead generation. How does this happen? A special landing page is being created which helps to find people interested in applying for these educational programs. In this way, few students come who are willing to pay a high price for studying abroad. In most cases, during higher education lead generation campaigns we receive requests from those who plan to submit documents in the next couple of years or, for the time being, are just watching and comparing programs. After attracting a new audience, it is important not to lose touch, but to establish a long-playing contact.

How useful are social networks to expand your target audience?

Tatyana: Basically, a small number of students come from social networks. If a person has joined the group, this doesn’t guarantee that he will fully submit documents. But it means that it is important for him to follow the news of the university.

A school’s profile on social networks is a way of communicating and maintaining social status, rather than collecting applications. Today, it is thus easier for universities to present themselves in the market.

How to choose social media strategy for educational institutions? In Russia, the first most popular network is VKontakte, followed by Instagram. In the CIS countries they often visit Facebook and Instagram.

During any digital marketing campaign, the most important is real-time participation, that is, maintaining contact with the target audience and quick feedback. The student should feel important to the university.

What targeting tools are better to use in higher education marketing?

Tatyana: First you need to determine the main audience. At universities, these are schoolchildren, students and parents. Since studying abroad is expensive, it is the parents who will make the final decision. For each of these groups we use different platforms and types of advertising.

We work only through digital advertising in Google Ads, Yandex Directs, social networks and instant messengers. Advertising on Google or Yandex search engine is very effective (their share is now 50 to 50 in Russia, and CIS residents prefer Google).

For university marketing campaigns can be used contextual advertising. This type of advertising is aimed at those who have previously looked for information about education abroad. These “higher education leads” come with the clear intention of choosing a university abroad. But the price of such ads is quite high. For example, in the active season of deadlines for admission of documents to educational institutions, the actual price per user click on an ad may cost 500 rubles (around 8 USD).

Universities can advertise on Google Display Network, which includes Gmail, Youtube, and other partners. In addition to Google, they can use Yandex banner network. In this case, the ad adjusts to the user's search query history. This method also helps to select stakeholders: future graduates or high-income families. The cost per click is dramatically lower - approximately 30 rubles (0.48 USD) in Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, the conversion (that is, the ratio of active site visitors to the total number of visitors) is worse, because the attracted audience is not always serious about the process. For this reason, the average price for one such "lead" in the world is 6-7 USD.

Does advertising work on social networks?

Tatyana: Social networks are powerful advertising channels, since you can attract the maximum number of visitors to an Internet resource at an affordable price. Depending on the audience, its cost can vary from 40 cents to 15 USD. And it is calculated based on what potential customers you want to attract. For example, if you need guys who are just curious to study abroad, then the price will be low.

We focus on the audience and its characteristics. We can customize ads based on interests or behavior on the Internet. There are fewer potential customers on Facebook and Instagram, because these networks focus on the interests of users in general, and Vkontakte can focus on thematic communities. The university can find a parent audience on LinkedIn, although in Russia it is blocked.

What forms of advertising are better to use?

Tatyana: First, let's talk about promotions aimed at visiting the site or landing page. You can direct users to the landing page through special forms built into the VKontakte and Facebook feed. This is convenient, because partly these forms are filled in automatically due to the information in the profile, and the visitor indicates some part on his own. This method is effective in use, but in order not to affect the quality of traffic, it has its own limitations.

Secondly, the university can collaborate with partners. Now there are many sites focused on recruiting, with which you can collaborate and do mailings, posts on social networks.

Thirdly, work with bloggers. The opinion of “influencers” has great weight in the eyes of its subscribers.

What forms of advertising are better to use?

Tatyana: First, let's talk about promotions aimed at visiting the site or landing page. You can direct users to the landing page through special forms built into the VKontakte and Facebook feed. This is convenient, because partly these forms are filled in automatically due to the information in the profile, and the visitor indicates some part on his own. This method is effective in use in higher education marketing, but in order not to affect the quality of traffic, it has its own limitations.

Secondly, the university can collaborate with partners. Now there are many sites focused on recruiting, with which you can collaborate and do mailings, posts on social networks.

Thirdly, work with bloggers. The opinion of “influencers” has great weight in the eyes of its followers.

How to work with parents of applicants in social networks?

Tatiana: Parents are a more interesting audience for universities. It is they who make the final decision and will pay for training - therefore, working with them is more productive than with students.

In dealing with them, you need to consider several aspects. Firstly, it is also the target audience. You need to know how old they are, in what sphere they are involved, what their behavioral characteristics are. After this analysis, we can determine in which social networks they spend the most time and whether they use them at all.

Let's assume that we have identified a segment of parents who spend time on social networks. And if they see a university advertisement, they will first of all look at the price. Seeing an inexpensive program, internship or summer school on the site, it is quite possible they will be immediately ready to pay for it. But when we promote elite and expensive universities, we shouldn’t focus on attracting a parent audience from the network. Here, another approach during university marketing campaigns is suitable - to start with basic attraction, that is, to catch the attention of a potential client with the help of advertising on the site, and then increase interest by calls and face-to-face meetings.

Of course, it is best to focus on offline communication, especially with parents - to invite people to meetings or exhibitions. Anyway, even with being modern, they don’t fully understand the concept of social networks, because they grew up without them and have a lot of distrust of everything that happens there. It is unlikely that the parent will make a balanced, serious decision, based only on online offers.

Parents can be found everywhere: Odnoklassniki, Facebook, Linkedin and other sites. Don’t limit yourself to just one network. But the parent audience in social networks is smaller, it’s more difficult to work with it and its involvement will cost much more. In this regard, firstly, it is important to ensure stable traffic for the influx of new customers. Secondly, consider the price of such leads, sometimes it can be very unprofitable. Thirdly, it is necessary to constantly “warm up” such leads - as soon as parents have responded to online advertising, immediately contact them by phone or mail and invite them to an in-person meeting.

Personally, I wouldn’t consider social networks as the main way of communication, due to the characteristics of this audience. But it is useful for increasing university brand awareness. In this case, social networks are not enough, it is more correct to use an integrated approach.