Institutions must access students through new, virtual routes that put human connection first.
Prospective students, current students, parents and alumni want to connect to your organization's emotional legacy -- that is, the core ethos and characteristics of your brand that allow them to feel part of something greater than themselves.
OUR KEY SERVICE OFFERINGS
What can we help you with?
It's hard for organizations to keep up with ever-changing, and challenging, digital evolutions. Prospective students, current students, parents and alumni alike expect radically digital connections to their alma maters -- something that COVID-19 has forced legacy institutions to consider.
Whether it's TikTok, livestreaming or an integrated partnership PR campaign, CourseMarketing has a few strategies up our sleeves to get your enrollment numbers up and your engagement metrics met.
FOCUS ON: MEDIA RELATIONS
Reach the aspirational crowd through the media outlets they trust.
More important than ever in the post-COVID era, organizations need to reach prospective audiences at home through the media channels they trust. Legacy institutions are well known and respected, of course, however upcoming organizations have more opportunity to reach audiences than ever before.
Media relations includes public relations, gaining coverage in the external media, but also reaching out to smaller blogs and influencer outlets, landing podcast and television interviews, and getting submissions and guest blogs printed. Additionally, speaking engagements and event appearances are an important part of media relations for leadership personalities.
Media relations campaigns are commonly a part of new initiatives or big changes at your institution, however at CourseMarketing, we recommend examining how your brand can align itself with the mainstream news cycle on a quarterly basis - in an authentic way.
KEY BUSINESS IMPACTS
Raise
Awareness
Top of the marketing funnel - a crucial first step to begin moving consumers to later conversion stages.
Impressions
+ Views
Utilizing media coverage to drive subscriber/follower growth, and exposing those audiences to brand content.
Brand
Sentiment
By using social listening tools, brands are able to measure how well their message resonates with audiences.
FOCUS ON: CONTENT INNOVATION
Foster direct, on-demand connection through livestreaming sessions.
Livestreaming functionality is showing up on platforms everywhere. From Youtube, to social media platforms, to stand-alone tech that allows you to run webinars, prospective student audiences have come to expect virtual live interactions as a way to connect directly with brands they want to learn more about.
Livestreams are an excellent way to create a "here-and-now" presence online, fostering Q&A sessions, creating unique coaching moments, driving demand, and opening up marketing pathways for direct followup communications afterward. Additionally, platforms like Instagram are rewarding accounts using livestreaming functions with greater reach and impressions.
Our team can help produce content that educates, entertains, and pushes audiences toward your conversion goals, while minding your overall marketing or business objectives, and staying on budget.
KEY BUSINESS IMPACTS
Web
Traffic
Driving traffic back to your owned properties (like your website or blog) is a key measurement of success when it comes to livestreams.
Lead
Generation
The right strategic approach to going live can help drive conversions, goal completions, and capture key consumer information.
Sales +
Transactions
Finally, when your content properties work together in a strategic way, your brand may see an increase in sales or transactions.
FOCUS ON: SOCIAL MEDIA
Your greatest opportunity to connect with incoming student bodies: TikTok.
To the unfamiliar, TikTok is assumed to be yet another social media platform like Facebook or Instagram. However, this isn't true at all. Tiktok is a unique platform, that gives your brand massive local reach to accounts who aren't even following you, as well as the possibility to go viral no matter how many followers you have.
While 30% of TikTok's user base is actually over the age of 30, TikTok is dominated by the youth of the world. Your incoming freshman and prospective students are connecting with teachers on the platform like @chemteacherphil, who amassed 3.1 million followers passionate about his in-classroom chemistry posts.
Other schools like UCLA are using TikTok to highlight their various athletic departments, and are resharing student-created content in order to drive greater reach, and greater student community interactions. Is your school considering using TikTok for recruitment and enagement yet?
KEY BUSINESS IMPACTS
Excellent
Local Reach
TikTok shows your posts to people in your geographic region whether they follow you or not, allowing for targeted impressions.
Recruitment Potential
Use the 'Live' function on TikTok to create accessible information sessions that students can tune into. Even better if they're entertaining!
Demographic Analytics
Understand greater demographics information about your followers and audiences, like gender or country territory.
FOCUS ON: PARTNERSHIPS
Reach greater audiences with the right strategic media partner.
Are you a large institution ready for the next level of media integration? Whether publisher partnership, influencer integration, non-profit partnership or otherwise, we'll define your goals and target audience, and work together to make media magic happen.
For influencers, we partner with talent agencies to pull the right people for your upcoming media campaign. We also coordinate micro-influencer campaigns, which often have a more minimal spend (and sometimes bigger impact,) than sponsoring a major influencer alone.
Ask about our existing media partnerships and relationships, and we'll help you strategically put together a holistic media campaign from end-to-end.
KEY BUSINESS IMPACTS
Referral
Traffic
Reach larger audiences outside of your brand's current existing network, driving subscriber growth, and new conversions.
Message
Resonance
People aren't likely to trust your ad without knowing your brand. They are, however, likely to trust the influencers they look up to.
Cost
Effectiveness
A well-planned influencer campaign can be more cost effective than traditional advertising, and result in more conversions.
FOCUS ON: COMMUNITY
Managing your reputation online (and offline,) is a 24/7/365 task.
In a world where anything can devolve into a full blown PR crisis in a matter of minutes, you need to have active, strategic community management measures in place. Nipping negative comments in the bud, addressing disgruntled concern, and proactively helping people find the information they need are key to a well managed online reputation.
At CourseMarketing, we help you map out customer service response scenarios, crisis response plans, and leverage negativity online for new opportunity in creating engagement and happy conversions.
KEY BUSINESS IMPACTS
Community
Engagement
Engagement is a fundamental part of post-conversion marketing. Once someone becomes a client, customer or student, what's next?
Crisis Aversion and Diversion
A PR crisis takes even the most pro-active brands by surprise. Be ready for anything by preparing for crisis scenarios in advance.
Reputation
Lift
Negative reviews online impact your ability to generate new leads, enrollments or sales. Managing these is key.
FOCUS ON: STRATEGIC PLANNING
Is your marketing just selling, or gathering insights for innovation?
Your marketing department is likely sitting on a wealth of consumer data that hasn't been utilized to the its advantage. Your marketing mechanisms can unveil overlooked demographics, holes in your product or curriculum, or opportunities for feedback sessions that change your previous approach.
Consider this: can you break down your marketing data down into events, (sales, registrations, conversion points,) attributes, (demographics, geographies, territories,) and IDs, (emails, cookies, customer IDs,) and if so -- how does this data inform business strategy? Are you segmenting this data in the first place?
KEY BUSINESS IMPACTS
Customized
Analytics
We work with EducationAnalytics.org to craft data strategies that bring more meaning to your marketing efforts.
Less Spend,
More Accuracy
Getting your marketing data right can be a chicken/egg situation. Adapt your mechanisms to craft better, more successful campaigns.
Product/Service
Development
Social listening is good for more than just managing brand reputation. Utilize these insights to develop new services and products.
What does our process for new clients look like?
Stage One:
Discovery and Proposal
First, we talk about what's worked well for your business in the past, as well as aspirational goals for the future.
We then look to market data to form a strategic content marketing campaign concept, and seek approval from your team.
Stage Two:
Kickoff / Execute / Regroup
An official kickoff period including a team on-boarding session (or workshop,) helps solidify our campaign goals together.
From there, the work is executed with touch base meetings weekly to stay on track and regroup as-needed.
Stage Three:
Measure Analytics and KPIs
Post campaign, we want to use data to identify our success. Once we have an idea of what's working, we can make recommendations for the future.
Our client work cycles tend to happen quarterly, or in 6-12 month contractual agreements.
Ready to learn more?
We’ll give you a short 20 minute introductory call.
Schedule for us to call you here: