H2H Schools Blog

Changing Dynamics of International School Admissions in Japan

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 18:47:00 GMT

Change is the only constant, and Japan is no exception. Japan is experiencing significant shifts in industry and expat mobility, with significant implications for international schools. At IMPACT, we’re not just observers; we have navigated these types of changes alongside our partner schools all over the world. We understand Japan’s unique context, informed by the country's heritage and culture and the plethora of international school options for families. Let's delve deeper into these challenges and explore effective marketing strategies for international schools in Japan, particularly content marketing strategies, to adapt to this changing environment.

Challenge: Coping with increasing competition

As of December 2023, Japan was host to 95 international schools, notably concentrated in cities like Tokyo, Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe, and Nagoya. This number substantially increased from just a decade ago, emphasizing the growing demand for international education in Japan. However, many new international schools entering the marketplace, including British and other private and not-for-profit international schools, are reshaping the landscape, challenging traditional admissions processes for schools with decades of experience in the region.

The influx of international schools is challenging and evolving the market, impacting the unspoken agreements between schools that existed for the benefit of all parties involved. They bring with them global brand appeal and resources that can dwarf the efforts of smaller, independent schools or even larger schools that got complacent with their renowned standing in the region. This evolving regional landscape impacts the demand on longstanding international schools, necessitating new strategies, including a digital marketing mix, to combat the bold strategies of new schools entering the market, which may have larger marketing budgets than long-standing, credible schools deserving as much if not more, awareness.

Solution: Boldly and proudly communicate your school’s differentiators

In order to distinguish your school, effectively understanding and communicating your differentiators becomes a vital strategy. It’s no longer enough to simply exist; schools must shout from the rooftops (or at least from their well-designed websites and social media platforms) what makes them unique. This is where the art of storytelling comes into play with bold practices.

Share success stories, highlight unique programs, and showcase what life at your school really looks like. Remember, in a sea of sameness, it’s the unique fish that gets noticed. Even when schools share similar traits, in a sea of silence, you will become invisible or the school that stands out because you are the best at communicating and demonstrating these traits. Articulating a distinct brand identity, core values, and a compelling mission statement becomes indispensable to attracting families who are drawn to your school’s unique culture, brand, and values.

Are your alumni making an impact on the world since moving on to higher education? Are current students participating in interesting and exciting events and activities? Are your faculty members publishing research and getting noticed as thought leaders in their field? Collect and share the stories of your community that best communicate the heart of your school and secure your international school’s reputation in the region as the best international school in Japan.

Challenge: Navigating a decreasing expat population

Though Japan remains an attractive destination for the expat population, recent trends indicate a shift in the demographics of expat movement to Japan. The number of expat families, traditionally the primary clientele for international schools, is decreasing. As a result, international school admissions in Japan have become a more challenging landscape to navigate. Both the size of the pool and the composition of potential students are changing and require a shift in marketing strategies for your international school.

Solution: Embrace Japan’s allure as the destination for expats

Japan's allure for expats extends beyond the conventional. It's not just about sushi, samurai, and sakura; it's about the promise of stability, safety, and a rich cultural experience for families of all kinds. Some of the allure for international expats to go to Japan include:

Stable Economy: As the world's third-largest economy, Japan offers a wide range of professional opportunities and economic stability. This aspect can be a major draw for families considering relocation, particularly withpolicy changes to entice affluent Chinese families to Japan.

Safety: With one of the lowest crime rates in the world, Japan offers a secure environment, which is a meaningful draw for families.

Cultural Richness: Japan's blend of ancient traditions and cutting-edge modernity provides a unique learning environment for students. International schools can leverage this by integrating local cultural experiences into their academic experience.

Friendly Environment: Japan's reputation for hospitality extends to its kind treatment of foreigners. This makes it an ideal location for families looking for an international experience in a friendly setting.

So, what does this mean for international school admissions in Japan? International schools must position themselves not simply as a school but as the top choice for expat families moving to Japan. Marketing strategies should be designed to showcase how schools can facilitate a smooth transition both into Japan and back to the families' home country, especially if the family comes to Japan on a temporary posting, as is common for many expat families choosing international education in Japan.

But how does a school differentiate when other schools in the region say, post, and publish similar messages? Find ways to communicate the unique aspects of your school and how expat families thrive in your community through storytelling. Use testimonials of current and former families whose stories align with the persona your school is best suited to serve or is seeking to attract, create resources for incoming families to familiarize themselves with your unique region of Japan, and leverage what makes Japan an amazing place to live - and go to school - to your advantage.

Optimizing strategies for international school admissions in Japan

Navigating change in international school admissions in Japan demands strategies that resonate with different and unique groups. Effective communication of brand identity, alignment with Japan’s allure, and developing adaptable strategies are essential in attracting and retaining families within Japan’s educational environment.

Depending on which market you are trying to pull from, international schools in Japan will need to create personalized, experiential, data-driven strategies to accomplish these goals. By optimizing your strategies for different geographic and cultural markets, your audience will connect with your marketing materials more effectively, ultimately driving admissions goals.

For example, creating marketing content for Chinese families would involve different language and messaging, tone, marketing channels, and strategies than marketing to incoming expats from the US. The market for Japanese international school recruitment in China is growing, as affluent Chinese families are increasingly choosing Japan - and Japanese international schools - to emigrate to. Japanese government subsidies are drawing wealthy Chinese families into the country, in large part due to changes to Visa qualifications, eliminating the necessity of a 5 million yen ($33,000 USD) investment before immigration eligibility.

If your international school seeks to draw in Chinese families and students, consider developing content that directly responds to their unique needs; if your school would instead prioritize American or Western families, consider how the same information could be repackaged to attract this different audience.

While the challenges facing Japanese international school admissions are real, they are not insurmountable. By embracing your school's unique identity, aligning with Japan’s allure, developing marketing content that uniquely attracts a specific market, and adapting your strategies to the changing landscape, you can continue to attract and retain families in this dynamic educational environment.

Real Stories, Real Impact: 6 Community Groups to Engage in Your International School Marketing Efforts

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 17:58:00 GMT

At IMPACT, we understand the heart of your school’s marketing lies within its vibrant community. This community is a treasure trove of stories and experiences that can powerfully impact your international school marketing efforts. To leverage this, we recommend engaging six key groups in your content creation process; this approach makes your marketing not just informative but also emotionally resonant and testimonial-based.

Community perspectives to include in content creation for international schools

The best promoters of your school are those within your existing community - so talk to them! Here are the six main groups that should be engaged in creating community-generated content for your international school marketing plan.

1. Teachers & Faculty

Your faculty is the cornerstone of your school’s educational offering. They bring a wealth of knowledge and a diverse range of experiences, both inside and outside the classroom. Encourage them to share their innovative teaching methods, research projects, and personal insights into the educational process. When they contribute content, it doesn’t just highlight their expertise - it demonstrates the supportive, engaging, and intellectually stimulating environment of your school. Faculty stories serve as a testament to your commitment to academic excellence and lifelong learning - so share their stories with pride! Not only can faculty stories drive Admissions goals, but they can also drive HR and faculty recruitment goals as well!

2. Parents

Parents play a crucial role in your school community. They are not just your audience for your marketing content but also your partners in the educational journey. Involving them in your content creation process offers a unique perspective that resonates with prospective families. By sharing their experiences and insights, from PTA meetings to family events hosted on campus, they provide an authentic glimpse into the community your school nurtures. This authentic representation of family engagement in school significantly enhances your digital marketing strategies, building trust and connection with prospective parents.

Read more about engaging your community as content creators here.

3. Students

Students are more than just learners; they are the lifeblood of your school. Their daily experiences, from the classroom to extracurricular activities, are a wealth of stories just waiting to be shared. Encourage them to document their journey - whether it’s a science experiment, a music rehearsal, or a moment of discovery in the library. This adds authenticity and vibrancy to your international school marketing strategy and creates opportunities to celebrate their achievements and showcase your school’s dynamic community. Plus, you could inadvertently spark a student’s creative journey into photography or videography, leaving a lasting impression on their lives.

4. Alumni

Alumni are the living legacy of your school’s success. At IMPACT, we consistently see that the top-performing blog posts from our content marketing strategies for international schools are related to alumni content. Their journeys and achievements carry immense value, demonstrating the long-term impact of your educational environment. Stories from alumni, be it about their professional achievements, community involvement, or continuous learning pursuits, serve as powerful testimonials and provide current and prospective families with a window into the potential future afforded by an education from your school. Alumni stories bridge the past and present, showcasing the enduring values and success your school fosters, so share them wide and watch your engagement with prospective families grow!

5. City and local tourism offices

Collaborating with city and local tourism offices can significantly enhance your international school's digital presence. These offices can provide unique insights into the local culture, events, and amenities, enriching your community-generated content. By highlighting how your school is engaged with the local community, you can attract families looking for a holistic educational experience for their children that extends beyond the school gates. Partnerships with these offices can lead to collaborative events and activities, showcasing the school’s involvement and integration with the local culture, thereby bolstering your school's appeal to international families and your website’s engagement. Sounds like a win-win, right?

6. Event organizers and hospitality teams

Event organizers and hospitality teams play a vital role in showcasing the school’s commitment to community engagement and excellence. Featuring events, whether academic, cultural, or social, organized in collaboration with these teams can highlight the school's active role in creating a diverse and inclusive environment. This content not only showcases the vibrant life at the school but also demonstrates how the school goes beyond academics to offer a well-rounded experience. Highlighting these collaborations in your international school marketing content can further reinforce the school’s position as a community hub, attracting prospective families who value a rich, engaging educational environment.

Navigating the digital marketing maze: How a digital marketing dashboard can revolutionize your international school marketing

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 23:14:00 GMT

The digital revolution has driven change in every industry, and international education is no exception. With a multitude of tools at their disposal, including Google Ads, Meta Ads, SEO software, social media accounts, and lead generation tools, marketing teams in international schools are in a data-driven frenzy. It’s a challenge they are all too familiar with - an overwhelming influx of data from various sources, all telling the story of a different element of your overall marketing strategy. But there’s a solution that promises to simplify this chaos: a digital marketing dashboard. Let’s explore what a digital marketing dashboard is and how it can be a game changer for international schools.

What is a digital marketing dashboard?

A digital marketing dashboard is a central command center for marketing departments. It brings together data from a range of marketing tools and channels into one streamlined and convenient source. A digital marketing dashboard streamlines data management, analysis, and reporting, providing a one-stop solution for monitoring and optimizing your marketing efforts.

The data overload dilemma

International school marketing teams often find themselves buried under mountains of data. The proliferation of digital marketing tools has resulted in an avalanche of information, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The challenge is not just in collecting data but making sense of it all and using it to drive meaningful marketing strategies.

Key benefits of a digital marketing dashboard for schools

Effective marketing for international schools is increasingly data-driven, demanding the organization and interpretation of vast amounts of information. To navigate this data-rich landscape, a digital marketing dashboard has become indispensable. A dashboard offers a range of benefits that empower international school marketing teams to make data-backed decisions, driving the achievement of their organizational goals. Here are several key benefits of a digital marketing dashboard for international schools.

Streamlined data management

A digital marketing dashboard simplifies data management by aggregating information from various sources. Instead of juggling multiple platforms, schools can access all their data in one place. This not only saves time but also minimizes errors in data handling.

Real-time insights

A stand-out feature of a digital marketing dashboard is its ability to provide real-time insights. Schools can monitor the performance of their marketing efforts as it happens. This feature is invaluable for making quick adjustments to campaigns and strategies, ensuring you stay on track with your goals.

Data visualization

Data can be daunting when presented in raw numbers. A digital marketing dashboard uses charts, graphs, and other visuals to present data in an understandable and visually appealing format. This not only makes data analysis easier but also helps in effectively communicating results to relevant stakeholders like the head of school and board members.

Customization

Flexibility is a significant advantage of a digital marketing dashboard. Schools can tailor the dashboard to display the specific metrics that matter most to their unique marketing objectives. Whether it’s website traffic, click-through rates, or lead conversion, a dashboard can be customized to your school’s needs.

How to get started with a digital marketing dashboard

Are you ready to harness the power of a digital marketing dashboard? Here’s how you can get started:

Identify objectives: Define your marketing objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track.
Choose the right tool: Select a digital marketing dashboard that suits your school’s specific needs and budget.
Integrate data sources: Integrate your data sources, including Google Ads, Meta Ads, SEO software, social media accounts, lead generation platforms, and any other tool used by your marketing team.
Customize your dashboard: Tailor your dashboard to display the metrics that are most relevant to your marketing goals.
Team training and consultation: Ensure your full team is well-trained in using the dashboard effectively.

A digital marketing dashboard is the key to transforming the data overload dilemma into a streamlined, data-driven marketing strategy for international schools. It offers streamlined data management, real-time insights, data visualization, customization, and improved communication with stakeholders. If you’re ready to take control of your marketing efforts, a digital marketing dashboard might be the game-changer you’ve been looking for.

From Click to Classroom: Why International Schools Need a Google Ads Strategy

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 03:48:00 GMT

Before the digital marketing era, researching a school meant visiting campuses, picking up brochures and other marketing materials, and learning as much about the school as possible. Today, traditional methods of outreach and engagement are being complemented, if not overshadowed, by digital marketing efforts. More than ever, parents turn to online platforms to gather information, assess school options, and make informed decisions regarding their child's education. This shift in prospective families’ behavior means schools need to adapt their school marketing plan for enrollment to include digital marketing strategies, and Google Ads can be your gateway to transforming clicks into real students filling classrooms.

Why Google is an Essential Part of a School Marketing Plan

Largely due to the digital revolution, prospective parents no longer rely solely on word–of–mouth recommendations or brochures. Parents take an active approach to making the most of their digital journey, utilizing search engines to explore and evaluate potential schools. The modern parent is empowered with the ability to access a wealth of information at their fingertips. From curriculum details and extracurricular offerings to reviews and testimonials, online research has become a cornerstone of decision-making. This shift in parent behaviour means schools need to catch up, or risk being overshadowed by their competitors in the digital space.

Maintaining a strong online presence becomes an essential part of a school marketing plan. First impressions matter - your school's online presence is the first introduction for many parents. An engaging and informative website, active social media profiles, and compelling digital content collectively contribute to shaping the perception of your institution. When developing a marketing plan for school enrollment, international schools experience the added challenge that they are not just competing locally; they are vying for attention on a global scale. A strong online presence is not only a necessity for local parents but also a means to attract the attention of expatriate families who might be considering relocation.

In this challenging and competitive digital landscape, standing out requires strategic visibility. This is where Google Ads comes into play. Google Ads is a powerful tool that allows schools to position themselves prominently when parents search for relevant keywords, ensuring that your school is part of the digital world they explore.

Beyond organic search results, Google Ads provides a means to strategically position your school at the forefront of search engine results. This is pivotal, especially considering the limited attention span of online users. Google Ads can also be targeted to find qualified prospective families and showcase your brand across various Google products and services.

In essence, Google Ads is not merely an advertising platform; it is a vital component of a comprehensive school marketing plan. It aligns with the digital behavior of today's parents, ensuring that your school doesn't just appear in online searches but stands out as a compelling choice in the competitive world of international education.

Benefits of Google Ads in Your School Marketing Plan

There are four main reasons why international schools need a Google Ads strategy as a part of their school marketing plan:

Increased Website Traffic

A well-optimized Google Ads campaign directs qualified traffic to your school's website. This is crucial for international schools, as the website is a primary source of information for prospective parents and students.

Strategic Positioning

Google Ads allows schools to position themselves strategically when parents and students are actively searching for educational options. By bidding on relevant keywords, your school can appear at the top of search results, increasing visibility among an audience seeking information about your school.

Flexible Budgeting

No matter the size of your school or your marketing budget, Google Ads accommodates various budget sizes, making it accessible to small and large international schools. This flexibility allows international schools to tailor their advertising spending based on their specific goals and financial capacities.

Data-Driven Insights

Google Ads provides a wealth of data and analytics. Schools can gain insights into the performance of their campaigns, understanding what works and optimizing strategies accordingly.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MOMENTRICS, THE DIGITAL MARKETING DASHBOARD DESIGNED FOR SCHOOLS.

Understanding Google Ads

Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google. It operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) model, where advertisers bid on keywords to have their clickable ads appear in Google's search results. Google Ads operates as an auction, meaning advertisers bid on keywords relevant to their target audience. The ads are then displayed to users who search for those keywords.

By incorporating Google Ads into your school marketing plan, schools can reach prospective students and families from all over the world. Google is the most widely used search engine globally, processing over 3.5 billion searches per day. This massive user base provides an unprecedented opportunity for international schools to reach a diverse and expansive audience.

One of the strengths of Google Ads lies in its ability to target specific geographic locations. This is particularly advantageous for international schools that aim to attract students from various parts of the world.

Targeting the Right Audience

International schools, in particular, need to tailor their strategies to resonate with a specific audience—those parents and students who align with the school's ethos, programs, and values. Casting a wide net might generate clicks, but targeted efforts convert clicks into meaningful engagements.

First, begin by refining your brand and brand promise. A targeted approach allows for a more refined and tailored message. Rather than delivering a generic appeal, schools can address the unique needs and aspirations of their ideal audience.

A benefit of targeting your Google Ads strategy is efficient resource allocation - Marketing resources are finite, and allocating them effectively is crucial. By identifying and targeting the right audience, international schools can maximize the impact of their campaigns and avoid wasting resources on less relevant demographics.

Google Ads allows precise audience targeting in three main categories:

Keyword Relevance

Google Ads operates on keywords, allowing advertisers to bid on specific terms related to their offerings. This ensures that the ads are displayed to users actively searching for information relevant to the school's programs.

Geo-Targeting

For international schools, the ability to target specific geographic locations is invaluable. Google Ads enables schools to reach prospective students and parents in specific countries or regions, aligning with their global recruitment strategies.

Demographic Filters

Google Ads provides sophisticated demographic targeting options. Schools can narrow down their audience based on factors such as age, gender, income, and even parental status, ensuring that their message reaches those most likely to be interested.

Incorporating targeted strategies into the school marketing plan, especially through Google Ads, is a pivotal step from generating clicks to filling classrooms. By understanding and reaching the right audience, international schools can transform their online presence into meaningful connections that endure from the click to the classroom.

Building Brand Awareness

Brand awareness goes beyond recognition; it encapsulates the reputation, values, and identity of a school. For international schools seeking to attract students globally, building a robust brand becomes a cornerstone of their success.

Whether choosing a school locally or internationally, parents seek institutions they can trust. A well-established brand exudes credibility, creating a sense of security for parents entrusting their children's education to the school. A Google Ads strategy can also give your school a competitive edge - in a global context, where choices are abundant, international schools need a distinct edge. A strong brand sets them apart, positioning the school as a leader and influencer in the international education space.

Incorporating Google Ads into the school marketing plan isn't just about acquiring clicks; it's a powerful strategy for nurturing brand awareness. From enhancing trust and credibility to gaining a competitive edge, the platform acts as a catalyst for international schools to transform clicks into a global classroom presence.

Driving Admissions and Inquiries

By connecting Google Ads strategy to your enrollment funnel, international schools can use the powerful tool to drive admissions and inquiries and meet your enrollment goals. The enrollment funnel outlines the stages a prospective family goes through, from awareness to application. Google Ads, when strategically employed, becomes a powerful guide throughout this journey.

Here’s how Google Ads can guide families on their journey through different stages of their independent research:

Awareness

At the top of the funnel, Google Ads serves as a beacon, introducing prospective students and parents to the school. Whether through display ads showcasing campus life or search ads triggered by educational keywords, the aim is to create awareness and initiate exploration.

Consideration

As families move deeper into the enrollment funnel, their interest becomes more refined. Google Ads allows for targeted campaigns, presenting specific programs, unique selling points, and the overall value proposition of the school. Engaging ad copy and visuals play a pivotal role in this consideration phase.

Decision and Call-to-Action

When families reach the decision-making stage, Google Ads can strategically prompt specific actions. This could include compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) directing users to application forms, virtual tours, or informational webinars. The goal is to seamlessly transition from a click on the ad to active engagement with the school.

Begin your Marketing Journey with Google Ads Strategy

Google Ads can be a game-changer for international school marketing. A well-crafted and meticulously executed Google Ads strategy has the power to transcend geographical boundaries, reaching parents and students actively seeking an international education.

A comprehensive school marketing plan isn't complete without a digital strategy that leverages the capabilities of Google Ads. It's not just about clicks; it's about converting those clicks into meaningful connections and, eventually, students in the classroom.

Meta Momentum: Igniting Growth in International School Enrollment Strategy

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 21:01:00 GMT

When developing a marketing plan for school admissions, staying ahead of competitors demands innovative strategies that resonate with evolving digital trends. International schools are increasingly incorporating Meta Ads into their international school enrollment strategy and using the power of momentum to ignite growth in a marketing plan for school admissions that delivers results and drives enrollment.

Why international schools need a Meta Ads strategy

To outshine competitors in international school marketing, schools must adopt inventive approaches that resonate with the ever-evolving digital landscape. By embracing the power of Meta Ads, schools can develop an enrollment marketing strategy that includes building brand awareness and community engagement, ultimately resulting in more inquiries from culture-matched families.

Here’s why international schools need to incorporate a Meta Ads strategy into their marketing plan for school admissions.

Global reach to a diverse audience

With their extensive user base of over 2.9 billion active members on Facebook and 2.35 billion on Instagram, Meta platforms offer a unique opportunity for international schools to reach a global audience. This global reach is invaluable, allowing schools to connect with parents and students from all over the world.

Targeted marketing for enrollment success

A great benefit of using Meta Ads in an international school enrollment strategy is the ability to target ads to a specific audience. Meta Ads provide sophisticated tools for audience targeting, allowing schools to tailor their messages to specific audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviours.

Visibility in a crowded digital space

As anyone who has been on the internet knows, there’s a lot of information out there to sift through. In the especially crowded and competitive international school market, it can be challenging to stand out and not have a school’s presence overshadowed by competition. Meta Ads cut through the noise, offering strategic placement to ensure that a school’s message is seen by the right people at the right time.

Enhancing brand awareness

Building a strong brand is integral to the success of a marketing plan for school admissions. Meta Ads contribute significantly to brand awareness by putting your school in front of a huge audience of over five billion people between Facebook and Instagram.

Adapting to shifting parental behaviour

While word-of-mouth is typically part of a family’s decision-making process, prospective parents turn to digital platforms not only to gather information about the schools in an area that are of interest to them but also to get a sense of the school’s culture and community. A Meta Ads strategy aligns with this behaviour, meeting parents where they are most active online.

Complementing traditional marketing plans

The relevancy of traditional marketing methods has not disappeared completely, but by incorporating a Meta Ads strategy into a marketing plan for school admissions, international schools create a symbiotic relationship where each strategy compliments the other. While traditional methods may speak to one group of prospective parents, Meta Ads add a dynamic and interactive dimension to an international school marketing plan, engaging the more digital-savvy parents effectively.

Data-driven insights for informed decisions

An important benefit of incorporating Meta Ads into an international school marketing plan is the data derived from Meta Ads use. Meta Ads provide comprehensive analytics, offering insights into campaign performance, audience engagement, and, ultimately areas for improvement. Schools can use the information derived from data and analytics to make data-driven decisions and ultimately improve their overall marketing plan for school admissions.

Fostering engagement and interaction

Interactive content is key to engaging with prospective parents and students. Meta Ads foster engagement, as they allow interactive features, including likes, comments, and shares, that amplify the school’s reach. A share or a like from a current parent promoter can add legitimacy to a school’s message and add authentic experiences and opinions to the digital conversation about a school.

More than just ads - it’s about momentum

A Meta Ads strategy is not just about placing ads and hoping for the best; it’s about strategically positioning your international school in the digital space where enrollment decisions are increasingly being made. The global reach, precision targeting, and interactive nature of Meta Ads make them a vital component of a comprehensive marketing plan for school admissions. As international schools navigate the complexities of an international school enrollment strategy, embracing Meta Ads can be the spark for adding momentum to your marketing strategies, ultimately igniting growth and reaching new heights of success.

Why a Digital Marketing Audit is a Worthwhile Investment for your School

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 19:48:00 GMT

With the ever-increasing reliance on digital platforms, international schools need to leverage effective digital marketing strategies to effectively communicate their unique offerings, attract prospective students, and stand out in a highly competitive landscape.

Let’s explore the significance of digital marketing for international schools and the transformative power of a digital marketing audit in achieving your school's marketing objectives.

A digital marketing audit is a comprehensive evaluation and analysis of all your school's online marketing strategies, activities, and channels. In the context of digital marketing for international schools, this audit is an essential process aimed at assessing and optimizing your school's online presence and outreach efforts to effectively engage with a global audience of students and parents.

An agency that specializes in working with international schools should understand the unique challenges in reaching and appealing to a diverse international student body. A digital marketing audit specifically tailored to the needs of international schools encompasses a thorough examination of various digital marketing elements, including:

Website performance
Content strategy
Social media presence
Paid advertising
Email marketing
SEO and keywords
Competitor analysis

Click here to learn more about the key components of a digital marketing audit for international schools.

In essence, a digital marketing audit is a valuable tool to help you understand your school’s digital presence, identify areas for improvement as well as opportunities to differentiate from your competitors, and tailor your online marketing efforts to resonate with the diverse and culture-matched international audience you aim to attract. It's an investment that yields actionable insights and sets the stage for a successful and targeted digital marketing strategy.

When should a school conduct a digital marketing audit?

The timing of a digital marketing audit is dependent upon many factors, most importanly, the goal you hope to achieve from its outcomes.While the exact timing can vary based on specific circumstances, here are key instances when conducting a digital marketing audit is not just advisable but essential.

Annually

An annual audit is a proactive approach to ensure your digital marketing strategies remain aligned with your school's objectives. The international education landscape is dynamic, with evolving trends and preferences among students and parents. Regular audits keep you agile and help you stay ahead of the competition.

Performance Decline

When you notice a decline in your digital marketing performance metrics, such as decreasing website traffic, dwindling engagement rates on social media, or rising bounce rates, it's a yellow flag. A digital marketing audit can pinpoint the issues causing the decline and offer strategies for revitalization.

Competitive Pressure

If you've noticed intensified competition in your region, it's essential to assess how your digital marketing efforts compare to the ever-increasing number of local and nonlocal competition. A digital marketing audit can uncover opportunities to differentiate your school from others in the global marketplace.

Change in the leadership team

Whenever there's a change in leadership or key members of your marketing team, conducting an audit is wise to ensure that institutional knowledge is preserved, and the new team can understand the strengths and weaknesses of your existing digital marketing strategies.

Budget Reallocations

When considering reallocating your marketing budget or exploring new digital marketing channels, an audit provides insights into which areas are delivering the best results and where adjustments can be made for optimal ROI.

Proactive, not reactive

By strategically timing your digital marketing audit in alignment with these scenarios, your school can proactively address challenges, seize opportunities, and refine your digital marketing strategies to achieve better outcomes on a global scale. It's a forward-thinking investment that ensures your school remains competitive and appealing to prospective international students and their families.

Key benefits of choosing an agency for your digital marketing audit

When it comes to conducting a digital marketing audit for your school, deciding whether to handle it in-house or partner with a specialized agency is a critical choice, particularly in the context of digital marketing for international schools. Here are several key benefits that emphasize why entrusting this task to an agency can be a strategic and valuable decision.

Objective perspective

An agency provides an unbiased, outside perspective of your school’s digital marketing efforts. They can assess your digital marketing strategies without being influenced by internal biases or preconceived notions, which can lead to more objective findings and recommendations.

Efficiency and focus

Outsourcing the audit allows your school's marketing team to remain focused on their day-to-day responsibilities. This ensures that ongoing marketing efforts are not disrupted while the audit is conducted efficiently by experts.

Benchmarking against industry standards

Agencies have a broader view of the digital marketing landscape and can benchmark your school's performance against industry standards and best practices. This helps you understand where you stand in relation to your peers and competitors.

Expertise in international education

A specialized agency brings in-depth knowledge of the unique challenges and opportunities within the international education sector. We understand the nuances of marketing to a global student and parent audience, ensuring your audit is tailored to the specific needs of your international school.

Global perspective

If your school has an international presence or aims to attract students from various regions, an agency can offer a global perspective. They understand the diverse cultural and linguistic considerations required for successful international marketing.

Comprehensive analysis

Agencies can provide a comprehensive analysis that covers all aspects of digital marketing, including website performance, content strategy, social media, paid advertising, SEO, and more. This holistic approach ensures no critical areas are overlooked.

Customized recommendations

Agencies can tailor their recommendations based on your school's goals and challenges. They don't offer one-size-fits-all solutions but rather strategies that align with your specific objectives in the realm of digital marketing for international schools.

Long-term partnership

Beyond the audit, agencies often provide ongoing support and partnership. They can assist in implementing recommended strategies, monitoring progress, and adapting to evolving trends, ensuring your school's continued success in the digital space.

Choosing an agency for your digital marketing audit is an investment in expertise, efficiency, and effectiveness. It allows your school to tap into specialized knowledge and resources, ultimately leading to a more informed and strategic approach to your international school's digital marketing efforts.

Harness the power of a digital marketing audit for your school

The digital sphere has become the primary arena for communicating your school's unique offerings, attracting prospective students from around the world, and establishing a distinct presence in the highly competitive international education sector.

By investing in a digital marketing audit, you're investing in the future success and growth of your international school. It's a proactive step towards adapting to changing global dynamics, staying competitive in a crowded marketplace, and ultimately achieving your school's marketing objectives.

A Double-Edged Sword: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Using AI as a Brainstorming Assistant in School Marketing Strategies

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 23:39:00 GMT

In the ever-evolving realm of school marketing strategies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) bears the potential to redefine the landscape. Serving as a digital brainstorming and research assistant, AI opens up avenues for innovation, efficiency, and precision. Yet, as we stand on this new frontier, the introduction of AI is not without its complexities and concerns. It is, indeed, a double-edged sword, a tool that could either elevate brand messaging and escalate awareness or lead to the erosion of your independent school's distinctive brand identity.

This is the first of a series of articles about the possibilities and pitfalls of using AI in your school's digital strategy for enrollment, brand awareness, and HR recruitment. In this first blog, we look into using AI in the brainstorming and research process for school marketing strategy.

Broadly speaking, you've been using AI for years. You just didn't know it. The topic of artificial intelligence can, and will, go on for years as it becomes a part of every facet of our lives. For the purposes of this series of blogs, we are referring to utilizing ChatGPT and content writing tools that use ChatGPT as it relates to marketing, communications, admissions, and faculty recruitment for independent and international schools.

The Possibilities: How AI Can Enhance School Brand Messages

You've heard that AI, when harnessed effectively, can drastically enhance the impact of your school's brand messages, but how? It's good to remember that while doing a Google search has become intuitive, everyone has had the experience of refining their search terms repetitively to get the results they're looking for. AI is no different. There's a learning curve, and ultimately, no two individuals - or marketers - are going to dialogue with AI in the same way. Even if you leverage a list of prompts from "experts" or industry associates, you will end up crafting your unique way of drawing the content you want from AI. Like everything, using AI has a learning curve, and adoption of the tools will vary greatly.

ChatGPT is like a thesaurus on steroids. Instead of providing you with an exchange of one word for another, it can provide you with new ways of phrasing an entire sentence, paragraph, or series of paragraphs. As someone responsible for writing content for your school, your personal writing tone may vary from the tone of the school brand. The content tone may need to shift depending on whether you are writing to a multilingual parent audience, the board of directors, or prospective faculty members. Rarely, if ever, will you want to copy and paste directly from ChatGPT for any one of these audiences, but using AI can be equated to running your idea by a colleague or apprentice. The results can help you refine your messages.

The more information you provide to AI, the better your results. When creating brand messages for your school, you will need to summarize the school brand to the best of your ability in addition to the audience for the content piece you wish to create. One trick many people overlook is to prompt ChatGPT to ask you questions. After providing band and audience information, you may enter a prompt such as:

Provide a list of topics that would be valuable for this reader
What more must you know to help me write a blog on our school culture?
Provide three potential blog outlines on how team sports enhance student confidence.

Tools like Jasper AI allow you to enter your brand details in the main settings, so you don't have to repeat the process over and over as you do with ChatGPT. However, Jasper and other similar tools are quite complex, and at IMPACT, we've found the results are more authentic when we tap directly into ChatGPT. We continue to explore solutions to simplify the process rather than complicate it!

Using ChatGPT as a tool for idea generation can help shake you and your team into thinking outside of the box - from what you've always done - while keeping the humans in the mix will ensure you maintain the integrity and quality of the brand.

The Risks and Pitfalls of Using AI for Independent School Brand Messages

While AI holds potential, it's crucial to approach it with caution. One of the primary risks of using AI in marketing is the potential to dilute your brand identity. Independent schools pride themselves on their unique offerings and culture, and a heavy reliance on AI could lead to generic, impersonal messages that fail to convey these distinguishing features.

Another pitfall is the risk of giving AI more credit than it deserves. While you may ask ChatGPT to provide frequently used keywords, ChatGPT is not an authority on search terms. However, it will provide you with a list! Additionally, the information provided by ChatGPT is at least two years old. Advice on best practices on anything is, at best, helpful and, at worst, outdated and harmful.

Finally, we understand how demanding marketing, communications, and admissions roles are at schools. It can be tempting to depend too much on AI for content provision when time and energy are at a premium. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, AI is not savvy enough to fill the content writing position at your school.

The Future of AI in Independent School Marketing

Looking ahead, the role of AI in independent school marketing will likely expand. We can expect more sophisticated personalization, predictive analytics, and automation. Schools will increasingly use AI to enhance their brand messages, engage prospects, and measure campaign performance. Remember, AI is not a silver bullet. It's a tool that, when used effectively, can enhance your school's brand messages and marketing strategies. But it's also a tool that requires careful management, ethical usage, and human oversight. By understanding and managing the dual nature of AI, you can ensure it serves as a powerful ally in your school's marketing efforts.

Data-Driven Excellence: Why Schools Need a Digital Marketing Dashboard

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 23:04:00 GMT

Every school is unique, shaped by its distinct culture and values. In the realm of international education, where schools are vying for students from the same pool, crafting and delivering effective marketing messages is critical. However, it's not enough to create compelling campaigns; understanding how these strategies perform in the real world is equally crucial. The challenge is that sifting through various platforms to monitor and report on metrics can be an arduous and time-consuming endeavor.

In this blog post, we'll unravel a solution that simplifies this process and empowers schools to easily make data-driven decisions: the digital marketing dashboard. Here are six reasons a digital marketing dashboard is essential for your school’s marketing and communications teams.

1. Streamlined Data Management

Managing marketing data from various sources can quickly become overwhelming, time-consuming, and cumbersome. From website analytics to social media metrics and PPC campaign performance, schools generate a wealth of data. A digital marketing dashboard brings all this data together in one place, offering a consolidated view of your marketing landscape. This streamlining saves time and ensures data accuracy and consistency, which is crucial for making informed decisions.

2. Real-Time Insights

In the dynamic world of education, timely decision-making is paramount. Digital marketing dashboards provide real-time data updates, enabling schools to react promptly to changing market conditions and trends. Whether it's monitoring the impact of a recent social media campaign or tracking website traffic during an Open House ad campaign, real-time insights empower schools to stay agile and responsive to the needs of their audience.

3. Customized Reporting

One size does not fit all when it comes to reporting. Schools have unique goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), and a digital marketing dashboard allows for customizable reporting. Schools can tailor their dashboards to focus on the metrics that matter most to them. Whether it's tracking inquiries, blog traffic, or social media engagement, customized reporting ensures that schools are measuring what truly impacts their success.

4. Improved Decision-Making

Informed decision-making is at the core of a successful marketing strategy. Digital marketing dashboards provide the data necessary to make strategic decisions backed by evidence. For instance, if a school notices a spike in website traffic following a particular blog post, it can choose to produce additional content on the same topic. This data-driven approach minimizes guesswork and maximizes the impact of marketing efforts.

5. Improve Collaboration and Transparency

Marketing is a collaborative effort, often involving multiple stakeholders, from the marketing team to school administrators and board members. A digital marketing dashboard facilitates collaboration by providing a centralized platform where everyone can access, understand, and report on the data. This transparency fosters alignment of marketing goals with broader school objectives and encourages collaborative decision-making.

6. Tracking ROI

Return on Investment (ROI) is a critical metric for schools, especially when there is an investment of time and money. A digital marketing dashboard allows schools to track the ROI of various marketing initiatives accurately. For instance, it can provide insights into the effectiveness of paid advertising campaigns, showing which channels deliver the best results. This data enables schools to allocate their marketing budget more efficiently, focusing resources where they generate the highest return.

A digital marketing dashboard is an invaluable asset for schools looking to gain momentum in their marketing efforts. By streamlining data management, providing real-time insights, offering customized reporting, supporting informed decision-making, fostering collaboration, and enabling precise ROI tracking, a digital marketing dashboard becomes an indispensable tool for any educational institution.

Ready to harness the power of data and take your school's marketing to the next level? Consider integrating a digital marketing dashboard into your strategy, and watch as your efforts translate into meaningful results and lasting success.

6 Reasons Regional Exclusivity Matters: Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency for Schools

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 20:12:00 GMT

The digital marketing landscape has evolved dramatically with algorithm updates, and in the meteoric rise in the use of AI, schools are battling for online visibility more than ever before. In this highly competitive realm, how can your school ensure it stands out and resonates deeply with culture-matched families in ways that your competitors don’t? The answer might lie in choosing a digital marketing agency that offers regional exclusivity for your school.

Here’s why regional exclusivity could be the game-changer your school needs:

1. Undivided Attention

With regional exclusivity, a marketing agency dedicates all its resources, expertise, and focus to your school within a specified region. This means that their entire effort in that region is about making your school shine. It’s about quality over quantity – you’re not just another client but the premier client.

2. Preserving Your School's DNA

Every school has its distinct character, mission, and ethos. An agency offering exclusivity inherently values this individuality, working to accentuate and preserve your school’s DNA. There’s no risk of generic campaigns or strategies that overlap with other schools in your region.

3. Tailored Strategies

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. When an agency is deeply aligned with just your school in a region, they develop a profound understanding of your goals, challenges, and audience nuances. This intimacy translates to bespoke marketing campaigns that resonate powerfully with your prospective students, parents, and faculty.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE REGIONAL EXCLUSIVITY WE OFFER FOR OUR COMPETITIVE DIGITAL MARKETING AUDIT.

4. Competitive Advantage

Exclusivity isn't just a service feature—it's a strategic edge. In the realm of digital marketing, where schools often vie for the same demographic, the possibility of your strategies or insights being shared with rival institutions is nullified with an exclusivity agreement. Being solely committed to your school in the region, your marketing agency will innovate and adapt strategies uniquely tailored to your school. This means that every tactic, every piece of content, and every campaign is designed with only your school's success in mind.

Such undivided dedication ensures that your school stays one step ahead in the competitive landscape, leveraging insights and tactics that others in the region simply don't have access to. The assurance that your agency isn't splitting its loyalties or sharing its best practices with your competitors is invaluable in achieving unparalleled prominence in your region.

5. Enhanced Trust

It almost goes without saying: knowing that your marketing agency is exclusively working for your school in a particular region establishes a foundation of trust. The marketing agency you choose for your school should be a trusted member of your team and fully invested in your school’s success. An exclusive agreement in your region allows you to be transparent with your strategic plans and goals, knowing that the information stays within that relationship.

6. Aligned Values

Just as you are looking for culture-matched families and faculty to join your school, your agency should also align with your core values, mission, and ethos. Their job is to help you communicate those messages to your target audiences. If they are also working with other schools in your region, the messaging and communication of your school’s DNA may be diluted. An exclusivity agreement leads to more authentic and meaningful campaigns.

In a world cluttered with marketing messages and fierce competition, communicating your school’s unique offerings in a strategic and targeted way is more crucial than ever. Schools can enjoy undivided attention, bespoke strategies, and a distinct competitive edge by opting for a marketing agency that offers regional exclusivity. As you chart out your school's digital marketing journey, consider looking for a digital marketing agency that offers regional exclusivity; it could be the pivotal decision that sets your school apart.

Essential Checklist: How to Conduct a Digital Marketing Audit for Schools

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 08:59:00 GMT

Over the past decade, enrollment marketing has evolved and weathered many challenges when effectively marketing international schools and attracting students. With the exponential growth in the number of schools coupled with the decrease in expat family mobility, investing in a robust digital marketing strategy is no longer optional—it's a necessity. A comprehensive digital marketing audit is a powerful tool that can give your school a competitive edge.

Not only will a digital marketing audit empower you as a school marketing, communication or admissions professional to make data-driven decisions when creating your marketing strategy, but it will also help you create and communicate that analysis to your leadership team (your Head of School, your board, and other senior leadership).

By offering pragmatic insights into the competitive landscape, you will be informed and inspired to create momentum with a digital marketing strategy that communicates your school’s unique DNA (culture) as well as ensure you have a competitive advantage in your region.

1. Executive Summary: Overview and Key Findings

The executive summary serves as an introduction to the audit, providing an overview of its purpose, scope, and goals. It sets the stage for what follows and ensures all stakeholders understand the objectives of the audit. Additionally, the executive summary should highlight the key findings and recommendations derived from the analysis. This section provides a snapshot of the audit's outcomes and paves the way for more in-depth insights to follow.

2. School Profile: Know Yourself

Before delving into your competitors' strategies, it's crucial to have a solid understanding of your school's unique identity, your culture, and your brand’s DNA. This section outlines background information about your school, including its history, values, and mission. Define your target audience and customer segments, understanding the specific demographics and interests of your prospective students and parents. Moreover, articulate your school's unique selling proposition (USP)—what sets you apart from other schools? What makes your school different? Understanding your own strengths and values is the foundation upon which your marketing strategy will be built.

3. Competitor Analysis: Know Your Rivals

A thorough competitor analysis is at the heart of any effective digital marketing audit. Identify your main competitors and explore their online presence, including their websites, organic position in a Google search, social media profiles, and advertising campaigns.

Conduct in-depth competitive research by specifically paying attention to their strategies, tactics, messaging, and overall online positioning. By understanding what your competitors are doing well and where they might be falling short, you can adapt your own marketing efforts and identify unique opportunities for differentiation.

4. Website Analysis: The Digital Face of Your School’s Culture and Brand

Your school's website is the cornerstone of your digital presence. Assess its design, user experience, and functionality to ensure it aligns with your branding and meets the needs of your target audience. Evaluate its mobile-friendliness; over 54%* of all global website traffic comes from mobile phones*. That percentage jumps to 65%** for Asia.

Analyze the quality and relevance of your website's content, ensuring it effectively communicates your school's values, courses, and achievements. Your website is the primary touchpoint for potential students and parents, so making a positive first impression is crucial.

In fact, the 2022 Private School MarCom Survey Report by InspirED School Marketers, respondents indicated that the school’s website was the most effective digital marketing effort.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Boosting Your School Website’s Visibility

SEO is essential for ensuring your school website is discoverable in search engine results. With Google’s algorithms becoming increasingly sophisticated and the worldwide disruption of the AI revolution, SEO is much more complex than it was just a few years ago. It’s all about content, which we’ll discuss more in a later section.

Your digital market audit must include an evaluation of your organic search visibility and rankings to gain an understanding of how well your school is positioned against its competitors for relevant, high-value short and long-tail keywords. Assess on-page SEO factors like meta tags, keyword usage, and critical errors such as images that are too big or missing alt text, http to https linking errors, and redirect or 404-page errors.

Next, take a look at off-page factors like backlinks and online mentions. Improving your SEO ensures your school ranks higher in search results, increasing the likelihood of attracting organic traffic.

6. Paid Advertising: Reaching the Right Audience

Paid advertising, such as Google Ads, Bing or Baidu ads and social media ads, can significantly boost your school's visibility and reach. Analyze the performance of your paid advertising campaigns, including targeting, messaging, creatives, spend, and engagement rate. Compare your ad performance with that of your competitors to identify areas of improvement and fine-tune your advertising strategy. Effective paid advertising allows you to connect with your target audience at the right time and place, increasing the chances of conversion.

7. Social Media Presence: Engaging Your Community

Social media is a powerful tool for engaging with your current community as well as offering glimpses into student life and school culture for prospective students, parents, and faculty.

Evaluate your school's social media profiles across various platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Assess your social media content strategy, engagement metrics, and follower growth. Understanding how well your school connects with its community can enhance your social media efforts and build a strong online presence.

8. Content Marketing: Showcasing Your School’s Unique Culture

Content marketing serves many purposes, including storytelling to demonstrate your culture and school experience and for SEO purposes to improve your website’s ranking in search.

Whether it’s thought-leadership content that will bolster your school’s authority and reputation amongst peers and the education industry globally, or it highlights the unique experiences and exceptional learning opportunities for students, content marketing is critical to the success of your digital marketing strategy.

Your audit must include an analysis of your content marketing efforts, including blog posts, videos, infographics, and more. Assess your content's quality, relevance, and engagement metrics to understand its impact. Content marketing establishes your school as a thought leader in the industry, enhancing your credibility and attracting students seeking reliable educational institutions.

9. Email Marketing: Nurturing Relationships

Often schools think of email marketing as their weekly parent newsletter. While that is an essential component of your MarCom plan, it is vital to expand your definition of email marketing to include nurturing relationships with prospective students, parents, and alumni.

Analyze your email marketing campaigns, including content, design, and deliverability. Assess the engagement metrics of your emails to gauge their effectiveness. Email marketing effectively keeps your audience informed and engaged, fostering a sense of community and loyalty.

10. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Improving Conversions

Conversion rate optimization is all about improving the user experience and optimizing your website's performance to increase conversions. Analyze your website's conversion funnels and key performance indicators (KPIs). Evaluate the effectiveness of your landing pages, calls-to-action, and other conversion optimization techniques. By optimizing your conversion process, you can increase the number of inquiries and applications from potential students.

11. Analytics and Reporting: Measuring Success

Without thorough data tracking and analytics evaluation, no digital marketing audit is complete. Assess the company's data tracking setup and the analysis of key metrics and performance indicators. Ensure that your school has access to actionable insights and reporting tools to monitor progress and performance. You may want to consider a digital marketing dashboard to aggregate your analytics into one tool that allows you to monitor performance in real time and create reports for key stakeholders.

Regularly measuring and analyzing data is crucial for refining your marketing strategies and ensuring continuous improvement.

12. Recommendations and Action Plan: Opportunities to Differentiate

After analyzing the data and gathering insights, it's time to put it all together into actionable recommendations and outline the opportunities your school has to differentiate itself from competitors. Summarize the main findings from the audit, highlighting the most significant opportunities for improvement. Provide a clear and detailed action plan with timelines and responsibilities, outlining steps your school can take to enhance its digital marketing efforts. The action plan serves as a roadmap for creating momentum and achieving enrollment and other marketing goals.

A competitive digital marketing audit is a powerful tool for schools seeking to strengthen their online presence and outperform their competitors. By understanding your school's strengths and weaknesses, evaluating your competitors, and implementing actionable recommendations, you can gain a competitive advantage in the digital landscape and fuel the momentum needed to attract students and thrive in the competitive education market.

Ready to gain a competitive edge? Contact us today to schedule a consultation and discover how our competitive digital marketing audit can empower your school's success. Together, we'll fuel the momentum needed for your school to shine in the digital era.

Five Creative Marketing Ideas for International Schools

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 10:12:49 GMT

One of the hardest steps in creating a strong marketing strategy for your online presence is coming up with creative marketing ideas for your international school that will set you apart from the competition.

It’s no secret that blogs, eBooks, whitepapers, etc. are amazing pieces of content - we have witnessed the benefits of creating these types of content and do so for our clients repeatedly. We encourage you to do the same.

But what we’ve discovered in our analytics is when you bring innovation, personalization, interactivity, and/or creativity to your digital content - people engage with it longer and take more impactful steps.

A Roadmap to Fueling Momentum with a Digital Marketing Audit for Schools

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 23:43:00 GMT

Schools face fierce competition in attracting and enrolling students worldwide. International, independent, and private schools must regularly assess and optimize their digital marketing efforts to stay ahead of the competition and achieve enrollment goals.

By conducting a comprehensive, competitive digital marketing audit, schools can gain valuable insights into their current strategies, identify areas of improvement, uncover untapped opportunities, and create sustained momentum toward achieving school-wide goals. A digital marketing audit helps schools understand how they fare against their competitors and provides a roadmap for enhancing their digital presence, increasing brand visibility, and driving enrollment growth.

Key Components of a Digital Marketing Audit for Schools

A competitive digital marketing audit is a powerful tool that allows schools to better understand their online presence and market position compared to their competitors. By evaluating various aspects of digital marketing, schools can identify areas of improvement, capitalize on strengths, and seize opportunities in the market. Let's explore some of the key components that are typically included in a competitive digital marketing audit.

How to Conduct a Competitive Digital Marketing Audit for Your School

Competitor Analysis

Understanding your competition is crucial in developing a successful digital marketing strategy. An audit will identify your main competitors and examine their online presence, including their website design, social media profiles, paid advertising campaigns, and content marketing efforts.

Many schools don’t realize that their online competition may be different than the competitors you identify in your area. A digital audit will identify the schools competing with you for digital real estate space.

By analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, you will be better informed of areas your school can differentiate online.

FREE CHECKLIST: Download our handy checklist to ensure your digital marketing audit contain the essential analyses.

Website Analysis

Your website is often the first point of contact for potential families. An audit will evaluate its design, user experience, and overall performance by assessing factors such as website speed, mobile-friendliness, and search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure a seamless user experience. This data will help your school analyze the quality and relevance of your website and whether it is following best practices and its overall user experience and ability to engage and convert visitors.

In the 2022 Private School MarCom Survey Report by InspirED School Marketers , respondents indicated that the school’s website was the most effective digital enrollment marketing effort.

Search Engine Optimization

Optimizing your website for search engines is crucial for organic visibility. The audit will evaluate your current SEO practices, including on-page optimization (meta tags, headings, keywords) and off-page factors (backlinks, online mentions). By assessing your search engine rankings, you can compare your position for high-value keywords against competitors to identify areas for improvement and gain a competitive advantage.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is an effective vehicle to grow your website’s engagement. An audit will assess your paid advertising campaigns across various platforms, such as Google Ads and social media ads. An audit will evaluate your ad targeting, messaging, and creativity to ensure they align with your target audience.

Social Media Presence

Social media platforms are a great way to showcase your school’s unique identity and communicate with families who are a DNA match to your school in an authentic and relatable manner. A digital marketing audit will evaluate your social media profiles, assess your content strategy, engagement metrics, and follower growth, analyze the type and frequency of sharing content, and compare it to your competitors. This will help identify successful social media tactics and areas for improvement to strengthen your social media presence and focus your efforts on the strategies that bring the most return.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is an essential element of a comprehensive digital marketing audit as it plays a critical role in capturing and engaging your target audience while effectively communicating your school's unique brand DNA and culture. During the audit, we thoroughly assess the quality, relevance, and engagement of your blog posts, videos, infographics, and other content assets to ensure a seamless conversion pathway for prospective students and parents. By comparing your content marketing strategies with your competitors, we identify gaps and uncover opportunities for differentiation, allowing your school to stand out in the crowded educational landscape.

Our evaluation ensures that your content is valuable, informative, and aligned with the needs of your target audience. We measure engagement metrics to gauge its effectiveness in capturing and retaining attention. By optimizing your content strategies, we help you position your school as an authoritative source of information, thereby establishing trust with prospective students and parents, and creating a conversion pathway that aligns with your school’s goals.

Email Marketing

A digital marketing audit will thoroughly analyze your email marketing campaigns, assess your subscriber list's quality, and evaluate your email content, design, and deliverability. The goal is to identify areas for improvement and enhance engagement, ultimately driving conversions. By reviewing your email marketing strategies, an audit will provide recommendations and best practices tailored to optimize your email campaigns and maximize their effectiveness. Our audit ensures that your school's email marketing efforts align with industry standards and deliver compelling content to your audience, increasing engagement and achieving your desired outcomes.

Benefits of Investing in Competitive Digital Marketing Audit Services for International and Independent Schools

Fueling momentum with competitive digital marketing audit services significantly benefits international schools . International schools can gain valuable insights and unlock opportunities to enhance their digital marketing strategies by investing in a thorough audit.

Here are ten key benefits that international schools can expect from a competitive digital marketing audit:

1. Understand your Market Position

A digital marketing audit provides valuable insights into your market position, allowing you to assess your current standing in the competitive landscape. It helps you understand how your school is perceived online, identify your strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, and clearly understand your unique value proposition.

2. Discover New Opportunities to Differentiate Online

International schools can discover untapped opportunities to differentiate online through a digital marketing audit. The audit evaluates competitors, industry trends, and market gaps, revealing areas where you can stand out and showcase your unique offerings to culture-matched families and faculty.

3. Improve User Engagement and Experience

A digital marketing audit focuses on enhancing user engagement and experience across various digital channels.

By evaluating your website, social media platforms, and other online touchpoints, the audit identifies areas for improvement. It helps optimize website navigation, design, and content to create a seamless user journey and improve engagement, resulting in increased time spent on your website, higher click-through rates, and improved conversion rates.

4. Make Data-Driven Marketing Decisions

A digital marketing audit provides access to valuable data and insights. You can make informed and data-driven marketing decisions by analyzing website analytics, social media metrics, and other performance indicators. The audit helps you understand which marketing channels and tactics generate the best results, enabling you to allocate resources effectively and optimize your marketing efforts based on real-time data.

5. Enhance Brand Reputation and Visibility

A digital marketing audit helps international schools enhance their brand reputation and visibility. The audit assesses your online presence, ensuring your brand messaging is consistent and aligned with your mission and values. It also identifies opportunities to improve search engine visibility through SEO optimization, increasing brand exposure by ensuring your school appears prominently in search results.

6. Understand Target Audience Behaviour

A competitive audit provides international schools with a clearer understanding of how a target audience interacts with your digital presence.

With this knowledge, schools can tailor their messaging, content, and campaigns to resonate with their target audience, building stronger connections with culture-matched families and faculty and increasing the likelihood of enrollment.

7. Optimization for Increased Website Traffic and Engagement

An audit uncovers opportunities for optimizing website performance, enhancing search engine visibility, and improving the user experience and family journey. By evaluating the website's design, user journey, and content, international schools can make data-driven improvements that attract more organic traffic and engage visitors effectively.

A well-optimized website enhances user experience, increases time spent on the site, and encourages visitors to take desired actions, such as submitting inquiries or applications. Creating an experience that aligns with your school’s brand and culture inspires families to take the desired action even further.

8. Strengthens Competitive Position

International schools gain insights into their competitors' strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and tactics through a competitive digital marketing audit. This knowledge allows schools to identify gaps, differentiate themselves, and develop unique selling propositions (USPs) that set them apart from the competition. By leveraging their strengths and addressing weaknesses, schools can gain a competitive advantage in their region.

9. Foster Momentum and Sustained Growth

By leveraging the audit findings, schools can identify inefficiencies, understand their target audience, optimize website performance, and leverage competitive insights. These optimization efforts increase brand visibility and improve messaging both externally and internally, ultimately increasing word-of-mouth and improving retention rates.

10. Achieve Enrollment Goals

Momentum fuels enrollment growth. A competitive digital marketing audit equips international schools with the necessary tools and insights to optimize their digital marketing efforts and differentiate from competitors. Speaking to the right families at the right time with the right message will attract culture-matched families that help you achieve enrollment goals.

Why Exclusivity Matters

Exclusivity is the cornerstone of our digital marketing audit services because we understand its power to fuel your school's momentum. We are committed to providing a competitive advantage that sets you apart in your region. By exclusively focusing on your school, we can dedicate our full attention, resources, and expertise to helping you achieve your marketing goals through our comprehensive digital marketing services.

Integrity is a fundamental principle that guides us. We recognize that your school possesses its own unique mission, values, and offerings. Upholding integrity means honoring and respecting the distinctiveness of your school. By limiting our digital marketing services to just one school per region, we ensure that our focus remains solely on amplifying your school's strengths and differentiators.

We firmly believe in being on your team, not everyone's. Our exclusive partnership allows us to deeply understand your school's aspirations, challenges, and target audience. This level of collaboration enables us to develop tailored strategies and campaigns that resonate specifically with your prospective students and parents.

Together, let's empower your educational mission, forge stronger connections with your audience, and solidify your position as a leading school in your region. We are dedicated to delivering exceptional results that reflect your school's unique qualities and aspirations. Our exclusive regional partnership allows us to work closely with you, unlocking your school's full potential and propelling you toward your desired enrollment success.

Driving Enrollment Momentum: How a Digital Marketing Audit Can Transform Your School

A competitive digital marketing audit holds immense importance for international schools striving to achieve their enrollment goals. Through the audit process, schools can gain valuable insights into their digital marketing strategies, identify areas for improvement, and capitalize on untapped opportunities.

The audit serves as a roadmap to align a school’s efforts with industry best practices and evolving trends, ensuring its digital marketing strategies and tactics resonate with prospective students and parents. Moreover, ongoing evaluation and optimization are crucial for sustained momentum. By continuously monitoring campaign performance, tracking key metrics, and making data-driven adjustments, international schools can stay agile and responsive to market dynamics.

58 Questions to Help You Develop a Persona for Faculty Members

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 23:57:00 GMT

Welcome to the exciting world of persona development! If you're looking to recruit faculty members to your international school, you've come to the right place. Developing accurate and insightful personas is crucial to understanding your ideal candidates' unique needs, preferences, and motivations.

In this blog post, we’ve developed a series of questions to help you get started with developing your first persona, which will help you attract the right candidates for your teacher recruitment goals. So buckle up, and let's dive into the world of persona development for international school faculty recruitment!

To make the process of developing a persona for teacher recruitment easier, we’ve divided the questions into sections.

Demographics

Understanding your audience's demographics is crucial when developing a persona for teacher recruitment in international education. Demographic information such as age, gender, location, education, and professional experience can provide valuable insights into your target audience's needs, interests, and preferences. By knowing your audience's demographics, you can tailor your recruitment strategies to address their specific needs and preferences and create more relevant and effective content that resonates with them. This can lead to higher engagement, more applications from qualified candidates, and, ultimately, better hiring outcomes for your school.

Here are ten key questions to ask about the demographics of your ideal faculty member:

What is the age range of the teachers we want to attract?
What is their gender?
Where do they currently live?
What languages do they speak fluently?
What is their education level and teaching experience?
Are they currently teaching in an international school or elsewhere?
What is their marital status, and do they have children?
What are their salary expectations?
What are their hobbies and interests outside of teaching?
What kind of living accommodations are they seeking?

Psychographics

Understanding the psychographics of your audience is like unlocking the secret to their hearts and minds. It helps you to delve deeper into their values, beliefs, and motivations, providing a clearer picture of what drives their decision-making.

When it comes to teacher recruitment, knowing what makes them tick is the key to unlocking their potential as a valuable addition to your school community.

Here are ten things to consider when outlining the psychographics of the teachers you want to recruit:

What motivates this candidate to become a teacher at an international school?
What values and beliefs does this candidate hold about education and teaching?
What are the candidate's preferred teaching methodologies?
What are the candidate's attitudes towards technology in the classroom?
What are the candidate's preferred extracurricular activities to engage in with students?
What are the candidate's preferred teaching environments (e.g., rural, urban, suburban)?
What are the candidate's preferred subjects to teach?
What is the candidate's preferred age group to teach?
What is the candidate's preferred work-life balance?
What are the candidate's preferred professional development opportunities?

Behavior Patterns

Knowing the behavior patterns of your potential teachers is like having a treasure map to recruit the right candidates. By understanding their habits, routines, and preferences, you can tailor your recruitment strategy to meet their needs and expectations. It's like giving them the X that marks the spot, but instead of gold, they'll find an exciting opportunity to join your international school community.

Here are nine behaviour patterns to consider when developing a faculty member persona:

How do they typically search for job opportunities?
Which job boards or recruitment websites do they use?
How much time do they typically spend researching job opportunities before applying?
What factors influence their decision to apply for a job?
What motivates them to accept a job offer?
Do they prefer to apply for jobs through recruitment agencies or directly with schools?
How much time do they typically spend on each stage of the recruitment process (i.e., application, interview, negotiation, etc.)?
Do they tend to accept or decline job offers quickly?
What factors influence their decision to stay with a school long-term?

Pain Points and Challenges

To attract top teachers, you must understand the hurdles they face in their profession and the issues they want to solve. Only then can you tailor your recruitment efforts to address those pain points and show them how your school can help them overcome those challenges.

These six questions will help you identify the potential pain points and challenges of teachers who are considering your school:

What are some of the biggest challenges that teachers face in their jobs?
What specific obstacles do teachers at our school or in our region face?
What are some common complaints or negative feedback we've received from teachers in the past?
Are there any gaps in the resources or support we provide to teachers?
What pain points or challenges could we help alleviate through our recruitment efforts?
What concerns or hesitations might potential candidates have about working at our school, and how can we address them?

Goals and Aspirations

Understanding the dreams and desires of your audience is crucial when developing a persona for teacher recruitment. You don't want to be the school that offers a paycheck, you want to be the school that offers an opportunity for growth, adventure, and fulfillment. By knowing the goals and aspirations of your potential candidates, you can create a persona that will attract the right kind of educators who share your school's vision for making a difference in the lives of students.

The following ten questions will help you understand the goals and aspirations that prospective faculty members may have:

What are their career goals, both short-term and long-term?
What are their personal values, and how do they align with the mission and values of the school?
What kind of impact do they hope to make on their students academically and personally?
Are there any teaching methodologies or approaches they are passionate about, and how can the school support them?
How important is work-life balance to them, and what kind of support do they need from the school to achieve it?
Are there any specific cultural experiences they hope to gain from teaching abroad, and how can the school provide those opportunities?
How do they see themselves contributing to the school community outside of the classroom, and what activities or initiatives interest them?
What personal aspirations or goals do they hope to achieve while teaching at the school, and how can the school support them in that journey?

Methods of Communication

Understanding how your audience likes to communicate in teacher recruitment is just as important. By knowing their preferred method(s) of communication, you can tailor your outreach efforts to make sure your message is heard loud and clear.

Here are seven questions to ask about the preferred method(s) of communication as you’re developing a personal for faculty members that fit the culture of your school:

What communication channels do teachers in your target audience prefer to use for professional networking and job searches?
How often do teachers in your target audience check their email, and what type of subject lines are likely to catch their attention?
Do teachers in your target audience use social media, and if so, which platforms do they use most frequently?
What kind of messaging and content is most likely to capture the attention of teachers in your target audience on social media?
Do teachers in your target audience attend industry events, and if so, which ones are most popular? How can you leverage these events to connect with potential candidates?
How do teachers in your target audience prefer to communicate with their colleagues inside and outside the classroom?
Are there any specific communication tools or technologies teachers in your target audience will likely use? If so, how can you incorporate them into your recruitment strategy?

Influences and Sources of Information

Understanding your audience's influences and sources of information is crucial when developing a persona for teacher recruitment. Teachers and educators are always seeking new information, insights, and strategies to improve their teaching skills and knowledge.

You can better craft your recruitment messaging and outreach efforts by identifying the key influences and sources of information that resonate with your target audience. Additionally, this knowledge can help you identify the most effective channels for reaching potential candidates, whether it's through professional associations, social media groups, or education-focused websites.

This list of eight questions will help you identify the places your ideal faculty candidate spends time-consuming information:

Which websites, social media platforms, or online forums do they frequent for teaching resources and networking with other teachers?
What kind of publications do they read for professional development and personal interests?
Do they attend education conferences or participate in local or online teacher groups?
Which educational thought leaders do they follow, and why?
Do they consult peers or mentors when making teaching decisions or seeking advice?
Which professional associations or organizations do they belong to or are interested in joining?
Which resources do you use to stay informed about the international education industry and job opportunities?
Are there other sources of information or influencers that impact your decision-making process for job opportunities in international education?

Now is the Time to Develop Your First Faculty Persona

Developing accurate and insightful personas is crucial to understanding international school faculty candidates' unique needs, preferences, and motivations. By understanding their demographics, psychographics, behavior patterns, pain points and challenges, and goals and aspirations, recruiters can tailor their recruitment strategies to address their specific needs and preferences and create more relevant and effective content that resonates with them. This can lead to higher engagement, more applications from qualified candidates, and, ultimately, better hiring outcomes for the school.

13 Ways a Competitive Digital Marketing Audit can Improve Your School's Online Presence

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 00:55:00 GMT

A strong online presence is crucial for schools to thrive and engage with their community. As the competition in the education industry intensifies, it's important for schools to evaluate and optimize their digital marketing strategies continuously. By conducting a competitive digital marketing audit of your school's online marketing efforts and comparing them to your competitors, you will be armed with valuable insights and recommendations to elevate your school's digital presence. From understanding your market position to enhancing brand visibility and maximizing results, a digital marketing audit is a catalyst for driving your school's success in the digital landscape.

Ultimately, a digital marketing audit is a strategic investment that can propel your school's success in the highly competitive digital landscape of the education industry. Here are 13 great reasons to do a digital marketing audit for your school:

Understand your school's position in the market and gain a competitive advantage
Identify strengths and weaknesses compared to competitors
Differentiate your school’s unique identity
Evaluate the effectiveness of current digital marketing strategies
Make data-driven decisions, improve return on investment, and maximize results
Increase search engine visibility
Improve social media engagement
Attract and engage prospective students, parents, and faculty
Identify areas for improvement in website design and navigation
Enhance user engagement
Provide an enjoyable user experience
Gain insight into target audience behavior
Optimize marketing budgets for maximum impact

1. Understand your School's Position in the Market and Gain a Competitive Advantage

International schools face unique challenges and opportunities due to the diverse nature of their student body and the global reach of their programs. Conducting a competitive digital marketing audit is essential for international schools to gain valuable insights into their market position and how their audiences are engaging with their digital platforms, which will identify what is successful and where there are areas for improvement.

A comprehensive digital marketing audit evaluates various aspects of the school's digital marketing strategies, including website performance, content quality, social media presence, and online visibility. Schools can uncover valuable insights about their current market position by comparing their efforts to their competitors and developing targeted marketing strategies to gain a competitive advantage. The audit helps international schools understand their target audience, preferences, needs, and motivations, enabling them to tailor their communication strategies effectively.

By harnessing the insights and recommendations provided by the audit, international schools can refine their marketing strategies, enhance their brand visibility, and engage with their diverse student body and global programs in a way that resonates with their unique needs and aspirations.

2. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses Compared to Competitors

Emphasizing and leveraging your school's strengths is crucial in attracting prospective students and parents. By highlighting your unique academic programs, outstanding faculty, state-of-the-art facilities, or vibrant and diverse school community, you can differentiate your school and create a compelling narrative that resonates with your target audience. Understanding how your competitors promote their strengths can inspire ideas for showcasing your own competitive advantages and developing targeted marketing campaigns to capture the attention of prospective students and parents.

Equally important is identifying weaknesses in your digital marketing strategies compared to your competitors. By examining what your competitors are doing or not doing, you can uncover gaps or shortcomings in your approach. This knowledge provides an opportunity to address these weaknesses and optimize your digital marketing efforts.

3. Differentiate Your School’s Unique Identity

During the audit, a thorough evaluation of your school's online presence will be conducted to identify your unique value propositions and differentiators. This includes assessing your website, social media platforms, content marketing efforts, and overall brand messaging.

No other school is like yours; your website is the window into the unique DNA, the culture of your school. Empowered by a deep understanding of your school's unique identity, such as its mission, values, academic programs, cultural diversity, or specialized offerings, you can effectively tailor your digital marketing strategies to highlight these aspects. This enables you to create a compelling narrative that resonates with prospective students and parents seeking an educational experience that aligns with their values and aspirations.

4. Evaluate the Effectiveness of Current Digital Marketing Strategies

During the marketing audit, a thorough analysis of your digital marketing channels, including your website, social media platforms, email marketing campaigns, paid advertising efforts, and content marketing strategies will be conducted. This evaluation aims to determine how well these channels are performing in terms of generating leads, increasing brand visibility, and driving enrollment. This analysis helps you understand which channels drive the best results and which may need optimization.

5. Make Data-Driven Decisions, Improve Return on Investment, and Maximize Results

Investing in marketing activities requires careful consideration of resources and budget allocation. One of the key goals of a competitive digital marketing audit for international schools is to gather the information to help you make data-driven decisions to improve return on investment (ROI), and maximize results. During the audit, various data sources and performance metrics will be analyzed to provide insights into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. Examining this information will help identify what is working and what could be improved, ensuring your decisions are based on data points.

By evaluating the effectiveness of your current marketing strategies and identifying areas for improvement, the audit helps you optimize your marketing efforts and achieve better outcomes. It allows you to make informed decisions on where to allocate resources and budget, ensuring that your investments are directed towards strategies that generate the best results.

The audit also helps you identify cost-saving opportunities without compromising the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. By eliminating or optimizing inefficient campaigns, reallocating ad spend to high-performing channels, and implementing data-driven optimizations, you can maximize the impact of your marketing budget and drive better ROI. Through the power of data, the digital marketing audit empowers you to make strategic decisions that optimize your resources and deliver exceptional results.

6. Increase Search Engine Visibility

Search engines are crucial in connecting prospective students and parents with international schools. When parents search for educational opportunities, they turn to search engines like Google to find the most relevant and trustworthy information. That's why it's essential for international schools to have high visibility in search engine results.

A digital marketing audit provides an opportunity to evaluate and enhance the search engine visibility of your international school. The audit can identify areas where best practices can be implemented by analyzing your website's search engine optimization (SEO) practices, such as keyword usage, meta tags, technical health, and content structure. It helps ensure that your website appears prominently in search results when prospective students and parents search for schools or related information.

7. Improve Social Media Engagement

Social media helps build brand awareness, engage with your community, and attract prospective students and parents. A competitive digital marketing audit offers a valuable opportunity to evaluate and enhance your school's social media strategies.

Your social media engagement and performance will be thoroughly assessed during the audit. This evaluation goes beyond just the number of followers you have; it delves into your social media content's quality, relevance, and effectiveness. The audit examines factors such as the consistency of your posting schedule, the level of engagement from your audience, and the impact of your social media campaigns.

By analyzing social media metrics such as followers, likes, shares, and comments, the audit provides insights into areas where you can improve engagement and expand your reach. It helps identify content types and topics that resonate with your audience, allowing you to refine your social media content strategy.

8. Attract and Engage Prospective Students, Parents, and Faculty

Attracting and engaging prospective students, parents, and faculty is crucial for the success of any school, and digital marketing plays a pivotal role in this process. A competitive digital marketing audit can help your school optimize its strategies to effectively reach and connect with your audience, whether they are new families or prospective faculty members. By analyzing your current digital marketing efforts, you can identify whether or not they communicated well with your target audience, enabling you to develop (or tweak) tailored campaigns that resonate with prospective culture-matched families. This includes crafting compelling messaging, creating beautiful, useful, and generous content, and utilizing targeted advertising to reach the right audience at the right time.

By delivering tailored and resonant content, international schools can forge stronger connections, build trust, and increase the likelihood of attracting and engaging prospective students and parents who are a culture match for your school community.

9. Identify Areas for Improvement in Website Design and Navigation

Your school's website is often the first point of contact for prospective students and parents, making it crucial to provide a seamless and engaging user experience. A competitive digital marketing audit can help you identify areas for improvement in website design and navigation. The audit can pinpoint any roadblocks or inefficiencies that may hinder user engagement by evaluating the layout, functionality, and overall user interface. This includes assessing page load speed, mobile responsiveness, intuitive navigation menus, and clear calls-to-action. The audit can also uncover opportunities to enhance visual aesthetics, streamline content organization, and optimize user flow throughout the website.

By addressing these areas for improvement, you can create a user-friendly website that captivates visitors, encourages exploration, and guides them toward desired actions, such as filling out inquiry forms or submitting applications. Ultimately, a well-designed and intuitive website contributes to a positive user experience, strengthens your school's online presence, and increases the likelihood of converting visitors into prospective students and engaged parents.

10. Enhance User Engagement

Enhancing user engagement is crucial for international schools seeking to connect with prospective students and parents in the digital landscape. A competitive digital marketing audit can help identify opportunities to optimize user engagement across various digital channels. By evaluating your website, social media platforms, and other online touchpoints, the audit can uncover areas for improvement.

This includes analyzing website metrics such as bounce rate, time spent on page, click-through rates, and social media engagement metrics like likes, comments, and shares.

11. Provide an Enjoyable User Experience

Providing an enjoyable user experience is essential for international schools looking to engage and attract prospective students and parents online. A competitive digital marketing audit helps identify areas where your website and other digital touchpoints can be optimized to enhance user experience.

Providing a seamless and enjoyable user experience creates a positive impression, builds trust, and encourages users to explore further. This leads to longer website visits, increased interaction, and a higher likelihood of conversions. A digital marketing audit enables you to make data-driven improvements, ensuring that every interaction with your school's digital presence is user-friendly and leaves a lasting impact.

12. Gain Insight into Target Audience Behavior

Understanding target audience behavior is crucial for international schools to tailor their messaging, content, and campaigns effectively. An audit provides valuable data and analytics that help schools understand how their target audience interacts with their digital presence. The audit reveals key insights into audience preferences, interests, and online habits by analyzing user behavior, engagement metrics, and demographic information.

This knowledge enables schools to create targeted, personalized marketing strategies that resonate with prospective students and parents. Whether understanding the preferred social media platforms, content consumption habits, or the factors that drive decision-making, the audit helps schools align their marketing efforts with audience expectations.

13. Optimize Marketing Budgets for Maximum Impact

Optimizing marketing budgets is crucial for international schools to achieve maximum impact and generate a higher return on investment (ROI). A competitive digital marketing audit plays a significant role in analyzing the effectiveness of various marketing channels, campaigns, and strategies. By evaluating key performance metrics and data, schools can identify areas where their marketing budget delivers the best results and allocate resources accordingly. The audit helps schools prioritize marketing initiatives that align with their goals and target audience preferences, ensuring that resources are allocated strategically.

Ignite Momentum through a Comprehensive Digital Marketing Audit

In today's digital era, a competitive digital marketing audit is an essential investment for international schools. It comprehensively evaluates your school's online marketing efforts, allowing you to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions. By conducting a digital marketing audit, you can understand your school's market position, identify strengths and weaknesses compared to competitors, and uncover opportunities for improvement. From enhancing brand visibility and maximizing results to attracting and engaging prospective students and parents, a digital marketing audit empowers you to optimize your strategies and propel your school's success in the highly competitive digital landscape.

Strategic Techniques for Optimizing Job Posts to Attract Great Teachers

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:24:00 GMT

In the competitive landscape of international education and teacher recruitment, ensuring your job posts are visible to the most qualified teachers is paramount. However, this task can be quite daunting, particularly when you're competing against a sea of similar ads. But don't worry; that's where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes to the rescue.

SEO isn't just for bloggers or digital marketers; it's an invaluable tool for anyone looking to boost the visibility of their content, including job postings. By optimizing them, you can ensure they reach the right audience – the talented educators who are perfect for your institution.

Optimizing a job ad for search engines is an important aspect of attracting relevant candidates to your job opening. Here are some tips to help you optimize your job ad for search:

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Identify the keywords and phrases that candidates might use when searching for job opportunities. Understand your audience; put yourself in the shoes of potential candidates and consider what terms they would use to find relevant positions.

2. Use Targeted Keywords

Incorporate those keywords naturally throughout your job ad. Include them in the job title, job description, qualifications, and other relevant sections. However, avoid keyword stuffing and prioritize creating compelling and readable content.

3. Craft a Clear and Descriptive Title

Create a concise and descriptive title for your job ad that includes the job title and important keywords. This helps search engines understand the content of your ad and improves its visibility in search results.

4. Write a Detailed Job Description

Provide a comprehensive and detailed job description that outlines the responsibilities, qualifications, and any specific requirements for the role. Use relevant keywords naturally throughout the description, but focus on creating valuable content that attracts and engages potential candidates.

5. Structure the Content

Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to structure your job ad. This makes it easier for search engines to understand the hierarchy and relevance of the information. It also improves the readability and scannability of the ad for candidates.

6. Include Location Information

Mention the job location clearly, including the city and the state, province, region, or country. Many candidates search for job opportunities in specific locations, so including this information can help your ad appear in relevant search results.

7. Link to Your school's Website

If possible, include a link to your school's website or careers page within the job ad. This provides additional context and credibility to search engines and can improve the visibility of your ad.

The International School of Beijing's employment page offers prospective faculty
transparency into all aspects of joining their team.

8. Optimize the URL

Create a clean and descriptive URL for your job ad. Ideally, it should include the job title and location to make it more search engine-friendly.

9. Leverage Schema Markup

Implement structured data markup, such as schema.org, to provide search engines with additional information about your job ad. This can enhance how your ad appears in search results and attract more attention from candidates.

10. Monitor and Refine

Regularly monitor the performance of your job ad using analytics tools. Pay attention to the search terms that are driving traffic to your ad and make adjustments as needed to improve its visibility and effectiveness.

Remember, optimizing a job ad for search engines is about making it more visible to relevant candidates. By incorporating targeted keywords, providing detailed information, and structuring the content effectively, you can improve the search engine visibility of your job ad and attract a higher number of qualified applicants.

Understanding and Enhancing Market Position for International Schools

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 18:29:00 GMT

When families search for an international school, it can be challenging to differentiate one option from another. In today's digital age, having a strong online presence that accurately reflects your school's unique selling points is crucial. Understanding your market position empowers your school to stand out, attract the right audience, gain a competitive advantage, and make informed strategic decisions.

This blog post will explore the importance of market research and offer guidance on how to research and evaluate the market position of your international school.

The Importance of Market Position Research for International Schools

Market research is critical for international schools to understand and respond effectively to the evolving educational landscape. It provides invaluable insights into changing trends, students' and parents' needs, and competitive dynamics, helping to make data-driven decisions on marketing strategies and overall school management. Moreover, it enables schools to identify growth opportunities, refine their unique value propositions, and ensure they continue to meet the expectations of their diverse, global audience.

Here are five reasons why market position research, such as a competitive digital marketing audit, is important for international schools.

1. Differentiation

International schools operate in a highly competitive educational landscape. Understanding the school’s market position allows you to identify its unique selling points and differentiate it from other schools.

2. Targeting the Right Audience

International schools cater to diverse student populations, including expatriate families, local families seeking international education, or internationally mobile students. By understanding the school’s market position, schools can identify the target audience they want to focus on and tailor their marketing strategies accordingly. This helps schools reach families more likely to be interested in their programs and services.

3. Competitive Advantage

Knowing the school’s market position enables you to assess strengths and weaknesses compared to other schools in the same region or niche. By leveraging your strengths and addressing perceived weaknesses, schools can develop a competitive advantage that attracts more students and expand their brand reputation.

Discover the importance of regional exclusivity in a relationship with a digital marketing agency.

4. Strategic Decision-making

Market position analysis provides valuable insights into trends, demands, and preferences in the education sector. This information allows schools to make informed strategic decisions regarding curriculum development, facility expansion, hiring practices, or investment in technology. Understanding the market position helps schools align their offerings with the needs and expectations of students and parents, leading to improved student recruitment and retention.

5. Reputation Management

International schools often strive to build a positive reputation in their target market. By understanding their market position, schools can monitor their brand perception, identify areas for improvement, and actively manage their reputation. This involves addressing negative feedback or misconceptions, strengthening positive aspects of their offerings, and maintaining strong relationships with students, parents, and the community.

How to Conduct Research and Analyze Your School's Market Position

That is a lot of value from a market position analysis! But how do you go about it? There are three steps to help you with market positioning analysis: Market Research, Benchmarking, and Ongoing Presence and Reputation Monitoring.

Market Research

Define Research Parameters

Clearly define the scope of the research, including the geographical area, target audience segments, and time frame for data collection.

Select Research Criteria

List the schools you want to benchmark. Identify key influencers that match the goals of your school and find their social media profiles, news articles, and websites. Scan social media channels for profiles closely matching existing and potential families suited to your school culture.

Analyze Data and Identify Trends

To identify key market trends, perform a first-blush analysis of the schools, influencers, and family profiles. Look for patterns, shifts in demand, emerging educational approaches, technological advancements, or changes in parental expectations. Identify both short-term and long-term trends that may impact the competitive landscape.

Benchmarking

Now that you've identified your parameters and criteria and begun to analyze the data, you're ready to dive deeper into the evaluation and benchmarking process. Here are the next three steps in your research process.

Review Competitor Information

Fill in the blanks of what you don’t know with detailed information about the direct and indirect competitors that have already been identified. This includes analyzing their curriculum offerings, teaching methodologies, extracurricular activities, facilities, reputation, fees, and any unique selling points.

How does each school, including yours, compare with the trends you identified in step one?

How does your own school’s online presence compare with what you know to be true about the school?

Evaluate Competitive Advantages

Compare your school's own offerings and strengths against the competitors. Identify areas where the school stands out or has a competitive advantage, such as specialized programs, innovative teaching methods, unique facilities, or partnerships. Assess any gaps that need to be addressed.

SWOT Analysis

Conduct a SWOT analysis to assess the school's internal strengths and weaknesses to compare the school to its identified competitors. This analysis will help identify potential opportunities to leverage and threats to address to improve the school's competitive position.

Ongoing Presence and Reputation Monitoring

You have invested considerable time and effort in developing your competitive marketing audit and implementing new strategies and tactics like storytelling and SEO to improve your school's digital position in the market. The work doesn't stop there; regularly monitoring the results is essential to continually maintaining and improving your position against competitors.

Here are three ways to monitor your brand presence and reputation.

Monitor Online Platforms

Regularly monitor various online platforms such as school websites, social media channels, review websites, and education forums. Keep track of mentions, comments, reviews, and feedback about the school.

Leverage Analytics Tools

utilize online analytics tools to measure website traffic, social media engagement, and other relevant metrics. Gain insights into audience demographics, behaviour, and engagement levels.

Reputation Management

Develop strategies to manage and enhance the school’s online reputation. This may involve showcasing success stories, sharing positive testimonials, publishing relevant content, and actively engaging with the online community.

By thoroughly researching your market position, conducting benchmarking analysis, and effectively managing your online presence, international schools can differentiate themselves, target the right audience, gain a competitive advantage, and make informed strategic decisions. Understanding your market position enables your school to thrive in the highly competitive international education landscape, attracting and retaining students while building a strong reputation.

Unleashing the Power of Storytelling in Teacher Recruitment

Wed, 17 May 2023 21:31:00 GMT

The power of storytelling is a recognizable tool in the marketer’s arsenal, one that can be wielded to great effect in a number of beneficial ways. While its potential in student recruitment is well-established among international school marketers, its power extends far beyond that, including the recruitment of highly sought-after expat teachers for the purpose of teacher recruitment.

The challenges in international school teacher recruitment have reached new heights in recent times, with the shifts in our global political landscape and unique regional challenges. In this environment, faculty recruiters and HR teams find themselves at the forefront of the fray, grappling with the responsibility of finding exceptional talent worldwide. This quest not only involves finding teachers who resonate with the school’s mission and values but also ensuring the school fulfills the promises made to families and the wider community.

Now for the big question: How can international school recruiters harness the power of storytelling in teacher recruitment to bolster their teacher recruitment efforts? Fear not, for here are six steps to guide you along the path toward using storytelling in this ever-evolving and fiercely competitive market.

Understanding Your Target Audience

Before dazzling readers with beautiful, useful, and generous content, one must establish and understand the intended audience. In marketing, this is accomplished by developing a persona - a fictional, generalized character that encompasses your customers' needs, goals, and behaviour patterns.

A too broad and generic message risks losing its relevance and impact. It is essential to recognize that different teacher personas have distinct needs, wants, and behaviours, from an inexperienced expat teacher to a seasoned veteran teacher. By identifying the unique attributes of your school’s priority personas, you can craft content that speaks directly to their questions and concerns and ultimately recruit the best teachers for your school.

Effective persona development for teacher recruitment involves research, data, and direct interactions with HR teams and faculty members who embody your persona.

Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be better equipped to harness the power of storytelling in teacher recruitment efforts, crafting compelling stories that speak directly to the needs and aspirations of your target audience.

The Basics of Storytelling in Teacher Recruitment

What does it take to write an engaging story? With an overwhelming amount of content out there fighting to occupy the brain space of prospective teachers for whom we seek to communicate, how does one write stories that people actually want to read?

Weaving facts, messaging, and narrative, an engaging story hooks readers in with a powerful headline and, through beautiful, useful, generous, and human content, invites the reader to stick around to read the entirety of your story - and leaves them wanting more.

Minimal Writing Experience? Fear Not!

Whether you are an experienced copywriter or have been thrust into the role, some simple strategies can make the writing process easier and more efficient, even for the uninitiated.

Here are six quick tips for writing powerful stories for the purposes of teacher recruitment:

Use quotes sparingly but strategically: A great quote can effectively condense complex concepts into an easy-to-understand manner.
Cushion your quotes: Use an introductory sentence explaining why the following quote is important and relevant to the reader, or the quote may feel disconnected and out of place, like a jump cut in a movie.
Break up large blocks of text with smaller paragraphs: No one wants to read a giant text block. Keep your thoughts short and concise, or you’ll lose your readers' attention.
Utilize subheadings to build a natural framework and flow for your story: Is the story you are telling sequential? If you are writing a story about a faculty member’s journey from their home country to your school, plan it out so that follows the story in a natural progression; jumping around too much can leave readers confused and disjointed.
Don’t feel pressured to include every detail: A great story can be bogged down by extraneous detail or take a direction that doesn’t align with the strategic goals this content was intended to fulfill. If one of your sources gets lost in a ramble about the challenges of bringing their cat overseas with them, for example, there is a strategic component to sharing that experience without it taking up half your blog post. Keep it simple.

So you’ve written your first blog post - congratulations! But now you see that no one is reading it.

Click here to discover IMPACT’s Essential SEO Tips for Writing Blog Posts.

Using Storytelling to Showcase Your School and Brand DNA

Incorporating storytelling into your teacher recruitment strategy is a powerful way to authentically communicate your school's message. It opens the doors to creating beautiful content that conveys your brand DNA; stories share a genuine experience of what it might be like to teach at your school and be a part of the school community.

Defining the school’s brand clearly and using strategic, persona-driven content attracts the best-fit prospects to your school and helps to avoid potential misalignment with the school’s mission and values. By spreading the school’s brand DNA through targeted content for teacher recruitment, it’s possible to connect with those who seek your message and establish a stronger reputation for the school.

Telling the Stories of Your Teachers

With a focus on teacher recruitment for international schools, your best stories will come from your existing pool of teachers and staff. With their unique backgrounds and experiences, taking the time to have a conversation with them and share their stories can attract more like-minded candidates and positively impact your school’s teacher recruitment efforts.

Asking the Right Questions

A story is only as good as its source material. When conducting interviews with teachers to gather source material for stories, it’s important to ask open-ended and emotion-based questions instead of practical ones that can be answered with a simple yes or no. By doing so, you’ll be able to elicit richer and more engaging responses that will help you develop compelling, engaging, and relatable stories. This approach helps to establish a connection between prospective teachers and your school, leveraging the power of storytelling to attract the best candidates for your teacher recruitment efforts.

Ideas for blog posts and stories for teacher recruitment

To kickstart your teacher recruitment storytelling efforts, here are some story ideas to spark your creativity and get the ideas flowing:

A “Day in the Life Of” series, particularly if you can extend it across divisions
Profiles and faculty features
Professional development opportunities current staff have participated in
Teaching couples, how they met, the life they have built in their new home together
Full circle: have any alumni returned to your school in a faculty or administrative role? Sources like this are highly valuable in their storytelling potential - who doesn’t love a throwback photo?
Faculty innovations, on or off-campus
Mentorship opportunities

Storytelling for the purpose of teacher recruitment is as fun and creative as you want it to be. Get to know the interesting characters on campus and start writing!

Crafting Story-Based Job Postings

It is not a secret that job-hunting can be a laborious and exhaustive process; if you are on an HR team, you know this truth intimately. Adding storytelling to your job postings can make them stand out and have a lasting impression on prospective candidates.

Consider your job posting one of the first digital touchpoints a prospective hire might have with your school. What message do you want them to take away from it? Of course, practical things need to be communicated in a job posting, but what will differentiate your job posting from competitors? You know the answer already; it’s storytelling.

Outline some of the benefits new faculty experience once joining the community.
Highlight professional development or mentorship opportunities.
Get creative - candidates have come to expect bland, straight-to-the-point job postings. Highlight your creativity and spirit as a unique place to work, learn, and grow.

Measuring the Impact of Storytelling

When it comes to utilizing storytelling in teacher recruitment, it’s essential to track the success of your campaign and the impact each individual piece of content plays in the overall strategy. The power of storytelling does not come from creating a large mass of content but rather from creating strategic content to fulfill a specific goal, and you can’t know the success of a campaign without tracking its performance.

Depending on the resources available at your school, you may already have access to blog publishing software like Hubspot, WordPress, Finalsite, etc. Utilizing software like this can help you easily track the clicks, views, and other performance metrics from one dashboard.

If your school does not have access to this kind of software, there are other manual processes you can use to track the success of your teacher recruitment campaign:

Set up tracking links: Using a unique tracking link for each piece of content, you can track the number of clicks and views each piece generates. Google’s Campaign URL Builder is a free tool you can use.
Google Analytics: GA4 is a free tool that tracks website traffic and user behaviour. You’ll be able to track the number of visitors, how they found your site, and how they engage with your content.
Social Media Analytics: Most social media platforms have built-in analytics tools to help you track the performance of your posts. You can use these tools to track likes, comments, shares, and clicks that each post generates.

Using Data to Refine Strategy

Analyzing data and performance metrics can be valuable in informing future content strategies and making data-driven decisions for teacher recruitment. It highlights what type of content resonates with your audience, the most effective distribution channels, and how to optimize content for maximum impact. Once your content has been live for a few weeks, there are many opportunities to analyze the data and review the most successful content.

By using data to inform your storytelling strategy, you can continually improve and refine your approach, leading to more effective teacher recruitment efforts and a stronger, best-fit applicant pool. It’s an ongoing process that requires constant evaluation to ensure you’re reaching and engaging with the right people in the right way.

Harnessing the Power of Storytelling in Teacher Recruitment

With these six steps in mind, your team is equipped to leverage the power of storytelling in teacher recruitment.

How to Develop a Content Plan Highlighting Your USP for Teacher Recruitment

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 21:58:00 GMT

In the competitive international school market, the number of English medium schools has increased by 53% in the last decade. As a result, many schools are struggling to meet their teacher recruitment goals. But don't throw in the towel just yet! A killer content strategy that showcases your school's unique qualities is the key to winning the teacher recruitment game in this brave new world. Determining what sets your school apart can attract top-notch faculty who share your vision and mission.

With these seven essential steps, your HR team can become recruitment rockstars and create an effective teacher recruitment strategy that will have top talent knocking on your door.

Defining Your School’s Unique Value Proposition

A unique value proposition (UVP, or USP) is like the perfect icebreaker for your school when meeting potential teachers. It's a chance to make a lasting first impression that can positively impact your audience. Crafting an impressive UVP requires some self-reflection and analysis, but it's worthwhile. Successful content marketing can take your UVP to new heights by highlighting it in action at your school.

Think of your school as a superhero. What would be its defining superpower? Would it be a focus on project-based learning? A commitment to sustainability? A worldwide alum network? Whatever it is, your UVP should capture that essence and make it irresistible to prospective teachers.

Of course, your UVP can't stand alone. It should be rooted in your school's mission and values and cater to your intended audience's needs and desires. Finding the right balance is crucial, but it can yield excellent results for teacher recruitment when executed correctly.

Developing a persona aligned with your school’s UVP can’t be done in a vacuum. Starting the persona development journey with your HR team ensures you capitalize on their knowledge and expertise. As prospective hires' main point of contact, your HR team possesses a treasure trove of valuable information and insights that can guide the persona development process.

By collaborating closely with your HR team, you can tap into their in-depth understanding of the applicant pool and leverage their insights to shape the persona effectively. They can share valuable observations about the backgrounds, experiences, and motivations of successful teachers who have joined your school in the past.

So, put on your thinking cap and craft a UVP that will win over teachers' hearts. Then, let your content marketing team work magic to spread the word and attract top talent to your school.

Researching and Understanding Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is crucial if you're looking to attract the best teachers to your international school. Conducting thorough market research and creating personas based on data can help you get inside the heads of potential candidates, so you can create content that resonates with them and delivers on your school’s goals.

Gone are the days of guessing what your audience wants. By gathering information about their demographics, psychographics, goals, and media consumption habits, you can develop targeted content that speaks directly to their needs and desires. It's like having a secret decoder ring that unlocks the language of your audience.

So, crafting content that engages and informs them is critical whether you're targeting teachers looking for project-based learning opportunities or those seeking a diverse student body. Don't be afraid to get creative with your messaging and think outside the box to stand out from the competition. With some research and savvy content marketing, you'll have the best and brightest teachers lining up to work at your school, thanks to this effective teacher recruitment strategy.

Crafting Compelling Content

Once you have identified potential story ideas, it’s important to remember that not all stories are created equal.

To make sure your content is compelling, consider the following tips:

Focus on the audience: Ensure your content resonates with your target audience. Write with their needs and interests in mind.
Keep it concise: Attention spans are short, so keep your content short and sweet. Use headings and bullet points to break up the content and make it easier to read.
Use visuals: A picture is worth a thousand words. Incorporate relevant images, infographics, or videos to make your content more engaging.
Show, don’t tell: Instead of just listing the benefits of working at your school, use examples and stories to illustrate them.
Be authentic: Don't be afraid t o be yourself and showcase your school's personality. Authenticity builds trust and rapport with your target audience.

By keeping these tips in mind, you can craft compelling content that resonates with your target audience and highlights your school's unique qualities. This will not only help with teacher recruitment but also help retain current faculty by reinforcing their decision to work at your school.

Leveraging Different Channels and Platforms

Getting your message out there is like throwing a party - you can have the best snacks and music, but it's a flop if no one shows up. That's why distribution is vital to a successful content marketing strategy for teacher recruitment. You need to spread the word far and wide to attract top talent.

Think of it like a game of chess: you must make strategic moves to reach your target audience. Social media, job boards, industry events, and email campaigns are just a few channels you can use to distribute your message.

By using the proper channels to distribute your message, you can attract a wider pool of candidates and increase the chances of finding the perfect fit for your school. So don't be afraid to get creative and try new things. With the right approach, you can turn your content marketing strategy into a teacher recruitment powerhouse.

Your School Website and Employment Pages

Your school’s website is often the first point of contact for prospective teachers; it should be optimized to make it easy for potential teachers to find the information they need and to showcase what makes your school stand out. A dedicated page for faculty testimonials, stories, and experiences can be a game-changer in communicating your school's culture and values to prospective candidates. It's like having your current faculty do the recruiting for you! With a little effort, your website can become a powerful tool in your content marketing arsenal.

Social Media

In today's social media-driven world, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, and LinkedIn are not just for memes and selfies - they're also a powerful tool for teacher recruitment. Creating a strong presence on these platforms allows you to engage with potential candidates, showcase your school's personality and values, and even make job postings go viral. Plus, by sharing exciting news and stories about your faculty and students, you can build a community that extends far beyond the walls of your school.

Job Boards and Recruitment Websites

Are you looking to expand your candidate pool beyond your immediate circle? Don’t worry; job boards and recruitment websites are here to save the day. These platforms provide a wealth of opportunities to attract a diverse range of top-notch candidates to your school. From advanced search functions to customized job descriptions, you can leverage these sites to target the cream of the crop and make your institution stand out from the crowd. So flex your linguistic prowess and craft a job description that would make even the most apathetic teacher sit up and take notice!

Email Marketing

Email marketing can be an effective way to communicate directly with potential candidates. By building an email list of interested candidates, you can send targeted messages and updates about job openings, campus events, and other news related to your school. Additionally, email can be used to nurture leads, build relationships with potential candidates, and ultimately, persuade them to apply for open positions.

Showcasing Success Stories and Testimonials

Sharing success stories and testimonials can be an excellent strategy for attracting top talent to your international school. Just imagine the power of showcasing a faculty member who can juggle grading papers, coaching a sports team, and solving math equations simultaneously! Or how about a testimonial from a teacher who credits their daily dose of coffee and their supportive colleagues for keeping them sane during the school year?

All jokes aside, success stories and testimonials can provide prospective teachers with a realistic and positive view of what it's like to work at your school. Whether it's highlighting academic or professional accomplishments, or the positive impact of your school's culture and community, sharing these stories can be valuable in attracting top talent.

When crafting success stories and testimonials, it's essential to keep the focus on the faculty member's experience and how your school has contributed to their success. This can include details about the resources and support your school provides, the unique opportunities for professional development, and the positive impact of the school's culture and community. And remember to add a touch of humour to make these stories more engaging and memorable!

By sharing these stories, you can also highlight your school's values and mission, which can be a key factor in attracting top talent who share your school's vision. And let's face it, who wouldn't want to work at a school where the faculty members are successful and have a great sense of humor?

Integrating Visuals and Multimedia

Let's spice things up and make the topic of integrating visuals and multimedia a little more exciting! We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what about a video? Or an interactive infographic? The possibilities are endless when it comes to showcasing your school's unique qualities through multimedia content.

Think about it - what would you rather see, a lengthy paragraph describing the beautiful campus or a stunning drone shot that takes you on a virtual tour? By incorporating multimedia elements into your teacher recruitment content strategy, you can create a more immersive experience for potential candidates, capturing their attention and keeping them engaged.

Here are a few ideas on how to integrate visuals and multimedia into your teacher recruitment content:

Showcase Your Campus: Highlight your school's unique features by incorporating visuals such as photos, videos, and 360-degree virtual tours. This gives candidates a feel for the campus and allows them to visualize themselves as part of the community.
Create Interactive Infographics: Turn mundane statistics and data into an engaging experience by creating interactive infographics. This allows candidates to explore the information in a more dynamic way and can also make the recruitment process more enjoyable.
Share Success Stories: Use video testimonials and interviews to share success stories from current faculty members. This gives candidates a glimpse into the daily life of a teacher at your school and can also help them connect with potential colleagues.
Host Live Q&A Sessions: Consider hosting live Q&A sessions with current faculty members or school administrators. This allows candidates to ask questions and get a feel for the school's culture and values in a more personal way.

By incorporating visuals and multimedia into your content strategy, you can create a more engaging and memorable experience for potential candidates. So get creative and start thinking outside the box!

Measuring and Evaluating Success

Measuring and evaluating the success of your teacher recruitment strategy is critical to ensuring that you are attracting and retaining top-quality faculty at your international school. By tracking and analyzing key metrics, you can identify areas of success and opportunities for improvement, allowing you to refine your strategy over time.

One key metric to track is the number of qualified applicants who apply for open positions at your school. This can help you gauge your school's interest level and the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts. Additionally, tracking the diversity of your applicant pool can help you ensure that you are reaching a wide range of candidates and promoting inclusivity at your school.

Another important metric to track is the success rate of your recruitment efforts. This can include metrics such as the percentage of applicants offered positions, the percentage of accepted offers, and the retention rate of faculty members over time. By tracking these metrics, you can identify any patterns or trends in your recruitment efforts and adjust your strategy to improve retention and overall success.

In addition to tracking recruitment metrics, it's important also to evaluate the impact of your content marketing efforts. This can include analyzing website traffic and engagement with your content, tracking social media metrics such as likes, shares, and comments, and monitoring the success of email marketing campaigns. Analyzing these metrics lets you identify which content and channels are most effective at reaching and engaging with your target audience.

Finally, it's important to regularly survey your faculty members to gather feedback on their experience working at your school. This can include asking for feedback on the recruitment and onboarding process and gathering insights on what factors contribute to faculty satisfaction and retention. By incorporating this feedback into your recruitment and retention strategies, you can improve the overall experience for your faculty members and promote long-term success at your school.

Measuring and evaluating success is critical to the ongoing success of your faculty recruitment strategy at international schools. By tracking key metrics and gathering feedback from faculty members, you can refine your strategy over time and ensure that you are attracting and retaining top-quality talent who will contribute to the success of your school.

Teacher Recruitment Strategies that Work

A killer content strategy can help schools recruit and retain quality teachers in the competitive international school market. This strategy involves defining your school’s unique value proposition, researching and understanding your target audience, crafting compelling content, leveraging different channels and platforms, optimizing your school website and employment pages, and leveraging social media. By following these essential steps, schools can create a content strategy that showcases their unique qualities and attracts top-notch faculty who share their vision and mission.

How to Measure a Content Marketing Strategy for International Schools

Tue, 18 May 2021 20:20:00 GMT

Part 1: Measuring All Users Traffic with Google Analytics

Analyzing the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy is essential. Whether that content strategy is inbound marketing for your international school or outbound with paid ads, you must determine what’s working and what isn’t so you know what to create more of and what to create less of.

Time for a quick pop quiz! Ready?

What are the three primary goals of a content marketing strategy?

Get traffic to your website and eyeballs on your content.
Generate quality leads (prospective families) because of the content.
Convert the quality leads into sales (admitted families).

It all starts with traffic. If prospective families aren’t engaging with the content you’ve created, what was the point of investing all those resources into generating it?

We’re going to start with the basics which isn’t a basic tool at all: Google Analytics.

Set Your Baseline Traffic

In order to know if your content and marketing strategies are effective, you have to know where you started. By setting a baseline of your traffic numbers, you’ll be able to easily benchmark your efforts.

Determine your baseline traffic by averaging your traffic over a period of at least 6 months, but preferably a year. There are distinct seasons to international education and website traffic will fluctuate in those seasons. Peak admissions season equals higher traffic. Summer break equals much lower traffic.

To set your average, use the data points below, choose your date range, and then average it over the period of months in your date range. For example: if the number of users for your website over 12 months is 25,000, divide that by 12 and your average monthly users is 2,083.

By taking a one-year average of your traffic, you will have an accurate record of your school’s traffic patterns.

How to Use Google Analytics Data Points for International Schools

As I mentioned, Google Analytics is anything but a basic tool. It is an incredibly deep well of website traffic data. It can be overwhelming to know where to start, which is why we often discover that schools have no idea what their traffic volume and trends are.

The following data points can be used to set your baseline traffic numbers and should be reviewed every month to see how the website is performing.

Audience Overview

The audience overview section is the first place to look as it provides a high-level picture of your website’s traffic. There are several data points you’ll be analyzing.

With your audience filter set to All Users, you’ll need to set the dates you want to see metrics for, and then begin to analyze the following metrics:

Sessions: This is the number of times your website was visited. In the example above, 16,259 sessions took place during the period of December 2020.

Users: This is the number of unique people that visited the website. In the example above, there were 10,717 users.

Users vs new users: This metric tells you how many sessions were from a new user (a user that hasn’t been on your site in 30 days or more) and how many were from a return visitor. In the example above, 75.4% or 9,227 of the sessions were from a new user.

From an admissions recruitment perspective, the higher the number of new users, the better. That being said, if someone is using a VPN or accessing the site from a different location (like a coffee shop) or has travelled, Google will identify them as a new user because their IP address is different.

Time on site: The average time a session lasts in minutes. In this case, 1:57 minutes. Obviously, the longer the better here.

Globally, the average session duration is between 2-3 minutes. Anything above three minutes would be considered good.

Pages viewed per session: the number of pages being viewed during each session. In this case, 6.38 pages per session. Again, the higher the number here, the better.

A survey by Little Data shows the global average is 2.8 pages per session. Anything about 4.4 pages pers session puts a website in the top 20% of the world.

Bounce rate: Bounce rate is when a user has a single-page session and then leaves the site. It is calculated by dividing single-page sessions by all sessions. In this case, the bounce rate is 15.06%.

The global average bounce rate is between 45% - 60%, however, we find that international schools often have a much lower than average bounce rate.

If your bounce rate is less than 5%, it likely means there is a technical problem with how the tracking code has been installed on your website.

International school websites are the virtual window into your admissions office and 99.9% of the time they are the first interaction a family has with your school. In the same way that you want to increase inquiries coming into your admissions department, you also want to increase traffic coming to your website.

Using Google Analytics will help you to set a baseline (starting point) of what your website traffic volume is right now and then to monitor its growth over time.

If you would like to learn more about how to increase traffic to your website, click here to learn more about our MAP workshop series.

How website structure impacts user experience

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 21:30:00 GMT

The single most underestimated aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) is website structure as the design directly affects a user’s experience.

“SEO is all about user experience (UX)... UX is all about making users happy, so is SEO.”

Raul Harman, Understanding the link between UX design and SEO

Understanding who we serve and how we serve them should be at the forefront of web design strategy. An easy-to-use web interface will not only have users happily sticking around your site, but it will also appease Google’s algorithm.

To ensure an easy-to-use interface, you need to focus on your site's structure - the arrangement and classification of different content on the site. The structure of your site should be designed so that the user can easily achieve what they want. If the UX is strong, it increases your chances of converting. And that's what both you and Google want.

But how do you ensure a positive UX? Below we explore eight UX key performance indicators (KPI) you will need to track to see how web visitors feel about your site. Then, we outline how you can revamp your website to make those analytics even stronger.

8 UX KPIs you Need to Track

Focusing on a positive UX by testing out various aspects of your site can significantly improve your audience’s interactions and therefore increase satisfaction.

UX can be determined through:

Bounce rate
Pageviews
New vs. Returning users
Pages per Session
Conversion Rate
Page/Scroll Depth
Time on page
Exit pages

Don’t worry if the numbers you see at the moment are a little lower than you hoped - that’s where the content below comes in.

Revamping Your Website Structure to Increase UX KPIs

Though it may seem intimidating, revamping your website structure to enhance UX KPIs is much simpler than you’d think.

To help you understand where to start, we’ve outlined 14 design aspects to help you make your site the best it can be.

1. Branding

Branding is everything when it comes to business.

“A strong, effective brand should communicate an organization’s purpose and values to the public and all its stakeholders, is easily identifiable, and fosters positive associations in the mind of stakeholders long after a public relations campaign has ended.”

Cases in Public Relations Strategy by Burton St. John III, Diana Knott Martinelli, Robert S. Pritchard, and Cylor Spaulding

One important aspect of your brand is your logo - make sure to have yours at the top of your website to give it credibility. It’s also essential to link your logo to your homepage as it lets users navigate back no matter where they are on your site.

When it comes to your brand, it’s important to be consistent with your colors. Apply the same color scheme throughout your website.

Lastly, your slogan. A great slogan will grab your customers’ attention and sums up what your company is all about. Put this on your homepage.

2. Content management system

One of the important decisions you can make for your online presence is choosing which content management system (CMS) you should use. Most recognizable are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, and Prestashop, with WordPress being the most user-friendly.

When you decide to create a website, you need to consider the needs of your users and how you will provide the information and services that they are looking for. Whatever you’d like to accomplish, select a CMS that is most suitable for you.

3. Menus

When designing a site, navigation is key. Without a proper navigation system or menu, the UX suffers.

One of the most important points when designing a site is to ensure the navigation and structure of the site menu are correct. Follow the tips below to guarantee a seamless navigational experience for your users.

1- Make the site menu available to users.

If users don’t have easy access to your menu and cannot seamlessly achieve what they want, they will leave.

Make sure your website has a horizontal menu on the top of the website or a vertical one on the left-hand side.

2- Organizing your products/services in the menu.

The most important part of launching a website is thinking about the correct way to organize your services in your menu.

Your website should explain what you do, how you do it, and for whom you do it for. And your menu should follow this same structure.

Structuring your website is important for both findability and usability. A clear structure also leads to a better understanding of your site from Google which helps your SEO.

Google is able to know what a website is about when the menu is organized properly.

We recommend no more than three layers deep and a specific button leading to your blog.

3- The appearance and placement of your menu.

The menu should be in a fixed place with a fixed appearance no matter where people are on your site.

4- Proper labeling.

Try to use generic terms for labeling to cover more territory.

5- Avoid designing a hamburger menu in the desktop version.

The hamburger menu opens up into a navigation drawer or sidebar and has three lines on top of each other. Clicking these three lines brings up the main navigation menu.

Hamburger menus have low detectability and that is why we recommend not using them.

In short, the goal is to get your users where they want to be as efficiently and with as few clicks as possible. Avoid anything that causes more hassle and clicks for users.

4. Breadcrumbs

One of the important components of any good and complete site is having breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs not only tell users which page they’re on and how they got there, but it also helps Google understand how your site is structured. Take a look at the image below to see a perfectly set up breadcrumb. Every part of this path is clickable.

5. Sitemap

Using a sitemap has many benefits for your website. Not only does it make navigation easier for users, but it also helps your SEO.

There are two types of sitemaps:

XML Sitemap: Helps search engine crawlers discover your site pages. This type of sitemap gives Google a comprehensive map of all pages on your site.

HTML sitemap: A clickable list of all the pages on your site that is placed on your site and is visible to users. This gives users a quick view of all that your site has to offer.

6. Internal links

Internal link building helps with site navigation.

If a person is reading through a blog on your site, they should be able to find similar or related pieces of content linked within the article. Connecting related content on your site can demonstrate your breadth of knowledge and services to your users. Internal links also entice users to stay on your site longer as they consume related content, which then tells Google your site is important and helps it gain authority.

7. Primary pages

These are the pages displayed when a visitor first enters a website such as contact us or the about page.

Since these are easy-to-access pages, you can use them to get leads. For example, you can include:

Business address
Contact information
Embedded Google Map
Images of your building or location on the contact us page
Social media links
Different forms of media like infographics, video, and slide shows
Call-to-action (CTA) buttons
Contact form

8. Responsive design

People are viewing their screen through a variety of devices and therefore your website needs to have a responsive design. The majority of users today will visit your site on a mobile device first.

Make sure your site is suitable for the devices with which the user is using. The best practice today is to design for mobile first and then adjust your content and graphics to fit iPad/tablets and desktops properly.

9. URLs

URLs are another factor that impacts user experience. URLs should be clear and tell the user the path of the website.

For example:

What not to do: www.example.com/W123 ← random series of characters

What to do: www.example.com/digtal-marketing

Another tip to keep in mind when creating your URLs is to use broad terms. For example, say your topic is “10 ways to boost your SEO”, do not use “/10-ways-to-boost-your-SEO” as your URL because you may want to add to it in the future. Eliminate numbers and linking words such as “by, at, of, etc.” It should look like this “/how-to-boost-your-SEO”.

Typically you want to minimize the URL length by removing stop words, prepositions, etc. unless they are creating value within the URL. For example, instead of “/coverage-of-conference”, use “/conference-coverage”.

10. Image alt text

Each image should have alternative text added to your image setting. Make sure there is a description pop-up of the photo for the users who can’t see the image or for when your webpage doesn’t load properly.

11- Headings

Every page on your site needs to have a heading or as Google likes to read, an H1 tag.

H1, 2, 3, etc. tags tell Google what your page is about - starting from the main topic on the page (H1) down to the subsections.

Think of your page as a book: you have the main title, chapters, and subsections within chapters that allow the book to flow naturally and guide your reader. If there are no headings to the chapters (H1 tags) or mistagged subsections (tagging an H2 as an H3), it can confuse your reader/Google as to what is most relevant on your website.

Incorporating the suggestions outlined above will not only enhance UX, but it’ll also help with SEO, greatly improving your chances of showing up on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

12. Whitespace

Whitespace is space between elements (photos, graphics, videos, etc.) on your webpage.

Whitespace is categorized as micro and macro.

Micro spaces are the small spaces between the design elements. Macro spaces are the large spaces between the layout elements. Using white space allows for stronger readability of your text, helps your media stand out, and ensures your reader can better focus on the content.

Incorporate whitespace to all areas of your website, including your CTAs, blogs, and landing pages in order for it to be more visually appealing. Users will leave your site if it feels too busy and overwhelming.

13. 404 Pages

When a link is broken on a website, users are led to a 404 page. This can happen for a number of reasons but can cause a lot of frustration for users, especially if many of your pages have this error. This can insinuate to a user that this site is not regularly maintained and the information is outdated.

Tracking every 404 page and redirecting them to the correct page or back to your homepage is considered best practice.

14- Footer

The footer is the section at the bottom of your website that should include your company’s information.

We recommend adding your social media links, address, phone number, and email. It’s also helpful to link to important landing pages or your latest blogs in the footer.

Create an Online Experience Your Users Will Love

As you can see the structure of your website is at the heart of your user’s experience. Use the tips above to ensure your users avoid frustration and enjoy your site all while Google happily crawls and adds authority to your website!

Having an awesome website is just one aspect of creating an exceptional online experience for your visitors.

Want to unlock your team’s potential, discover how to market effectively (and respectfully) in the current global landscape, and learn how to create a detailed digital marketing strategy in just eight to 10 weeks? Click the link below to find out more!

What to expect from your SEO service provider

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 14:43:00 GMT

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between the various search engine optimization (SEO) service providers of various SEO Consultants?

If you don’t understand SEO (and why would you? You’re not alone), the tasks involved can sound a little like technobabble. And if you’ve ever hired someone to do SEO for your business or personal website, you may have wondered what you were actually paying for and if your investment was even accomplishing anything.

The first thing to understand is that not all SEO is the same, even though some contractors will try to tell you it is. Search Engine Optimization gets more sophisticated depending on your needs, budget, the urgency for results, and the time and capabilities of your team. For ease of understanding, allow me to break this down by levels.

This blog outlines what to expect from various SEO providers. Aside from building a website, search engine optimization is typically the starting point for building a recognizable brand online. Consequent blogs will explore other elements of digital marketing such as paid media, social media, dynamic content, and more.

Do you even need a SEO service provider?

Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have algorithms that prioritize which websites get to be in the top positions on a results page for specific search terms. Without search engine optimization , Google will have trouble finding your site. Algorithms can be turbulent and change frequently. SEO consultants track these changes and help your website get ranked on search engines.

Types of SEO services

Just as there are myriads of different business goals, SEO services are created to achieve different objectives. SEO service providers range from software solutions to freelancers to full service agencies and there’s a good reason to work with any one of these depending on your needs.

For sake of ease, we have categorized services into three different levels to achieve the goals of local optimization (level one), rank against local competitors (level two), and lead engagement (level three).

LEVEL ONE SEO SERVICES: LOCAL OPTIMIZATION

Your level one SEO service provider’s goal is to have your website ranked for your business name and for your industry, within a geographical region. This is the most simple form of SEO and, therefore, the least expensive.

The majority of SEO contractors fall into this category, pursuing page one results for a business name and within a geographically-relevant search for their business category.

If someone enters American Express Travel from their home computer in Dallas, Texas, for instance, the closest American Express Travel Agency will appear at the top of the search results. Meanwhile, a travel shopper on their phone in a Singapore taxi will receive the nearest agency to their current location.

But what if someone wants to find a travel agency and they don’t have an agency brand name in mind when they do their search? Search engines will still take the prospect’s current location into consideration, but some people will add their location to the search term. Examples of geographic search terms are:

Travel Agency in Singapore

Business Accountant in Toronto

International School in Barcelona

Private Jet Charter Los Angeles

To ensure your website shows up as the answer to these queries, you would hire a “local SEO” contractor or a directory type of corporation, such as Yellow Pages, to get your website ranked on page one. If budget is a concern, there are inexpensive providers for hire in India, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and other regions who do systematic effective work.

Engagement with your SEO service provider will usually start with a website audit and report. Along with the technical optimizations outlined in your audit, a key set-up task in ranking your website is to optimize your Google My Business (GMB) listing. In this case, “optimization” is initially about filling in all the blanks on your profile.

Once the GMB is optimized, your contractor will shift focus to onsite optimization.

Onsite Optimization:

Onsite optimization ensures that your ideal search terms, such as “tax accountant in Calgary”, are entered in the right places throughout your website. (For a more technical explanation, see our blog on how to write an SEO friendly blog post here.) Onsite optimization also addresses most of the technical issues revealed in the website audit, ensuring that your website loads quickly, is hosted securely, and is up-to-date.

Reporting:

Reporting is typically automated at this level; this means it’s automatically generated from Google Analytics or another piece of analytics software.

Consulting:

An independent contractor may have a monthly or quarterly meeting with you to discuss your results and next steps. The corporate directory option will provide an account executive to support your questions.

Fees:

This is the least expensive form of search engine optimization. A larger, directory type of corporation or internationally outsourced contractor may charge a set-up fee of $500 to $1500 and as little as $50 to $100 USD per month, but fees can be significantly higher depending on added services. A western independent contractor’s set-up fee may be an additional $500 to $1000 more with a retainer of $500 to $1500 per month.

LEVEL TWO SEO SERVICES: COMPETITIVE RANKING

Once you have ranked for your business name and your industry locally, you will want to rank organically for a variety of keywords your prospects are searching for. This requires your SEO service to provide more knowledge of your target audience and their search patterns and some off-site SEO strategies.

The businesses listed below the geographical results are organically ranked websites.. The owners of these websites have invested more time and energy in optimization activities than those whose websites appear on page two and beyond.

Your Level Two SEO provider will cover the basics in Level One and will provide more in-depth insights and content recommendations that your target audience is interested in. At this level, you’re providing a strategy to your provider and they’re doing the research to help you implement the strategy. They do this through market and keyword research in addition to offsite optimization.

There are additional tasks required to be organically competitive.

Keyword Research:

involves understanding your business and your ideal audience and then discovering what the hot topics are for your prospective clients. Your SEO provider will bring you topics to create content about. At this level, onsite optimization is performed and, with enough relevant content, your website will climb the ranks.

Offsite Optimization:

Offsite optimization consists of identifying relevant and high authority websites to link back to your website. This can be done by building partnerships, providing great content for other websites such as informative blog posts or interesting infographs, or simply by linking back to your website from your social media posts.

A word of caution: Be careful about offsite optimization as many contractors will use unethical practices to get “backlinks”. It may accomplish the goal temporarily, but you run the risk of being shut down by Google and other search engines and it’s not easy to recover when this happens.

Reporting:

In addition to an automated analytics report, monthly reports may include a work report at this level, outlining tasks done on behalf of your organization. The tasks in Level Two take longer to achieve results and need to be tracked from the time they are implemented to when the outcome is achieved.

Consulting:

Your SEO provider should ask you questions about your goals and what’s happening in your industry and market so that they can provide updated insights and recommendations for content and a linking strategy. Consulting at this level tends to be technical in nature and should be at a consistent cadence.

Your level two provider is likely an independent contractor or an SEO firm with trained Google Analytics certified professionals.

Fees:

Level Two fees will depend on the level of your provider’s experience combined with the complexity of your industry. For a retail storefront or ecommerce store, fees can start at the lower end, but can scale significantly in relation to the number of products you want to promote. Service oriented organizations or schools can expect to pay more depending on the geographic reach and the amount of content they want to promote.

LEVEL THREE SEO SERVICES: INBOUND SEO

Level One and Two may generate leads, but brand awareness is the focus of the SEO professional. Your Level Three SEO service provider will cover those bases as well, but will be more in tune with your business goals and their actions more focused on attracting leads.

You have created visibility for your website and you are generating some traffic. Perhaps prospects pick up the phone or email you once they have had a look. Level Three goes to the next level of creating content for your ideal prospects throughout their sales journey.

Inbound Marketing is a method of providing high-value content to visitors that guides them toward making a buying decision. The “SEO” service provider at this level is more of a strategist and consultant with experience across platforms other than Google and website software. Their role demands a more intimate knowledge of your business and your ideal clients in order to provide quality recommendations and help you achieve your goals.

Your interactions with an inbound marketing consultant will be focused on generating stories, profiles, how-to articles, and other valuable content bespoke to each of your prospect types. They will work with you on workflows that capture leads and nurture those leads through various media.

Rather than a “target audience”, inbound narrows the focus to various personas that your organization serves. This may include international target audiences, but be sure your contractor or agency has previous experience with international targeting if this is your wish, as generating leads from international customers is not the same as local targeting. (For more information see our article on international digital marketing here.)

Personalized marketing:

The professional in this space will consider where your ideal customer consumes content through each part of their buying journey and, ultimately, where they signal intent to purchase. The highest quality leads may come from a source other than Google such as LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or podcast influencer referrals.

Content creation:

The creation of written content and other more innovative offers is the most time consuming and otherwise challenging aspect of Inbound Marketing. This, again, is why it’s important to work closely with your marketing partner. You will need content that matches your brand intent, voice, and values. Most organizations will want to be deeply involved in content production whether through being interviewed by professional writers or enlisting internal writers to participate.

Unlike “content marketing, Inbound Marketing isn’t solely dependent on the quantity of content produced, but quantity does play a role in being recognized by search engines and hitting all the buttons of your prospects along their journey. Depending on how quickly you want results and how much of the content you want to produce in-house, the scope of work can be significant.

Reporting:

Reporting will be far more customized and goal oriented at this level. Analytics will be used to back-up consulting recommendations and to track progress toward your goals.

Fees:

Fees will likely resemble a full time salary, with the advantage of multiple disciplines in one “hire”. Retainers will vary greatly depending on your needs, urgency, the number and locations of target audiences, and whether they are utilizing social media, paid media, and other forms of support.

Unless you have an eCommerce website, you will have to work closely with your sales or admissions department to close the reporting loop and track marketing efforts through to a sale. Investing in marketing automation will help connect your inbound efforts to completed sales and will make your life a lot easier than using a multitude of tools to manage the various facets of Inbound. (SEO, landing pages, email for lead nurturing, thank you pages, social media scheduling and engagement, CRM, etc.)

The Level Three consulting relationship takes a notable leap from previous levels. Not merely a SEO contractor, your consultant will become integrated with your team over the course of time. While face-to-face (or virtual) meetings may only happen monthly, your access will tend to be open and you may have more than one contact if the selected agency is doing any of the content production or paid media on your behalf.

Depending on your desire and the size of your team, your consultant will likely provide training on various Inbound Marketing tasks to increase your internal capacity while the agency takes on more research and specialized technical tasks.

Note that not all content comes in the form of blogs and eBooks. Your SEO consultant should provide more innovative and creative ideas based on what your ideal client will most likely respond to.

Your Level Three provider is likely a full service agency, potentially specializing in Inbound marketing. This level of support requires a team with specific areas of expertise to work on your behalf.

Find your SEO service provider

It should be noted that SEO is the foundation for a long term marketing strategy. It provides a steady presence and reputation to meet prospects on their terms, through their online search habits. To increase results more rapidly, organizations need to be using social media to amplify their message and leverage paid media to support their more immediate goals. Contact IMPACT Marketing International, an expert SEO service provider to speak with a SEO Consultant for a free consultation on what the best SEO option is for you.

Personalized Marketing Techniques for International School Marketing

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 20:08:00 GMT

As times have changed, your current school marketing plans have likely changed as well. In this blog, we share insights on how to tackle your digital admissions presence in the next school year.

Many schools are finding that they need to find new and innovative ways to engage and attract families, and the usual marketing strategies aren’t enough to deliver results. Marketing has become more sophisticated, making it more challenging to stand out among the crowd. Communication with prospective families needs to be personalized in order to capture the attention of viewers and compel them to make an inquiry.

Unfortunately, building this kind of school marketing plan can be overwhelming to build and execute.

This post provides you with straightforward, effective marketing methods to add personalization and digital functionality to your school admissions marketing strategy in 2021.

INBOUND Website Personalization

Personalized website content provides visitors content specifically tailored to his/her needs, interests, and goals. If you use an inbound marketing platform such as Hubspot, you have the ability to personalize content to each of your users based on information gathered about that family. Say, for instance, a parent has visited your website and eventually filled out a form on your website to download an infographic that you’ve created. The next time that user is browsing your site. With HubSpot, you can use dynamic content that automatically serves pages customized to the user’s browsing patterns and interests.

Whether you realize it or not, you have likely experienced personalization yourself. Perhaps you have visited a website referred by a Facebook friend, colleague, or other acquaintance. Suddenly, you realize 30 minutes have passed and you are still on the website, following trails of information that interest you. This is a result of content personalization where the automation tool’s algorithm continuously delivers you content it deems will be of most interest to you.

You don’t need HubSpot to pull this off. Tailoring your prospective families' personal experience with persona-based messaging is key to engaging families you are best suited to serve and guiding them toward an admissions inquiry.

Curious about how to create a persona? Click here .

Facebook and Google Retargeting and Remarketing Campaigns

Paid media outlets such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook now commonly provide a piece of code, called a pixel, for you to embed in your web content for tracking purposes. With your personalized content machine humming from the previous step, the pixel will begin to record the IP addresses of website visitors. Remarketing is a form of advertising that serves ads to people who have already been to your website.

Including Google or Facebook retargeting in your campaign strategy is extremely cost effective, with a lower cost per click often a higher conversion rate. This useful strategy focuses on people who have taken specific actions, such as those who have visited certain pages on your website, landing pages, ads, etc. The best use of this tactic is to make remarketing ads extremely relevant to the pages viewed and guide the reader to the next logical piece of information they would be interested in. Remarketing keeps your school front of mind and reminds them there's more to see, especially if they have been shopping multiple schools in their research process.

Often a family may need to see multiple ad campaigns before they are comfortable enough to move to the next stage of the funnel and this is a gentle way to provide value until they’re ready.

Lookalike Audiences

Incorporating a “lookalike audience” in your target audience selection process is a way to reach new candidates who are likely to be interested in your school because they’re similar to your existing families. This option is available on Facebook and LinkedIn.

These platforms provide the option for you to upload a spreadsheet of email addresses as a basis to find similar profiles. Privacy is integral to the success of Facebook and LinkedIn and it’s key to maintaining the integrity of your school! You can view the privacy terms for Facebook here. The contacts on your list will not be solicited with your ads. The privacy of your new target audience is protected as you will not have access to their information unless they choose to provide it.

Once the list is loaded, Facebook and LinkedIn use all the available data to find common themes and creates an audience of people with similar characteristics.

Adding a look alike audience to your Facebook or LinkedIn advertising platform is an excellent option for schools that already have a good student base.

Email Marketing and Lead Nurturing

According to Wordstream, 77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email versus other communication modes.

Well designed, personalized email messages are effective because:

Researching families anticipate messages from schools and want to stay informed
Most people regularly check their inbox
Email offers detailed reporting to track opens, clicks, and other actions
Email messages can be further personalized based on viewer actions

By incorporating email in your school marketing strategy, you can segment your lists allowing for greater personalization. Email segmentation consists of organizing your contacts into different groups to customize and deliver specific messages based on the family’s location, ages of their children, or even their program of interest such as athletics or sciences.

When you create useful, beautiful, generous content that is personalized to the reader’s interests, you build a stronger bond with your potential families.

Contrary to some beliefs, email isn’t limited to older demographics. According to HubSpot , 35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device and 73% of millennials prefer communications to come via email.

Email marketing platforms offer flexibility, creativity, and, most importantly, ease of use. Some useful platforms are Constant Contact , MailChimp, and some CRM tools like Hubspot have email platforms built into their systems.

It's important to identify the differences between permission-based email marketing and spam. As you’ve probably guessed, permission-based email marketing, also known as opt-in email marketing, is precisely what it sounds like. It’s a method for businesses to obtain explicit consent from users in order to send them marketing emails. The tools mentioned above employ the strictest privacy standards and will ensure you are GDPR compliant and meet globally imposed regulations. Click here to learn more about How to make sure your organization is GDPR Compliant.

If you need help, IMPACT Marketing International has a Marketing Action Plan (MAP) workshop that will provide you with a methodology for your team and the design of an end-to-end marketing campaign customized to your target market.

To learn more about customizing an end to end marketing plan for your school, click the button below.

Four Ways to Measure the Success of Your Blog Post

Fri, 29 Jan 2021 23:47:00 GMT

You probably spend a lot of time (and perhaps money) on writing and posting blogs. But how can you actually measure the success of your blogging and determine whether or not your content is resonating with your audience? Through monitoring certain metrics.

There are currently more than 600 million blogs on the Internet out of 1.7 billion websites, with the number of active bloggers estimated to hit 31.7 million this year in the U.S. alone.

With such a competitive online landscape, and the attention of our readers consistently pulled in every direction, it’s more important than ever to measure the results of your content and adjust accordingly.

The best place to look at metrics to measure the success of your blog post is through Google Analytics. This service is free and it provides valuable insights to help you better understand how interested your online audience is in your content.

When it comes to measuring the success of your blog posts, we recommend looking at the following metrics:

Web traffic
Pageviews
Onsite engagement
Inbound links

Web traffic

Web traffic refers to overall traffic to the website. This is the most general of measurements.

There are five types of web traffic and we encourage you to take note of all of them.

Direct traffic: the traffic coming in because a viewer entered your web address directly into the address bar of their web browser.
Social media: the traffic that comes from social media, both from regular posts and from advertising or boosted posts.
Organic traffic: the traffic coming in because a viewer entered a search term or question in the search bar on Google or another search engine. This is where your keywords come into play.
Paid traffic: this includes traffic from any paid digital advertising.
Referrals: the traffic that came in from an inbound link. We will discuss this further in the section below.

Pageviews

Where web traffic data is more general to the entire website, pageviews help you understand how many people are actually looking at a specific page or piece of content - the latter of which is the first step toward blog success.

Pageviews are an exceptional way to discover the number of people arriving on a page and whether or not they continue to look around your website.

Pageviews are divided into two categories:

Pageviews
Unique pageviews

According to Google Analytics support site, a pageview (also referred to as a pageview hit or page tracking hit) occurs whenever a page is loaded or reloaded in a browser. It is the measure of how many times your content has been viewed. Even if the same person has viewed the page multiple times, it will be counted as a pageview.

A unique pageview, on the other hand, is the measure of sessions during which the specified page was viewed by a unique viewer. This metric eliminates repeated views by the same user, giving you the exact number of people who viewed your content.

And if you divide the number of pageviews by the number of unique pageviews, you’ll get the average number of times your content is viewed per session.

As a general rule of thumb, the higher the pageview, the more popular the content. With that said, look at this statistic in conjunction with the other stats listed below to get a better understanding of how your content is doing.

Significant onsite engagement

Once people make their way to the website and find the page they’re looking for, how will you know if they are engaging with your content?

You do so by measuring these individuals’ next steps. Does the time they spend on your page reflect that they are fully reading the content? Do they click your call-to-action (CTA)? Do they click related articles?

Looking into engagement-related data can give you a deeper understanding of how valuable your content is to your audience. These measurements are less an indication of website optimization, social media, or paid advertising, and purely associated to the value of your content as it relates to the reader.

What defines a successful measurement:

The average time a viewer spends on a blog post, an indication they are actually reading it. Though the time varies depending on the length, type, etc., the average time overall is two to three minutes.
You should aim for a bounce rate (the number of people who visit your website and then immediately exit out of it) of 40% or less; if it’s above 50%, the reason could depend on a number of things. Bounce rate is partially related to the content itself but can also be related to the drivers of the traffic. People bounce because the content either wasn’t what they were looking for or it wasn’t compelling.

Inbound links

How many external sources are linking to your content?

It’s the highest compliment to you and your content when other websites, social media posts, or blogs are linking to your blog or website. These are called inbound links and they can show you just how much people value your content - and inherently you - for thought leadership.

You can use tools such as Google Analytics, Moz, or Hubspot to help you track who is linking to your site.

Now that you understand the importance of measuring the success of your blog post, and the best metrics to take note of, we invite you to learn how to actually create a content marketing strategy to get you the results you crave.

In our new Marketing Action Plan workshop, we will provide you and your team with the tools you need to begin your marketing strategy development or to ramp up your current efforts with your existing team and resources.

Find out more by clicking the button below!

What You Need to Know About Hubspot’s Contact Tier Pricing Changes

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 18:25:00 GMT

The Hubspot Inbound conference is an event that we wait for every year. While it may not achieve the same hype as an Apple launch event, Hubspot users and partners sit on the edge of their ergonomically correct chairs in their home offices waiting to hear the latest updates, product releases, and new features in the platform.

This year one of the biggest announcements is the significant change to Hubspot’s pricing structure in terms of marketing contacts that directly impacts (haha - no pun intended) some of our clients. Here’s what you need to know.

Hubspot’s Previous Marketing Contact Pricing Plan

The challenge with the previous pricing model is that Hubspot users were constantly trying to manage the number of contacts in their database to ensure their list didn’t exceed the number of contacts they were allowed within the limit of their current paid plan. Inactive contacts, sales contacts, bounced emails, subscribers that you weren’t marketing to, and even your own employees all counted towards your limit.

As of October 21, 2020, that’s all changed.

What the Update Means for Hubspot Users

With Hubspot’s new model you can now categorize your contacts as marketing and non-marketing contacts and only those you set as marketing contacts will count towards your limit.

Increased Marketing Contacts Limit

For Hubspot Pro level users, your contact limit has just doubled. Your monthly or annual fee now includes 2,000 marketing contacts rather than just 1,000.

This means that organizations who are just beginning with Hubspot can import their current prospect list without worrying about how quickly they’ll hit their contact limit.

It’s important to note that those users that are still below the contact limit for their current tier

Store Up to 1 Million Non-Marketing Contacts for Free

The biggest change: you can store up to 1 million (yes, you read that correctly) non-marketing contacts in your portal at no charge.

This is BIG news for those of you marketing an international or independent school: now you can keep your admitted families’ contacts in Hubspot instead of deleting them. Simply mark them as non-marketing while they’re being managed in your other platforms. That way if you ever have a need to market to a segment of that list you can simply reactivate the contact as a marketing one.

Categorize Contacts Easily

I know. You’re likely thinking “Hooray!” but you’re also thinking about how long this process of categorizing contacts is going to take.

Hubspot thought of that too and created an automated process to determine contact’s eligibility flow with just a few clicks. You can also manage this setting manually as well as create specific workflows.

And, you can update your contact settings monthly.

IMPORTANT: categorizing your contacts in Marketing Hub must be maintained regularly. The moment your contact list jumps over the limit within your chosen contact tier (even by just a few contacts), Hubspot will increase your monthly fee and it will not automatically go back down when you re-categorize contacts.

How to Switch to Marketing Hub with Contacts

Making the switch to Marketing Hub with Contacts is best suited for organizations that are already bumping up to their existing contact limit. If your contact database isn’t near your current limit, we suggest waiting until you’re at that limit before making the change.

If you are maxed out, contact your Hubspot Support Manager or your IMPACT Client Manager to start the process of changing your Hubspot subscription.

IMPACT Marketing International has a Marketing Action Plan (MAP) workshop that will provide you with an end-to-end marketing campaign customized to your target market. From brand awareness through to conversion.

To learn more about customizing an end to end marketing plan for your school, click the button below.

Five Creative Marketing Ideas for International Schools

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 16:00:00 GMT

One of the hardest steps in creating a strong marketing strategy for your online presence is coming up with creative marketing ideas for your international school that will set you apart from the competition.

Five International School Marketing Strategies

To illustrate how captivating digital content can be, we wanted to take you through five creative marketing ideas for international schools. Click the links below to discover each campaign, including why we came up with these ideas, how we brought them to life, and what the results were.

An automated, customized viewbook to help families get to know your school
An interactive timeline to illustrate the history of your school
An interactive map to illuminate your school’s diversity
A business directory to engage and connect with alumni
An interactive packing checklist for your expats

Alice Smith School’s Customized Viewbook

Behind Alice Smith School’s customized viewbook, there were a number of goals:

Provide a piece of content to prospective families that they could build to suit their individual needs
Capture leads
Remove the need for a hard copy prospectus
Present Alice Smith School in an innovative modern way

Knowing the goals, and the persona for this particular campaign, our contact at Alice Smith, Andrea Grassby, Director of Marketing and Admissions, came to us with a request. She wanted us to help the school build a piece of content that was interactive and personalized to the individual viewer.

With the school’s goals clearly in mind, we went on a search for a solution and found CustomViewbook. Though they had never worked with an international school, we knew it was the best way to achieve the aforementioned goals.

“Consumers have changed the way they research and make decisions on products over the last few years, they expect rapid, personalized responses and availability of information online,” said Grassby. “Expectations on how schools should respond have also changed and COVID-19 has accelerated this.”

The team at CustomViewbook and Alice Smith went back and forth discussing specific pieces of content and questions necessary to make the prospectus work. At IMPACT, we supported the production as needed and developed the supporting blog posts and the landing page where the viewbook now lives.

“The viewbook looks great and has received positive feedback to date. It enables us to deliver content that is right for the enquiring family rather than send a 'one size fits' all prospectus. The back end system allows us to track the lead source to the campaign, webpage or email and our Admissions team can also send individualized links to families they are engaging with,” said Grassby.

The results

In the first two and a half months, there were:

138 new leads
421 return visits
175 total leads

“Although this campaign is still in early stages we have already seen encouraging results in the first few weeks with more than half of the downloaded books receiving multiple views showing families are engaging with the content,” said Grassby.

The viewbook was recently awarded Bronze in the

2020 InspirED School Marketers Brilliance Awards 'Out of the Box Concepts' category.

"In a world where personalization matters, this concept isn't just smart, it resonates with the next generation of prospective families. Where this approach shines is in the displaying of what the viewer wants to know about the school, not what the school wants the viewer to know. Really smart," said one of the judges.

Marketing idea for international schools: Brainstorm innovative ways to produce or showcase those items your team is already producing i.e. the school profile or prospectus.

International School of Tanganyika’s (IST) Interactive Timeline

IST was approaching its 55th anniversary and wanted a way to illustrate their history, while also connecting with both alumni and the school community.

The school’s goals included:

Highlighting some of the most important events that occurred since their opening
Sharing historical stories to celebrate its long history

Leveraging these goals, IMPACT had an internal brainstorm. We ultimately decided on an interactive timeline using Tiki-Toki.

Click here to take a look at the finished product.

We requested interviews from IST historians, teachers from when the school first started, heads of schools, and read through one of their history textbooks written by the talented Graham Mercer.

After a little over a month, we had videos, audio clips, blogs, historic photos, and countless interviews to help us tell the story of IST.

The results

In the first six months, there was a:

88% increase in time on page to 14:52
727% increase in unique page views
180% increase in unique organic page views
80 alumni reconnected with the school

“It was an amazing artifact for our school. Not only did it help us to celebrate our anniversary, but this is something that we continue to share and build on. It is now an active timeline that we can add events to,” said Mark Hardeman, Head of School at IST.

Marketing idea for international schools: Brainstorm innovative ways to produce or showcase those items your team is already producing i.e. the school profile or prospectus.

IST’s Diversity Map

One of IST’s core values is diversity, and this was something the school wanted to illustrate through a campaign.

Our team here at IMPACTwanted to achieve IST’s goal of showcasing diversity and sharing experiences of community members, but do so using a creative marketing idea. After brainstorming, and sifting through different concepts, we decided on an interactive map using Google Maps.

We interviewed teachers, parents, and students, asking them various questions about their time at IST, their ethnic background, and what cultural diversity means to them. We then inserted their stories as little pins on the map.

Click here to take a look.

The results

In the first six months, on the main page, we saw:

4,323 pageviews
3,909 unique pageviews
1:33 average time on page

On the parent blog, with no paid advertising, we saw:

156 pageviews
125 unique pageviews
4:51 average time on page

On the teacher blog, with no paid advertising, we saw:

82 pageviews
68 unique pageviews
1:22 average time on page

On the student blog, with no paid advertising, we saw:

152 pageviews
140 unique pageviews
3:01 average time on page

“This was a great visual to show the international nature of our school community,” said Hardeman. “It is also great to see how different cultures connect with our school, and how deeply everyone values the various cultures that we have on campus each day.”

Marketing idea for international schools: Brainstorm with your team how to represent your school’s values through your content. This will help attract and retain best fit families.

IST’s Business Directory

As stated in the timeline campaign, one of IST’s major goals was to connect with alumni. We wanted to move away from the awareness stage of the funnel and into more of the delight with this campaign. With this in mind, we dove into a brainstorming session and came up with the alumni business directory. The benefit of this campaign was two-fold:

IST would be able to connect with their alumni and learn more about their impact in Dar es Salaam
IST would be able to support new families in the community with a resource they could use as they settle into Dar

“By highlighting our alumni's businesses, we are able to share information about hotels, restaurants, travel, and services that support families to learn about our city and give them access to resources within our community.”

Our team sent out a form to IST’s alumni community letting them know about the directory and asking if they wanted to be part of it. Responses came back instantly, with many community members eager to join. Then, we created a Constituent Directory on their website.

Click here to take a look.

The results

In the first six months, with no paid advertising, we saw:

120 pageviews
101 unique pageviews
8:08 average time on page
16 business sign ups

As with the campaigns described above, this is a living, breathing, creative piece of content. We come up with the idea and bring it to life, but our clients then have the ability to continually add to it.

Marketing idea for international schools: We ask a lot of our alumni communities. Think about ways you can serve them through your campaign content.

Nishimachi International School’s Interactive Packing Checklist

Nishimachi International School (NIS) wanted to create something that would reach and appeal to families relocating to Japan.

The idea for a packing checklist came up early on in our brainstorming, but we wanted to go one step further and add interactivity. We came up with our list through research and working with the client. Once we had enough items, we loaded them on the website as you can see here.

We also created an interactive, downloadable PDF. Once the user packed the item, they could click a button and add a checkmark.

Marketing idea for international schools: If you’re looking for a simple way to increase engagement on your content, add some sort of interactive element.

The results

Though we don’t have access to the specific results, our contact, Kacie Leviton, the Marketing and Communications Manager at NIS, had the following to say.

“I thought it did well for the duration we ran it. Had we ran it and promoted it more, it would have performed better,” said Leviton. “It’s important to differentiate your school from the other schools in your area and answer what sets you apart and makes you unique. IMPACT helped us identify this and helped us to create content to promote it.”

Start Marketing Your International School

Here at IMPACT, we come up with innovative, creative marketing ideas for international schools and deliver them to our clients.

The Social Dilemma - 10 Ways to Protect Your Privacy Online

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 16:23:00 GMT

The Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma , has stirred up the fears of digital media and smartphone users. Many people already have concerns about how they are being tracked online and how their data is being used, and this show deepened concerns about how they are exposing themselves to the influence and manipulation of corporations, advertisers, and politicians.

The Social Dilemma discloses how social media channels like Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter, as well as email providers and search engines like Google, have access to our personal details.

It goes on to demonstrate how these corporations use our data, not only to sell us stuff, but to manipulate us into an addiction to their services, to influence our opinions on social and political issues, and potentially to coerce us to do things we would not otherwise consider doing.

The Social Dilemma increases the power of their messages by interviewing many credible individuals from virtually every digital channel, including:

Google: Tristan Harris, former Google Executive and Guillaume Chaslot, former Google Engineer
Instagram: Bailey Richardson, one of Instagram’s first 13 employees
Facebook: Sandy Parakilas, former Operations Manager and Tim Kendall led the charge for monetization of the popular network
Twitter: Alex Roetter, SVP of Engineering
Pinterest: Tim Kendall, former President

The documentary has sparked terror in viewers regarding their privacy and the idea that these digital channels may have too much control over their lives and the lives of their children.

DISCLAIMER

Full disclosure: I’m a marketer. I love researching and understanding algorithms. I love the capability digital media provides so our team at IMPACT can help our corporate and education clients identify an audience of people who will actually be interested in what they have to offer. In my opinion, the intelligent data provided by these organizations steers us away from spamming those who are not in the market for our client’s products and services.

Even as a consumer, I appreciate seeing ads that are relevant to me. I do admit, my preference would be to not see ads in my feed at all, but if I’m going to see ads I’d rather not see pick-up trucks or nail polish because those things aren't my jam. Show me wine, outdoor events, or running gear and it will put me in a good mood and, yes, I may even buy something!

Typical ad in my Facebook feed, catering to my interests.

Facebook and Google are “free” and it's the advertisers that pay for our privilege of using the service.

“If you’re not PAYING for the product, you ARE the product.”

Tristan Harris, former Google Executive

While I love the marketing capabilities of digital media, I have concerns. I am most disturbed about how we are served information, posts, and content from our contacts that most align with our existing point of view. I’m concerned about the lack of exposure we have to content that challenges our beliefs and diversifies our views on subjects of social, political, and lifestyle.

We all think we are savvy and smart enough to look at all sides of a story, but we can’t help but be influenced by the stories we see. It makes sense that Facebook is going to serve us content similar to what we spend time viewing, reading, liking, and commenting on. That’s the service they provide! However, this method is creating more division in our society than ever before.

Stories that look like authoritative articles and quotes taken out of context with their own spin are appearing one way on your feed and another way for that person on the other side of the political or current event fence.

“Two billion people will have thoughts they didn’t intend to have because a designer at Google said this is how notifications work on that screen that you wake up to every morning.”

Tristan Harris, former Google Executive

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY ONLINE

Personally, I want to stay connected via social media with my friends, family, and associates around the world. I want to continue using the tools for business purposes. However, I want to have a balanced view of current events and politics, and I don’t want every move I make to be tracked by the big data corporations.

So what can we do to mitigate the exposure of our private data and the control technology and algorithms have on our lives? Here are some of the things I’m personally shifting and what you can do as well.

The best way to protect your privacy online is to turn off your computer or, at least, disconnect it from the Internet. Since most of us use social media and search engines like Google to connect with friends and family, interests, and hobbies, disconnecting from the Internet isn’t really an option.

Under the assumption that you would like to stay connected to the web, let’s talk about how to maximize your privacy while still utilizing these tools.

1- GET RID OF SINGLE SIGN-ON

Single sign-on is the term used to describe when you use your Gmail or Facebook account to sign in to another account instead of creating a unique username and password. It’s so convenient! But every time you do this, you are giving Google or Facebook access to yet another source of information on your behavior and interests. Other single sign-on sources include, but are not limited to, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Apple, and others.

When giving the option between using your email address and using Google, Facebook, or Apple,
opt to use an unaffiliated email address.

New Paragraph

Where to find “incognito” on your Chrome browser.

5- AVOID CLICKING ON SUGGESTED VIDEOS

If this is a big struggle for you, take note. The fact that irresistible videos are served up to you, one after the other, is a sign that YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram has your profile dialed in. They know exactly how to keep you on their channel so they can increase the value of their service and serve you more ads.

Every time you click on another video, you are adding data to your profile about your likes, opinions, biases, political and social leanings, and fascinations.

Suggested videos can show up in the right column on the desktop view, below the video on your smartphone, and will be recommended upon completion of the current video on YouTube Facebook, and others.

Suggested videos can show up in the right column on the desktop view, below the video on your smartphone,
and will be recommended upon completion of the current video on YouTube Facebook, and others.

6- PURSUE CONTENT CONTRARY TO YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM

That’s right! Intentionally follow and engage with people who are in opposition to your beliefs. To avoid receiving messages that are customized to manipulate you according to your habits and weaknesses, you need to take responsibility for pursuing other opinions.

Keep an open mind and have discussions about other individual’s beliefs. Test your beliefs against news from sources you don’t typically follow. Beware of gossip websites and non-credible news sources, but don’t write off the opposition’s favored source as non-credible.

Try tuning in to the BBC or another media channel outside of your own region. This will encourage the algorithms to serve you a more balanced mix of content and viewpoints rather than reinforcing your own.

7- DON'T TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT

If something sounds outrageous, there’s a good chance it’s false. Before you get outraged and feel compelled to re-share the content or comment on a sensational post, find the source, and verify whether it’s reliable. See if other sources support the claims made.

Take some responsibility to stop false, exaggerated, or one-sided views from spreading.

8- DO AN INTERMITTENT TECHNO-FAST

Consider putting yourself and your family on a techno-diet, specifically an intermittent techno-fasting diet.

Define a window of time each day that you access screens and a time that you are all screen-free. Perhaps before dinner each day you all throw your technology into a drawer until the next morning.

9- PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN

I don’t have young children, but I was the parent who made my kids go to bed at 8 p.m. even when their friends played on the street right outside their bedroom windows until 10 p.m. I was the mom who wouldn’t let her kids watch The Simpsons because of the way the kids spoke to their parents and other adults.

It’s your call, of course, but the longer you hold off on allowing your children to have smartphones and other devices for personal use, the better. I specify “for personal use” because understanding technology is an integral part of adult life and should be incorporated into education in a safe environment.

When you do give in and provide a device to your child, take advantage of parental controls and limit access to social media and chat channels that subject children to content above their maturity level, open them up to the possibility of bullying, and subject them to pervasive distraction.

10- TURN OFF NOTIFICATIONS - CURB YOUR ADDICTION

Stop your own addiction to technology. If you think everyone expects an immediate response, you’re wrong. You’ve trained your contacts to expect whatever communication turnaround time you’re currently delivering.

At minimum, turn off your audible notifications for email and social media. I keep mine on for some messaging apps and text messages. Direct contacts know to reach me there for a quick response, but I keep everything else switched off. I keep the visual notification on for email and LinkedIn, but I only check them at specific times each day.

Create your own protocols to minimize being controlled by the media, to avoid addictive behaviors, and to be present to whatever humans or work you are tending to.

Key Takeaways

The Social Dilemma didn’t share anything that revolutionary, it mostly sensationalized what we already know. But I was struck by the polarity perpetuated through digital media serving us “more of what we want” as we naturally surround ourselves with people and resources that support our current beliefs.

Also, if you listen between the lines, you will note that many of the spokespeople in this film are personally using digital media and allowing their children some degree of access. Unfortunately, the film is so focused on the fear-inducing strategies of the media, that they neglect to offer solutions to mitigate the potential harm of technology.

While the ultimate solution is to unplug everything, the alternative is to take responsibility for how and when you use these services.

I welcome your opinions and feedback. Feel free to click here to send me an email if you want to discuss this or anything else related to digital media or international business growth.

Do you want to know more about the work IMPACT International does for Business or Schools?

Click here to learn about our work with Schools.

Click here to learn about our work with Businesses.

Why your business association should be podcasting

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 18:41:00 GMT

If you’re a tourism association, chamber of commerce, business networking group, winery promoter, retail or hospitality association or any group with a membership of business owners and you’re not podcasting, you’re missing out on awareness, growth, revenue potential, and a unique way to serve your constituents.

“I just heard this on a podcast!” How many times have you heard that recently?

In today’s world where knowledge is currency, people are tapping into all available formats to learn and be entertained. A Google search can produce a quick answer, a YouTube video can demonstrate how to do something new, a blog or eBook can provide education through text and images, and audiobooks can be listened to while driving or going for your daily walk.

With more than 1,500,000 shows and 34,000,000 episodes (October 2020, source: iTunes), podcast numbers are growing and people are tuning in. In the U.S., 104 million people listened to a podcast in one month (Infinite Dial 20). Podcasts are arguably one of the fastest growing digital platforms today.

You can tap into virtually any topic via podcasts from dog grooming to legal advice to science fiction stories, but why should business associations tap into this marketing strategy? Below, we explore five of the many ways this medium can benefit your organization and its members.

1 | You have a built-in topic

As a Chamber of Commerce or similar business model, for example, you know that you have an audience thirsty for knowledge on how to run and grow their businesses.

Your members also depend on you for updates on any political, legal, or regional information that might impact their business. You already host events - on and offline - to provide education to your member base.

What if you provided some of these talks via podcast, or better yet, interview the speakers or “experts” briefly in advance of the event to stir up additional interest?

Every business owner has a story that others can learn from. Indeed, the most powerful learning often comes from the story of a peer. Some of the most popular business podcasts today focus on telling CEO and Founder stories with clear lessons for the listener.

Finding an example of a Chamber of Commerce using this tactic both consistently and well is challenging. The Oshawa, Canada Chamber started with an interesting idea following Seinfeld’s lead with short episodes titled, “The one where [fill in the blank such as ‘we interviewed a CEO’]”, but they have not maintained the channel.

The Chamber of Commerce in Greater Birmingham, U.K. appears to have three years of posting almost monthly with excellent topics. If you want some inspiration, we encourage you to take a look.

But my vision for associations is akin to the podcast titled,“How I Built My Small Business”. It includes hour - or more - long podcasts, delivering interviews with business owners that are both informative and entertaining.

Of course, there are larger media companies like NPR who are experts in creating addictive content, such as, “How I Built This”. Look to them for ideas, but don’t let them intimidate you! Your value is your niche, which happens to be the focus of your association.

If you run a tourism association for, let’s use one of my favorite topics as an example, regional wineries, you could host podcasts that interview sommeliers, winemakers, grape growers, or other vintners for information on all things wine.

GuildSomm, for example, “is a nonprofit international membership organization for wine professionals that promotes education and community”. On their podcast, they interview various specialists from the wine industry on topics of interest to their members and technical wine geeks alike.

2 | It’s a great way to support your members

Not only do you have a built-in topic, but you also have an entire list of people to interview!

From my experience, associations are always trying to find new ways to add value to their members. Provide your members with the opportunity to be interviewed for your podcast and they will line up out the door.

Most people understand the value of having a third party interviewing them and how much more business can be cultivated this way as opposed to advertising or self-promotion. What a great feature to include in membership fees or as an add-on service!

3 | Attract new members

With podcasting, you can establish yourself as a thought leader on a chosen subject matter. Depending on your association and the members you serve, your podcast can grow your organization's reputation and authority on your topic. Here are some ideas on which topics your organization could demonstrate expertise:

Chamber of Commerce or networking group: Business growth or business operations

Live music association: Local music events announcements and reviews

Local farmer’s association: organic foods, seasonality and availability

Event planner or hotel association: Venue expertise for various purposes (weddings, business meetings, etc.)

Restaurant association: happy hours, events, recipes of popular menu items

The list goes on and can be a narrow niche or open to a wider audience depending on what you have to offer and the nature of the list of your associates. The idea is to leverage members’ stories that appeal to a greater audience. Focus on the desired results: promotion for the member being interviewed, attracting new listeners to your podcast, generating more members for your association.

People search for podcasts based on their interests. Become an authority and optimize your show and each episode so that your prospective members can easily find you.

At the beginning, end, and sometimes in the middle of the podcast, you can remind people who is hosting the show and how people can find more information about your organization. Show notes provide another opportunity to direct people to a landing page where they can find out more about membership with your organization.

4 | It can provide a new revenue stream

Even in the early stages, you can charge a small fee to interviewees to be on your “show”. You could have member and non-member rates or, in lieu of a fee, create a contract in which interviewees agree to send a series of emails and a set amount of social media posts to promote their episode. This adds visibility both for the association and the member being interviewed.

There’s an additional opportunity for revenue once your podcast grows a following. You can then begin offering advertising spots on your podcast episodes. The more niche your topic and audience, the smaller the audience required to start charging for ad spots.

For instance, I would pay the same amount for an ad on a Chamber of Commerce podcast with an average of 2000 listeners per episode as I would for a show designed for tourism businesses, associations, education, SaaS, or other service industries with only 100 regular listeners. Why? Because our target audience is almost certainly going to be one of the 100 listeners while the former may not have one person in our target audience tuning in.

5 | It’s a content producing machine that feeds other channels

We have established that a podcast is a great way to serve your members, attract prospective members, build a reputation and authority, and produce another revenue stream for your organization. But this is the gold mine right here…

Do you ever struggle to come up with blog content and social media posts? Do you wonder what topic to produce a video on? Do you wonder how you will get people to your new podcast channel and how it will generate web traffic, membership, and other measurable results?

Here are just a few of the many ways your podcast can help you create content for your other channels and drive listeners back to your podcast:

Blog: Podcast content is naturally rich with keywords for your target audience. Transcribe, clean up the text, and create a blog post for each episode. Embed the podcast right on your blog post and add links to iTunes and other apps where people can tune in.
Social Media: Each podcast will contain quotes for you to use in social media posts. You can also link back to the podcast itself or to your blog in these social posts. If you’re a business association, imagine how inviting this content will be to your LinkedIn network!
Video: Some people perform their podcast recordings using Zoom or other web call software. If you do, you have another piece of content to post to your YouTube channel, to your IGTV, or Facebook page, in addition to your blog.

Depending on the frequency of your podcasting, you will have no shortage of content for all your media channels.

Conclusion

Podcasting is truly a great opportunity for business associations. It’s not necessarily easy but organizations have all the ingredients to be successful and to leverage this medium for growth, service, and revenue.

In my opinion, not very many organizations are doing this well yet, which means there is a gap waiting to be filled by someone just like you!

What do you need right now to navigate admissions through this pandemic?

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 09:50:15 GMT

No one knows how long COVID will impact our lives and the lives of the families you serve. People continue to talk about the “new normal”, but very little is “normal” in the world right now. This year will require resilience, a focus on retention, and building relationships with the future in mind. And admissions marketing, must adapt. The following checklist provides some of the basics to update your marketing this school year.

Content

Address the elephant in the room: Post content prominently on your website that addresses the elephant in the room; education for 2020 - 2021 will not be as it was prior to the COVID outbreak. Whatever your plan is, be transparent and let families know how you will adapt to the evolving situation.
Ensure visitors see important updates: Have a prominent link to time sensitive information on your home page or embed announcements directly into the header.
Share the good stuff: Share positive stories about your community using video, blog posts, and social media.
Tell the story: Create blog, video, ad image rich social media content that shows your school safety plan for on-campus learning.

Nagoya International School has adapted their homepage to reflect current COVID safety protocols by updating the images in the hero banner and offering content about staying safe during school.

Technology

Create a school tour alternative: How can you safely and adequately show people around your campus? Consider a virtual tour or offering live, walk-through open house tours for small groups.
Online meeting decision: Select one technology for web meetings such as Zoom or Google Hangouts and Microsoft Teams for everyone on your team to learn and use in the best way.
Eliminate email fatigue in finding meeting times: Subscribe to a scheduling software so inquiring families can book a web call or virtual tour online.
Keep track of families who aren’t ready YET: Subscribe to an email or automation technology to communicate with the families who come into your funnel so that no one slips through the cracks.
Audit human vs techno solutions: Review your admissions funnel to identify where technology can serve, in place of face-to-face touch points.

Orange Lutheran High School's investment into creating a comprehensive virtual tour is paying off. Prospective families can get a feel for the campus and facilities from the comfort of their own home.

Click on the button below to learn more about how to market effectively with a Marketing Action Plan for International Schools.

Promotion and Optimization

Introduce your school: Optimize your website so that interested families can find you through a Google or other search, even if they don’t know your school name
Retain relationships: Increase your social media activity to maintain the relationship with current families and faculty, prospective families, and alumni. These are your golden word of mouth warriors and they must be reminded that they can be confident of the school’s ability to provide a high-quality, and safe education.
Update your personas: Consider the families you are best suited to serve and how their concerns, fears, and needs around education have changed in today’s world.
Research the keywords your updated personas are using to search right now.
Adapt your strategy: Adjust - or create - your search and social media ad strategy to address the needs and questions of your updated personas.
Be tone sensitive: Adjust the tone of your admissions pages, social media posts, promotional content, and ads to be appropriate and sensitive to your personas.
Identify urgency: If there is an urgency around enrollment, identify prospective families who are “low-hanging fruit” and who may also be feeling a sense of urgency for your offer in this unusual time. These families may be different from the ones prioritized pre-COVID.

ISB Bangkok - Virtual Open House

To learn more about how to market effectively with a Marketing Action Plan for International Schools, Inquire Today!

To find out more click the button below.

Building an International Digital Marketing Strategy

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 18:34:00 GMT

The importance of adjusting your digital marketing strategy for international reach cannot be emphasized enough.

Search engine query results differ greatly depending on where the searcher is located. Googling “weight loss solutions” in Dallas will produce different search results than Googling the same term from Seattle. And if you are targeting an audience in an completely different country, even more complexities arise.

The point? How you market in a single geography is not how you market internationally.

Whereas local based marketing mostly involves optimizing your Google My Business listing and leveraging the fact that Google displays search results relative to a user’s location. If someone is searching for your product or service outside of your local area and they don’t know your organization’s name, you’re not going to show up in search results.

This article provides a few simple international digital marketing strategies to attract the right prospects from around the world, or at least not in your immediate vicinity.

Tip 1: Know who you’re speaking to

Search engine query results differ greatly depending on where you're located.

Depending on what region you're targeting, you need to take language and, at times, which search engine is most popular in that location into consideration. In China, for example, Google is banned and Baidu owns 82% of digital search. And if you’re selling products online in Asia, you will want to take a look at Alibaba.com in addition and Amazon.

Build a detailed persona that fleshes out demographics, needs, and pain points of your target audience and then personalize language on ads, landing pages, and blogs to meet those needs.

Tip 2: Conduct location based research

When you’re doing your research for non-local target audiences, use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

With a VPN, you can trick search engines into believing you are anywhere in the world. By using this tactic, you can put yourself in your buyer's shoes as you explore the competition and your own standing in search results.

This research will also provide intelligence on what to include in your campaign language as you observe popular search terms, which websites are ranking and the types of content they are producing.

Tip 3: Cultural considerations

It's of the utmost importance to speak with existing customers or potential buyers when developing your international marketing strategy. Through these conversations, you'll discover how your prospective customers perform their search queries and make buying decisions.

Even among English speaking countries, the same word can have many meanings. Take the word “knickers”, for instance, a pair of short pants in North America, but an undergarment in the UK.

We also recommend considering which devices people are using to make their searches: iPads, computers, iPhones, etc. Your campaign strategy will need to adapt to the most popular devices used by your customers.

Tip 4: Posting and targeting

Your ad targeting should change depending on audience, location, and cultural considerations. But don’t forget about time zones!

High visibility times differ depending on location. What's popular in North America, may be drastically different than in Europe or Asia.

We recommend conducting split tests to discover what will be most beneficial for your service. Once you have all your assets set up, watch your analytics like a hawk. See where most of your traffic is coming from and which regions have the highest engagement with your content. Make adjustments accordingly.

How to win at international digital marketing

As mentioned earlier, you can do well marketing locally with a well developed Google My Business page and geo targeting ads.

But when it comes to developing an international marketing strategy, it can be a little more complex.

By implementing the simple steps above, you'll be on the right track. If you need help, IMPACT has a workshop where you can learn how to put together an international digital marketing strategy.

In our Marketing Action Plan workshop, we provide the necessary tools for strategy development. We will also help to ramp up your current efforts with your existing team and resources.

Find out more by clicking the button below!

Three Easy Ways to Find the Perfect Keywords for your Blogs

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 19:14:00 GMT

Blog posts - and content in general - are an essential component to your marketing strategy. But if you don’t conduct keyword research and people can’t find your content, it doesn’t matter how much effort you put into creating it because no one will see it.

Cue keyword research, a process used to discover the exact words and phrases used by people when making a query on a search engine, like Google. Researching keywords is the search engine optimization (SEO) strategy integral to succeeding in attracting your target audience to your website and blog content.

To help you discover how to conduct your keyword research and find the queries used by your prospective customers or families, we’ve outlined our favorite SEO tools below.

1. Google’s Keyword Planner

If you want to identify broad keywords quickly, Google Keyword Planner is the best place to start. With this tool, you simply type in a keyword you believe represents the question your readers are seeking to answer through your content and the tool will give you the potential traffic, search volume, and how much it would cost to advertise for your search term.

For reference, in SEO, traffic refers to the number of visits to your website from organic or paid search. Volume refers to the number of searches that occur for a specific keyword.

You will need to have an active Google Ads account to utilize this keyword research tool. If you do have an account, we highly recommend this tool as it is easy to use, provides high quality information, and it’s also free.

2. Ubersuggest

Another tool to consider is Ubersuggest.

This tool gives you a domain overview and allows you to see what is working for your competitors so you can both adopt and improve those strategies. It gives you an inside look at your competitor’s pages and which organic keywords they’re ranking for. It gives you keyword suggestions, showing the volume, competition, and trends of the words so you know exactly what to write. To further help you come up with content ideas, Ubersuggest helps you discover the content pieces getting the most social shares and inbound links in your field.

It also gives you inbound link data, one essential component to measuring the success of your content.

3. Google: Performing the searches yourself

Sometimes the simplest option is the best option! Approach Google in the shoes of your expected audience and start searching.

With your persona in mind, Think about questions they would ask or the specific words they’d use to make a search query. What is the question your reader will get the answer to when they read your content?

Using this information, type it into a search engine and see what comes up.

Keep in mind that our persona may use a search engine other than Google to search for content. Depending on their location, demographics, and the nature of the query, they may use Bing, Yahoo, Youtube, or other social media platforms.

When typing in your search query, take note of Google autocomplete, featured snippets, “People also ask” section, and related searches located at the bottom of the page for further ideas.

The reason people turn to search engines is that they want to find something or they want to learn something. As long as you’re appealing to that human curiosity then you’re always going to find the right keywords to attract the prospects that relate to your business. If you don’t put yourself in your prospect’s shoes, it’s hard to appeal to them through your blog content.

Why is using the right keywords important?

Organizational growth is dependent on the two key elements of trust; relationship and credibility. Understanding your ideal client or family and creating content that serves their needs is the way to establish trust and achieve your goals.

Doing your keyword research is one way you can help your personas find you.

With search engine algorithms getting more intelligent and learning how we interact with digital content and the intent of our search queries it’s more important than ever to understand how to effectively use long-tail keywords in your content, words that are more specific and usually longer than commonly searched keywords. Using long-tail keywords in your SEO strategy is beneficial because there is less traffic and they usually have a higher conversion rate.

Understanding what humans are actually looking for is key to SEO and keyword research. This encompasses the idea of SEO. You’re not trying to appease search engines, you’re trying to provide solutions and value to your audience members.

The short version: write your content for humans (your personas) and not for search engines.

Now that you understand how to find the perfect keywords for your blog posts, we invite you to learn how to actually create content marketing strategy to get you the results you crave.

Find out more by clicking the button below!

Content Ideas for Each Stage of the Admissions Journey

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:39:00 GMT

In a global pandemic, the way you speak and what you write about is more important than ever.

And no matter what stage a family is in the admissions journey - whether it be awareness, consideration, or decision - content that is beautiful, useful, generous, and respectful to the current landscape is essential to help nurture them through the admissions journey.

The content shared at each stage of the journey should be crafted to factor in the realities of living in a global pandemic as well as the changing needs of your prospective families to provide answers to their problems and help them achieve their goals.

Web content that directly answers a persona’s questions, solves their problems, and helps them achieve their goals will build trust with your audience, inherently making your international school a credible resource.

Ultimately, what you produce should help nurture your families from strangers to applicants, with an end goal of them becoming promoters of your school.

Image source: Hubspot

Below, we provide content ideas for each stage of the candidate’s journey.

Content ideas for the awareness stage

In the awareness stage, your prospects have questions that need to be answered and they’re looking at your website to find those answers.

Maybe they are a family of five who just found out they’re being relocated to Tanzania. Or perhaps, they are a parent who is unsatisfied with the education provided by the school their children are currently attending and are looking to switch schools. How will you tailor your words to speak to them specifically?

Though the problem or question may be different for each persona, the content should still have the same goal: educate and provide the answer without selling.

Content ideas for the awareness stage include:

Research reports
eBooks
Editorials
Blogs or long-form documents using (or written by) experts
Educational pieces
Whitepapers

If you want to get more creative with more engaging pieces, consider including:

Virals
Quizzes
Contests

Content ideas for the consideration stage

In the consideration stage, your prospective families are heavily into their research and are debating whether or not your school is the best option for their children.

Families are very likely comparing how your school is navigating the realities of education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Have you addressed this in a public-facing way that is easy for them to find?

Consider the type of content you could offer that outlines your school’s plan for both in-person and online learning as well as the safety protocols that have been implemented on campus.

Content ideas that would be most beneficial and educational for the prospect at this stage include:

Expert guidelines
Live interactions
Webcasts
Community videos
Podcasts
Comparison guides
Infographics
Family profiles

More entertaining content with a creative twist for high engagement may include:

Branded videos
Games
Interactive maps

Content that demonstrates the school experience at this stage might include:

Virtual tours
Live videos
Events

Content ideas for the decision stage

The decision stage is when the family is choosing whether they will submit an application to your school. They want to see and experience exactly what it is like to be a part of your school community.

The reality of COVID-19 means that your prospective families are not likely to be able to have a personalized on-campus tour where they can physically experience (and compare) your school against other options.

How to educate families at this stage:

School comparisons
Curriculum comparisons
School literature
Live tours

How to demonstrate at this stage:

Program opportunities
Checklists
Calculators
Interactive viewbooks
Scholarship information and tuition pricing guides
Case studies
Trial downloads

How to inspire at this stage:

Community forums
Family stories
Alumni endorsements
Reviews

What to keep in mind while creating content

As evidenced above, there are numerous ways to create beautiful, useful, and generous content to nurture families throughout their journey.

In summary, the four things to keep in mind when creating content are:

Always focus on writing content specifically for your family persona and where they are in the admissions journey.
Beautiful. Useful. Generous. Create beautiful content that will be useful to your persona and be generous with the information you provide them. Resist the urge to hold back for fear of "giving too much away".
Keep your content educational, not promotional. As mentioned above, it's not until the decision stage where you shift to focusing on your prospective families actually joining your community.
Focus on the informational part of the content first, worry about the design second. If your content isn't well produced, it's not going to matter what it looks like.

Now that you understand what to write, we invite you to learn how to put those ideas onto paper.

In our new Marketing Action Plan workshop, we will provide you and your team with the tools you need to begin your marketing strategy development or to ramp up your current efforts with your existing team and resources.

Find out more by clicking the button below!

How to Create a Basic Marketing Plan for your International School Part 2

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 15:03:00 GMT

In a prior post , we introduced the concept of a small, yet effective marketing plan for your school . Rather than developing a large document that tries to anticipate everything that might happen during the year, we emphasized the importance of including just what is necessary to make it useable. The plan should be viewed as a dynamic document that can be modified as needed.

We listed eight important components that should be in your marketing plan. They were:

State the purpose of your marketing
Describe your target market
Describe the niche you serve
List the benefits of your school and competitive advantage over others
Clearly state your school’s identity
List the marketing tactics you will employ
Detail your budget
Identify new market opportunities to be investigated in the coming year

We also detailed components 1-3 in the prior post. Now, we turn our attention to the remaining ones.

What is Your Competitive Advantage?

Even among seasoned marketers, it’s common to confuse features and benefits. Features are factual statements regarding your school. Families, however, will determine where to enroll their children based on benefits, no matter how impressive those features may be. For example, a feature of your school may be that the teacher to student ratio is 1-to-10. The benefit – and the reason why the family would choose your school – is that their child will get the individualized attention they need to succeed. The benefit carries emotional weight.

Every school has benefits, even if they do not do a good job of articulating them. What will make your school stand out from the rest is if you provide unique benefits that families want. There are two parts to this statement.

First, your school should ideally have one or more benefits that (a) competing schools in your area do not, and (b) are difficult to duplicate. If other schools can claim the same benefit, then it doesn’t really count as an advantage. Alternatively, if those benefits can be easily obtained by the other schools, you will not enjoy that advantage for long.

Second, your unique benefits must be ones that your target market actually wants. This requires that you consult your buyer personas and make sure your benefits address the issues they truly care about.

A great way to get clear on your competitive advantage is to ask the families of your current students why they chose your school. It’s instructive to attempt to determine your competitive advantages before polling the parents. You may find that your assumptions of how parents see your school are incorrect.

What is Your School’s Identity?

A major part of your school’s identity is what you want families to remember and know you as. This is closely related to your competitive advantage. For example, Dominos Pizza started by being known as the one company that delivered “fresh, hot pizza in 30 minutes or less.” Their identity was not based in the taste of their pizza. Or in using a traditional, secret recipe. And it worked brilliantly for them.

Note, that we use the term identity and not image. Your school’s identity is based on truth and honesty. All too often, an image is a phony representation designed solely to make sales. Further, your identity should be clear, free of confusion, and consistent. Refer again to the Dominos Pizza example.

What Tactics Will You Use and What Should Your Budget Be?

All too often, marketing is seen as an expense and the budget is either determined by whatever is left over in the overall budget of the school or by simply making a slight modification to last year’s budget. Doing either of these is a mistake.

To determine which marketing tactics to use and what your budget should be takes careful thought. Examine what tactics worked for you last year and which did not. Analyze your results and put more money into the tactics that proved effective. Marketing should be seen as an investment and you want to invest in avenues that have proven to be fruitful, not just those you do as a matter of habit.

Preparing For The Following Year

If you want to continue reaching your goals year after year, it’s a wise idea to plan ahead. This does not need to be a large section in your marketing plan; however, advance thought can help position yourself for success the following year. A small investment now could make achieving next year’s goals considerably easier.

And there you are: a minimal yet complete marketing plan for your international school. Make sure to include the eight components listed above, but also make sure to keep it short enough that you can complete it in a timely fashion. The sooner it is finished, the sooner you can start to implement the plan!

This blog was originally published in October 2017 and has been updated in August 2020.

How to write an SEO Friendly Blog Post

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 17:30:00 GMT

Writing an SEO friendly blog post, meaning a post that will be found through search engines, while ensuring it will also be compelling to the desired audience can be a difficult feat.

But it’s doable.

Ranking a blog post in search requires a basic understanding of search engine optimization (SEO), plus some research, skill, and, of course, some practice. Before diving into the activity of writing your blog, you need to either work with your SEO specialist or conduct some keyword research yourself to find exactly what your personas are looking for - and the terms they’re using in Google or another search engine to find it.

Once you have your keywords established, you will want to put the search terms in prominent locations in your text, but you will also want to be sure not to overuse them. Ideally, you’re looking for a keyword density (the number of times a term is used in your content compared to the total word count) of between 1-3%. To find your density, copy and paste your text into this tool and look at the number that pops up under density - see picture below.

Okay, if using the right keywords and keyword density are starting to overwhelm you, don’t worry. You are not alone. Let’s take a step away from the technical side of everything and focus more on the creative aspect, the actual content production.

Below we explore how to write an SEO friendly blog post in an easy-to-understand way and we take you through the best practices for each step.

Headlines

A well chosen headline is your first opportunity to grab a reader’s attention.

Three of the best practices to write a killer headline are to:

Use numbers, lists, and stats
Stress a benefit or solve a problem
Ask a question

To meet best practices, your headline should contain your chosen term or phrase and be approximately 55 characters long.

Meta description, alt text, and URLs

Though the HTML (the internal language or code that creates web pages) elements, meta descriptions, alt text, and URLs, aren’t as front-facing as the introduction, body text, and headline, they are essential to helping your reader find your content through search.

A meta description is a blog component that summarizes what your page is about. When loading your blog content into your content management system (or CMS such as Wordpress, Finalsite or Interactive Schools), you’ll see a section where you add your description. It should be around 160 characters and include your keyword.

Alt text is used to describe the appearance or function of your images. It’s what appears on a page if your photo doesn’t load. When you upload your photograph in your CMS, you’ll see a field where you can add your alt text. If your keyword selection is relevant to the photograph, include the phrase in the alt text.

If possible, also customize your URL, or web page address, to include your keyword or search phrase, ensuring the link remains user-friendly in length

How to write an introduction for your blog post

The introduction to your topic should be a couple of paragraphs long. This is where you restate the problem or solution found in the headline; this should further demonstrate to the reader that you understand their problem.

To better ensure your chances of ranking for a featured snippet (the boxed text at the top of a search engine results page intended to quickly answer a person’s question. See the photo below for an example), include a glossary of what your article is about in the introduction of your blog.

Throughout the introduction, remain benefit-oriented and continuously show the reader value.

Body text

The body text is where the meat of your article lives - it’s also where you can sprinkle your term(s) to bring your keyword density up to the proper percentage.

While writing your content, make sure it’s informative but also easy to read. We recommend using the Flesch-Kincaid readability test and aim for a score of 50.

To make your body text more SEO friendly, we recommend including:

H1 and H2 tags
Bullet points
An internal linking structure

H1 and H2 tags

H1 and H2 tags are the headings throughout your content. H1 tags are section headers and H2 are the subheaders - see the picture below. These tags not only break up your content creating a more user-friendly experience, they also help your SEO. Make sure to include your target keyword at least one time.

Bullet points

Bullet points help break up the content and add white space on your blog page. When listing something, think about using bullets rather than commas.

Links

An internal linking structure is the backbone of SEO, it’s what supports every other area of optimization.

Link your content to the relevant landing page (whether it’s a page on admissions, booking a tour, inquiring now, etc.) and to related blogging material. When adding links in your blog, we also recommend linking the entire sentence rather than a couple of words.

Writing an SEO Friendly Blog Post - Key Takeaways

Try for a minimum of 300 to 700 words
Most blogs shouldn’t take longer than three minutes to read
H1 tags are your best friend
Remember to KISS (keep it simple sweetheart): write in a way a 10-year-old could understand
Keywords should be incorporated in the following when possible and relevant:
URL
Alt text
Headline
Body
Your keyword density should be between 1-3%
Make sure your blog has a responsive design and is mobile-friendly

Now that you understand how to optimize your blog post, we invite you to learn how to create content to get you the results you crave.

Find out more by clicking the button below!

How Storytelling Makes Your International School Stand Out

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 20:11:00 GMT

As we’ve been thrust into the fast-changing, digital world of today, we have a wealth of information at our fingertips. This increased access to knowledge, though exciting and empowering, can also be overwhelming—especially for families looking to find a good school that’s best suited for their child.

So how best to have your school resonate with a family who happens to stumble upon your website?

Ensuring you highlight your school’s unique qualities and differentiate it from other schools in your area is essential. And one of the most effective ways to communicate exactly what makes your school special is through storytelling.

People are inherently fascinated by stories and stories have been part of our culture for tens of thousands of years. Stories have a way of capturing the imagination of an audience, exciting their minds, and staying with them long after they are experienced.

Storytelling can be a powerful addition to your overall strategy.

Focus on Developing Human Interest, Not Promotion

The primary focus of incorporating storytelling is to provide value with no strings attached and to offer your prospective families those tangible, impactful tales of your school.

In this sense, storytelling can be particularly powerful when it comes to your school. After all, you are not selling a material product, like a car. What you are offering is much more intangible: an enjoyable school experience and successful future for a parent’s child.

The very act of enrolling their child at your school requires some imagination on the part of the family to picture how their immediate investment will pay off over the course of their child’s lifetime.

So capture this imagination with a story to show how their child will become a member of your community, and how they will enter into a partnership with you for their child’s success. Storytelling naturally helps build relationships.

How to Tell Effective Stories

When it comes to telling impactful stories, it’s important to focus on quality than length. In fact, the most powerful stories can be consumed in less than two minutes. Questions to consider are, “Why are we telling this story? How will this benefit our families?” A good story will transform the audience and can cause them to take action. It is effective in its authenticity.

Yet, it is still worthwhile to keep your school’s unique positioning statement or document near you when you plan the story. In many cases, you will want the story to support the values your institution is dedicated to promoting. After the first draft of your story, check back with your positioning document to see if the story does indeed communicate these values.

An important part of storytelling is to feature characters the audience can identify with. What better way to accomplish this then to tell stories about your current students and families? A story about a young family’s relocation to your city and the smooth incorporation of their child into your community can help another family currently doing their initial research see themselves as your next customer. This is far more effective than simply stating that making new students feel welcome is important to you.

In Part 2 of this series, we will go deeper into how to create a story for your international school.

A Message from IMPACT CEO about COVID-19

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 19:23:00 GMT

Hello Friends,

Our world is in upheaval at the moment and the only thing more tiresome than messages about COVID-19 is that we are faced with this crisis at all. We trust you and your families are staying safe and weathering this storm in the best way possible.

I want to take a moment to let you know the status of IMPACT during this time. We will update this page as the state of the situation changes.

IMPACT Remains Operational

We are in a unique position to continue helping organizations with their messaging and marketing needs throughout the pandemic lockdown and to help prepare for the eventual re-opening of businesses. It is our mission to help as many individuals and organizations come out of this time in a better position than they entered it. We are committed to keeping our employees employed, paying our taxes, and potentially hiring more employees and contractors in the coming weeks and months.

Keeping Employees and Customers Safe

IMPACT has always had a distributed workforce, meaning, we all work from home or remote offices. Most of our employee and client meetings are virtual, using video conferencing technology. All face-to-face meetings have been canceled or shifted to virtual mediums until further notice.

Flexibility of Scope

Our client work is laid out a year in advance with the assumption that there will not be a global shutdown. (!) With the crisis-imposed shift in the focus of marketing and communication messages and the additional burden of responsibilities on communications and marketing offices, we recognize some of our scope will also shift or be delayed. We are adapting our campaigns to the current needs of our clients and will rollover any unused scope to the next contractual year.

Support for Struggling Organizations

While we are optimistic and believe in the possibilities for organizations to transform and grow during times of crisis, we acknowledge that some businesses and nonprofits will not survive this time. Some will, but face a major transition of their business to continue offering their products and services to their communities. Others have the reserves to survive, but have put off their innovative ideas to meet and exceed today’s standards of brand awareness online.

No matter where you are in the mix, we are here to help. Use our virtual assistant, MIA, to book a free brainstorming session with one of our consultants. If you want, you can simply use this time to have us look at what you have in progress and give you some direction.

We are sending you our best wishes and hope you will thrive among the renewed and deepened family connections, improved communications, and both personal and business transformation.

Warmly,

Deborah Janz & the team at IMPACT

How to Productively Work in a Remote Environment

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 23:29:00 GMT

With the global landscape changing daily because of the coronavirus outbreak, more and more organizations will be forced to shift to a remote work environment for the safety of their employees.

Major organizations, such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Google, are responding to the crises by sending their personnel home.

For those who haven’t done it before, working from home may seem like a dream: you can sleep in, work in your comfy clothing with your feet up on the couch, and basically access all those household amenities at any point of the day.

Don’t get us wrong, working from home is magical, but there are things you should do in order to maintain and even increase your productivity.

If done right, you will most likely be more productive than if you were in the office.

In the US, employers in a traditional work environment lose around $1.8 trillion a year in productivity according to Forbes.

That same article goes on to describe the increase in productivity seen when companies allow their employees to work from home.

“Two-thirds of managers report an increase in overall productivity from their remote employees.” - Andrea Loubier in her article, “Benefits Of Telecommuting For The Future Of Work”

So how do you ensure you’re helping this stat hold true? With the tips and tools below, you can help drastically improve your productivity.

How to Work Efficiently at Home

“Successfully working from home is a skill, just like programming, designing, or writing. It takes time and commitment to developing that skill, and the traditional office culture doesn’t give us any reason to do that.”

Alex Turnbull, Founder and CEO of Groove

Minimize Distractions

It’s proven that certain background noises can actually boost your productivity.

With that said, loud music with lyrics you can’t help but sing along to or a TV show you can’t take your eyes off of is certainly not going to help you finish your work.

It may be most beneficial to turn off the TV and instead use a background noise app.

In addition to TV or the radio, your phone is one of the biggest sources of distractions. Do yourself a favor and move that procrastinator-creator.

Finally, the worldwide web. In your new remote work environment, you will use the web to stay connected with your coworkers and use certain sites and applications to help make you more productive.

But there are also extremely distracting websites (I’m looking at you social media). To remove the allure of visiting these sites, use a website blocker.

Map Out Your Day

Your routine is no longer to get up, shower, get dressed and head out to the office. Once you’re up, you can technically start your workday.

Set goals of what you want to accomplish by lunch, by the end of the day, and by the end of the week. Once you have established your goals, map out how you will accomplish them.

Pro tip: block time on your work calendar for projects so you are uninterrupted and give yourself enough time at the end of the day to map out your goals for the next day.

Have a Designated Work Area

Yes, the couch or your bed may look enticing and cozy, but are you really going to be most productive in a place where you usually rest?

We recommend designating an “office space” whatever the location, where your body and mind will be able to get down to work and focus.

Take Breaks

Without your coworkers around stopping by to say hello or the traditional lunch break to go outside, stretch your legs, and nourish your body, it can be easy to forget to step away from your computer.

According to a Tork survey, 90% of North American employees say taking lunch breaks helps them feel refreshed and ready to get back to work.

We recommend the Pomodoro Technique, a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. Using this technique, you do 45 to 90 minutes of focus and then reward yourself with a break.

Breaks help your overall health and wellness and are statistically proven to increase your performance.

Do yourself a favor and take some time away from your computer.

Stay Connected

One of the most difficult changes with your new work setup is the lack of social interaction. That is why it’s so important to stay connected with your coworkers whatever means necessary.

At IMPACT, we have a mandatory video policy to help us feel more connected while meeting and also stay focused during our conversations.

Beyond the tips and tools to make working from home more productive, the most important piece of advice we can give you is to wash your hands, try not to touch your face, and stay safe.

What is Content Marketing?

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 19:57:00 GMT

Content Marketing is one of my favourite strategies to talk about and the foundation of our work at IMPACT. It can also be referred to as Inbound Marketing.

You may have heard the phrase "content is king". According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach customers.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

At IMPACT, we like to use the terms BEAUTIFUL, USEFUL, GENEROUS when it comes to our content marketing. Content allows you to connect with your audience in an authentic and personal way, it provides extra value, it builds relationships, and it demonstrates expertise and establishes you as an authority in your industry.

Why is content marketing important?

The importance of content marketing cannot be emphasized enough. It can help your business or school:

Answer problems or questions your ideal families or customers have, and ultimately, educate them about your school or services
Increase conversions
Build trust and relationships with your current and prospective families or customers
Create a community of support and information

Search engines comb the internet for keywords to determine search relevance (which means they’re looking at your website for content). But search engine algorithms will change, as they always do.

With the enormous amount of information added to the internet every second, search engine giants will continue updating their algorithm to decide which content should get priority and rank higher in search engine result pages. The only strategy should be to remain original, informative, and helpful to your audience by creating great content.

Content marketing is all about building trust with your customers. Trust and authenticity are two things that people are always looking for when choosing who to believe and follow. While this is often difficult to achieve without face-to-face communication, intimate social media platforms such as Facebook Live and Instagram Stories give content marketers the ability to humanize their brand and get closer to their audience.

Where should you publish your content?

Traditional content is published on a blog, which absolutely has its place in content marketing. But the new trend in content publishing include social media with a particular focus on influencer marketing.

According to Nielson , 92% of buyers trust an individual recommendation over the brand, and that is exactly what you have on social media.

What's important to note when it comes to using social platforms in your marketing strategy is which ages are where. Take note of who you're trying to target and decipher where these people are spending their time.

Once you discover where your ideal customers are, then you can leverage the intimate nature of these platforms to offer them the content they're looking for.

Here are some ways you can create content that will engage your audience:

Use live video or streams to connect with your audience
Offer behind-the-scenes glimpses into day in the life of your organization
Do staff introductions
Offer quick tips, how-to's, or did-you-know information

These are the questions you should answer before trying to publish every kind of content on every kind of platform.

This is a game of working smarter, not harder. Ask yourself and your team:

Who is our target audience?
What do they care about?
What media platform(s) are they using?

Know your audience.

Before we recommend a content strategy to clients, we work with them to build PERSONAS of their ideal customer.

Click here to find out how to build candidate personas for your school .

If you’re going to create content that resonates, you need a clear picture of who you’re trying to reach. Any decisions you make for your strategy stem from having a deep understanding of this audience.

The bottom line is this: If you don’t know who you’re trying to communicate with, it’s impossible to know what kind of content they want. This really is step one. Everything builds from who it is you’re trying to reach.

Use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and even surveys to begin understanding your audience. Pool these resources to start considering what platforms will be most effective depending on who your target audience is and where they spend their time.

What do they care about?

Once you know who it is you’re trying to reach, the next step is to uncover the pain points for this audience.

A key thing to keep in mind is that most people are unclear as to what the solutions to their problems are, but they are very aware of the problems themselves. Let’s say, for example, you offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. It’s probable that a potential customer may not even know that they need SEO services. They’re not focused on the solution. But they are well aware of the problems they’re having. What they do know is that when they Google the things their customers may be looking for, their business is not on the first page and no one is finding their website.

When creating a persona, you need to uncover what they want to know, what they need to know, their likes and dislikes, and their wants and desires and offer them content that solves their problems.

You must know what your audience cares about most. This way you can understand how to best gain their attention and help them. In doing so, you become a trusted resource and when they’re ready to buy, you’ll be the person they choose.

Where can we, as an organization, excel?

One of the more important pieces of your content strategy is understanding your opportunities and your limitations.

Knowing where your audience plays online and understanding what content they are hungry for will help you determine where to focus your efforts to promote your content.

Think about doing a little research on your competitors to see where they are most active. But before you jump into a new platform (or multiple) based on that information alone, consider your organization’s ability to excel in each environment.

Think about things like:

Your experience and knowledge with the tool. If you’ve never logged into Snapchat, you probably don’t want to build an entire content strategy around that platform.
The amount of people it will take to keep the platform up and running. Part of your content marketing strategy will be discovering the length of your posts and what message they are sending out. For example, an eBook on LinkedIn would require more forethought than a 3-minute live stream from a networking event.
The amount of time you'll have to dedicate to it. Some platforms are more fast-paced than others and require frequent posts, so this is something to consider when thinking about where to post your content and how to build your content marketing strategy.

What types of content should you use?

Now that you understand who your audience is, what kinds of information they care about, and where you want to promote your content, you might be wondering, "What types of content should I produce?"

The graphic above illustrates the best performing content for building awareness, securing leads, nurturing leads, and converting leads.

Although blog posts are still very highly esteemed in the online community, there are plenty of other formats to consider:

Webinars
How-to videos
White papers or e-books
Checklists

Consider the different formats and decide what you have the bandwidth to produce.

Jump on the trend.

Now that you've learned what content marketing, how to create it and where to publish it, there are a few things you can do to get started today:

1. Figure out where your customers, members or audience is today – what social media channels do they use most often? Do they prefer to communicate via email or get their information in some other way? When are they open to receiving marketing messages?

2. Now look at where you are today and ask yourself:

Are you where your audience is?
Are you trying to do too much?
Do you need to do more?

3. Finally, choose one of the channels you’re not using that your audience is, and start working to make that part of your marketing mix. Start small, let your audience know that you’re going to be dipping your toe into that water, and build from there.

There's no getting around the fact that content is the key to an effective marketing and SEO strategy. With the tools we've given you in this blog post, you'll be able to create content that attracts new prospects by answering their pain points and solving their problems.

Are you ready to kickstart your school's content marketing efforts?

Let's start with learning the basics! Download the free IMPACT Marketing International Inbound Marketing Guide for International Schools eBook below.

3 Ways to Generate Content for Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 16:38:00 GMT

Content production is one of the biggest challenges marketing and admissions departments face. Your team is already working at maximum capacity and the thought of adding more to the to-do list can be daunting. Yet, content is vital to a successful inbound campaign and lead nurturing strategy.

Don’t worry...not all content needs to be produced by your team. There are other ways to fill the content funnel for your lead nurturing campaigns. Before we dive into the three types of sources for content, we recommend taking note of the following tips:

It’s about THEM, not YOU. Talk about what interests your audience (persona) and not about what you want “sell” them.
The content you choose should be tailored for the persona you're targeting.
Content should be relevant, educational, entertaining, and for the most part, not sales-focused.

Despite the current load on your team, with some advance planning and strategic alignments within your school, you can procure additional content for your lead nurture campaigns.

As mentioned above, there are three types of content when it comes to lead nurturing campaigns:

Original content
Curated content
User-generated content

1. Original Content

Original content is, well, original. Your team (or an outside consultant whom you’ve hired) created it and your school owns it. It can take various forms including blog posts, eBooks, white papers, videos, etc.

This is where you can create pieces that tell your school’s story. Again, think about your persona and consider their challenges as well as their interests.

What do they want to know about?
What are they interested in that may actually not have a direct connection to your school such as family-friendly community events or the various ways they can learn more about the local culture?

Take this opportunity to serve your audience with content tailored specifically to their wants and needs.

2. Curated Content

This is content that comes from other sources and must be attributed as such. You can educate your audience by sharing blog posts or short videos from industry thought-leaders. This is also your opportunity to entertain your readers with updates on local pop culture and other happenings within your city.

3. User-Generated Content

School’s have the unique benefits of access to a resource pool that most organizations do not. Faculty, students, administrators, and even parents number in the hundreds, if not thousands, and there will be many talented writers in that pool.

Develop a group of student and parent ambassadors who will be the champions for your school. These individuals can share everything going on within the walls of your school and out in the community with current and prospective families. This type of content is excellent lead nurturing material and is content people trust.

According to a Nielsen Report, “Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages" , 92% of customers prefer word-of-mouth or recommendations over any other kind of marketing.

Your faculty and admin are some of the best educators in the world. Ask them to contribute articles about the latest developments in teaching methodologies or share innovative programs they are piloting in their classrooms.

Not all content is created equal and not all content needs to be produced by your admissions and marketing teams. By investing time into planning your content calendar and tapping into the resources you have at hand, you can create lead nurturing content that is relevant and engaging, and will move prospective families through the admissions funnel.

To learn more about how lead nurturing will help fill your admissions funnel, click the image below to download our FREE lead nurturing eBook for international schools.

How to Make Sure Your Organization is GDPR Compliant

Mon, 07 May 2018 19:18:00 GMT

Said to be one of the most important changes in data privacy regulation in the last 20 years according to their website, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect May 25, 2018 and as an EU business or a business that markets to the EU, you need to be ready.

As will be outlined below, negligence to comply with this new regulation can result in hefty fines, as high as €20 million.

This article provides a general outline of things you need to know before the GDPR release date. Before we delve deep into the ins and outs of this regulatory change, here is a legal disclaimer:

This article is not legal advice for your organization to use in complying with data privacy laws like the GDPR. IMPACT provides this article as a resource to help you better understand the background information of some of the most important points in the GDPR.

This information does not replace the advice of an attorney. If your company is seeking legal advice for following the GDPR guidelines, then your best bet is to speak with an attorney who can apply the laws to your unique situation.

What is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?

Before we go into what the GDPR is changing, you as a reader need to understand exactly what this change is.

The GDPR is replacing the EU’s current data protection regulation, the EU Data Protection Directive (DPD). The new regulation is intended to synchronize data privacy laws across Europe, protect people’s privacy, and make organizations more responsible when it comes to collecting data from their visitors or clients.

Yes, the GDPR is intended for businesses and citizens in the EU specifically, but if your organization has any visitors or clients from the EU, you must be compliant with this regulation. With this being said, no matter the size or location of your company, it is important you understand the new regulation and how to modify your current business practices when it comes to data collection.

According to an article by ITPRO, which has a detailed explanation of the GDPR for small businesses, if your company has fewer than 250 employees, the new regulation states “you must hold internal records of your processing activities, where the data being processed could risk somebody’s rights and freedoms, or where that data relates to criminal convictions and offences.

With regards to that same article, if your company has more than 250 employees, the new regulations states you must keep records with even more details. The new records must document “the name and details of your organization, your data protection officer, why you’re processing the data, a description of the types of individuals and categories of their personal data, as well as categories of recipients of this data, details of any foreign transfers of that data outside the EU including documentation proving that data will be safeguarded abroad, retention schedules, and a description of your technical and organizational security measures”.

If you fail to be compliant, you could be fined up to 4% of your annual global turnover or €20 million - whichever is greater, which is a rather hefty fine. In order to help you become - and remain - complaint, we’ve written this article, which walks you through the GDPR need-to-knows.

This is a broad overview of the GDPR, to read more on this subject and how it came to be, visit their website. We also have an article that explores the GDPR further and looks at it from an international school perspective. Read that article here.

What are the Changes that Come With the GDPR That Affect Inbound Marketing?

Think about every time you have signed up for something online, the many times you’ve put in your full name, address, email, and even your phone number; data collection is a prime practice of marketing as it helps you nurture your leads.

Moving away from personal data implementation, think of your own business. Do you have a form anywhere on your website where you acquire information about visitors to your webpage? Do you have any sort of tracking software to understand the movements of your visitors through your website? If you answered yes or even hesitated because you don’t know, you need to understand the changes the GDPR is bringing. There are seven areas the GDPR is changing and strengthening when it comes to data privacy.

Consent Needs to be Clear and Continuous

Consent can no longer be an illegible attachment of legal terms that the general public will not understand. You know those boxes you’ve scrolled through quickly just to be able to activate the button to click “I Agree”? Well that format is no longer permitted. Now you have to write clear and concise instructions in plain language so people understand exactly what they are agreeing to.

As a controller of the individual’s data, you have the obligatory relationship to be diligent in attaining a statement of consent or assuring the submission of information is a clear affirmative action.

Another change, with regards to consent is you have to make it easy to withdraw it at any time.

To read more on the changes to consent, read our blog post here.

Quick Notification of a Data Breach

Any situation where a data breach could put an individual’s rights and freedoms at risk, a notification of said breach is mandatory to be sent out.

It could be something as simple as accidentally sending out an individual’s contact information, but in any case you must send out a notification within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach.

Transparency and a Right to Access

Transparency is key with the GDPR; if any customer wants to know more about how their information is being used, where it’s being used, and for what purpose, the request must be obliged in a maximum of 30 days.

If they request a copy of the personal data, you must provide them with exactly what they’re asking for, free of charge and in an electronic format.

Along with transparency and a right to access, your customers also have the right to data portability, which simply means they can obtain any information you have on them and then transmit that information to another controller.

Privacy by Design Rather Than Privacy by Addition

With the new GDPR, it is now a legal requirement to design a system specifically responsible for protecting data. “The controller shall… implement appropriate technical and organizational measures...in an effective way… in order to meet the requirements of this Regulation and protect the rights of data subjects,” as quoted in the website devoted to outlining the GDPR.

In addition to this section of the change, there is a targeted effort in data minimisation. Simply put, the GDPR is trying to minimize the amount of information we attain on individuals and only collect what is needed for the completion of our duties. Once the information is attained, only those that require access to it, will be awarded it.

When making a form on your website think about what you actually need from the person, don’t ask things for the sake of asking. For example, you shouldn’t ask for a prospect’s address if you aren’t going to use it for a defined purpose, such as mailing a package or offers.

Appointing Data Protection Officers

With the old system, organizations were required to notify their data processing activities with local Data Protection Authorities (DPA). With the GDPR, this will no longer be required. In place of the old practice, organizations will now be required to appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who will be in charge of internal record keeping.

The responsibilities of the DPO are as follows:

Must be appointed on the basis of professional qualities and expert knowledge on data protection law and practices
May be a staff member or an external service provider
Contact details must be provided to the relevant DPA
Must be provided with appropriate resources to carry out their tasks and maintain their expert knowledge
Must report directly to the highest level of management
Must not carry out any other tasks that could result in a conflict of interest

Find out more on the GDPR website.

What Steps Should Your Organization be Taking Now to be GDPR Compliant?

We know there is a lot of legal jargon that comes with the GDPR that can be difficult to navigate through. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) developed a easy-to-follow 12-step guide on steps to take now to be compliant.

The steps are as follows:

Be aware of the changes the GDPR brings.
Understand and make note of the personal data you hold, where it came from, and who you share it with.
Review your current privacy notices.
Ensure your current practice covers all the rights of individuals you are collecting information from.
Update your practices to make sure you can follow the new subject access requests.
Identify the lawful basis for processing personal data and update it accordingly.
Look at how you are currently seeking and managing consent and update it accordingly.
If your business attains information about children, make sure you are obtaining parental or a legal guardian’s consent for any data processing.
When it comes to data breaches, make sure you have the right systems in place to detect, report, and investigate.
Familiarize yourself the ICO’s code of practice on Privacy Impact Assessment. Look at how you as a business are going to implement data protection by design.
Designate someone to become the DPO.
If your organization operates in more than one EU member state, identify your lead data protection supervisory authority.

See more of a breakdown of the 12 steps here.

The GDPR Comes into Effect May 25, 2018

With the looming implementation date of May 25, it is now time to make sure you are compliant with the GDPR. If your organization was already following the rules of the DPD then there are only a few changes you need to make.

The new privacy regulation holds us all accountable to the people who trust us with their information. With the GDPR, we will all become more trustworthy, more transparent, and more worthy of the personal information our customers are placing in our hands.

How to Make Sure Your International School is GDPR Compliant

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 23:07:00 GMT

With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rolling out in May 2018, you’ve probably heard of it through the grapevine because of the hefty fines and repercussions associated with not being GDPR compliant. Since the GDPR is going to apply to a majority of organizations across the globe, you definitely don’t want to be one of the unlucky few that are hit by a penalty.

This article covers the most important points of the GDPR and how it applies to international schools. Before we begin, here’s a little legal disclaimer:

This article is not legal advice for your organization to use in complying with data privacy laws like the GDPR. IMPACT provides this article as a resource to help you better understand the background information of some of the most important points in the GDPR.

This information does not replace the advice of an attorney. If your company or international school is seeking legal advice for following the GDPR guidelines, then your best bet is to speak with an attorney who can apply the laws to your unique situation.

What is the GDPR?

The GDPR is a regulation that is going to replace the EU’s current data protection regulation. The EU regulation that the GDPR is going to replace is called the EU Data Protection Directive (DPD), which was first introduced in 1995.

The GDPR is replacing the DPD and will be updating some fundamental privacy principles. The DPD has eight principles that the GDPR builds on:

Obtain and process personal data fairly
Keep it for one or more specific purposes
Process it in ways that are related to the purposes initially given
Keep it safe and secure
Keep it accurate and up to date
Data must be adequate, relevant, but not excessive to privacy
Retain data no longer than necessary
Provide a copy of the individual's personal data on request

All EU states are protected by the GDPR. If your school is collecting data or monitoring the behavior of individuals within the EU, then the GDPR still applies to you. Even if your business operates outside of the EU, you’re still responsible for protecting the data of EU citizens.

So, what should your school do before the GDPR comes into full effect?

The most important changes brought by the GDPR

First, we need to understand that the GDPR was created to update the DPD and put the end-user in mind. Emerging technologies, new platforms, and organizations are frequently collecting information from users, so the GDPR adds another layer of security for the data that is collected.

Sumo, an email marketing application, found that in the last two years they helped customers acquire 3 million email addresses . Recent news about Facebook said that the personal information of 87 million users was shared with Cambridge Analytica (a political consultancy).

If you think back to all the email lists or subscriptions you’ve signed up for, then you’ll probably realize that your personal information is in the hands of multiple organizations. The most important changes brought by the GDPR are an increased level of consent, data subject rights, and privacy protection requirements.

Organizations that collect data are required to collect the information of EU citizens ethically and uphold higher security standards.

Consent Required from Individuals

The GDPR states that your school or organization is the controller of the individual’s data. As a controller, you have to make sure that the user has given crystal clear consent to collecting their data. This has always been the case with the DPD, but the GDPR takes the definition of consent to another level.

Consent cannot be implied. Consent can only be given if the data subject (user) agrees to giving their data by “a statement or a clear affirmative action.”

What is a clear affirmative action?

It could be submitting their child’s application. Submitting an application for their child could show that they have accepted to submit their data so that they can enroll their child in your school. Another clear affirmative action could be when a data subject fills out your school’s “contact us” or “inquiry” form.

What is a statement that shows consent?

A statement could be a check box indicating that they “agree with submitting the collected data in the form.” This could mean that you have to go through your school’s data collection forms and add a checkbox that asks for consent.

The most important thing about these checkboxes is that they cannot be pre-ticked for the user. Agreement cannot be collected through inactivity either (e.g. the user agrees to submitting their data if the page times out). Consent is 100% initiated by the data subject.

As briefed by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the GDPR sets higher standards for consent. Consent requirements, as stated by the ICO, under the GDPR are as follows:

Consent should be separate from other terms and conditions
It should not generally be a precondition of signing up to a service
The GDPR specifically bans pre-ticked opt-in boxes
It requires granular consent for distinct processing operations
You must keep clear records to demonstrate consent
The GDPR gives a specific right to withdraw consent. You need to tell people about their right to withdraw, and offer them easy ways to withdraw consent at any time.

“But I’m already stating that ‘by using this site, you accept the use of cookies…’”

Cookies are a small text file stored on a user’s device and is considered personal information. A simple statement is not considered agreement or consent. Doing this gives the user no choice but to accept the cookies. There has to be a clear choice between accepting or rejecting the cookies if you are using this message on your site.

The best way to get consent for cookies is to make sure your website or content management system (CMS):

Tells users you are using cookies
Explains what the cookies are for
Asks for consent to store a cookie on their device

Getting this to work on your site is as simple as embedding a free and open source code .

New Data Control Rights for Individuals

Data subjects have two new data control rights. Users have the right to be forgotten and the right to data portability. The right to be forgotten means that data subjects can request to have their data deleted. As a controller, the GDPR states that you need to comply with this request. A right to data portability means that data subjects can demand a copy of their own data.

Subject Access Requests

The timeframe a controller has to follow in the event of a data access request initiated by the subject will change. A data access request can be a request to delete or provide a copy of the subject’s data. The GDPR gives controllers a maximum of 30 days to satisfy the request of the subject. This is a process that needs to be discussed by all members of your faculty, ask your team who will handle all of these requests.

Notifying Subjects of Data Breaches

In light of the Facebook data leak, it has become apparent that users have the right and desire to be notified about a data breach. To avoid a data leak, your school needs the right systems and security in place to protect the privacy and personal information of families.

Even a simple mistake, such as forwarding an email with personal data, is considered a data breach. In the event of a data breach, your duty as a controller is to notify the affected data subjects. Your school has 72 hours to report that a breach has occurred, otherwise you are subject to a hefty fine.

The GDPR enforces a €20 million fine or 4% of the organization’s global annual revenue. You can avoid paying this fine by alerting data subjects within 72 hours. A data breach is unfortunate; however, you do not want to let time slip by. Be proactive and notify your users right away.

Building Privacy Through Design

Your school should consider designing privacy protection from the ground up. Any technologies your school uses such as a CRM system, website CMS, email marketing software, and other programs that involve collecting or using user data are classified as data processors.

A data processor takes the subject’s data and collects it. One thing about using data processors or third-party software is that they are not entirely liable for the security of the user’s data. Their job as a processor is to collect data with the controller’s instruction. That means the third-party application collects the data on your behalf using your school’s methodologies for obtaining consent.

Your school’s technological infrastructure should have the GDPR in mind – so all technologies will need to be adapted to follow your school’s way of complying with the GDPR.

Picking one Entity to Oversee Compliance

Your school may be the only entity that has to follow the GDPR. If your school falls within the umbrella of a bigger organization, then the GDPR allows one lead entity to enforce the entire organization’s compliance. That means your school might be following the GDPR, but another school in the same entity might not. If a data breach occurs at the school that is not GDPR compliant, then the entire organization gets dinged for a data breach.

It should be the lead entity’s job to ensure that all organizations below it are following the GDPR guidelines.

What Should your International School do About the GDPR?

The ICO has put together a document that outlines the 12 steps towards becoming GDPR compliant . Since the ICO is the authority in data protection and privacy for individuals in the UK and EU, the 12 steps they have provided are your best bet in regards to following a framework.

To prepare your school for the GDPR, the ICO’s 12 steps are:

Awareness
Audit the information you hold
Communicate privacy information
Follow the individuals’ rights
Be ready for subject access requests
Identify lawful basis for processing personal data
Review your consent process
Think about the data of children
Create and follow a procedure for data breaches
Adopt a privacy by design approach
Designate a data protection officer
Determine the main supervisor for your entire organization

Following the 12 steps above should help your entire school become aware and compliant of the GDPR. The most important step to take is to consult with an attorney. An attorney will be able to speak with your international school on complying with the GDPR given your school’s unique situation. No article or video will replace the effectiveness of consulting with an attorney.

Why the GDPR Takes us all a Step Forward

We get it, the introduction of the GDPR might seem like it’s given you a ton of work. What we need to remember is that the GDPR was created to protect people and their sensitive information. As a school, you’re managing the data of both adults and their children. These individuals have instilled a trust in your organization to protect their data and use it for their intended purposes.

The GDPR builds trust and transparency with your audience . A school that is GDPR compliant is a school that is transparent and ethical. Communicating data collection is kind of like talking about freedom of speech or human rights. Asking for permission to collect data is a task that most people feel uncomfortable about, but it’s a necessity for the greater good.

You might feel that the GDPR could hurt your application or enrollment rate. The truth is, it’s the complete opposite.

Higher standards for collecting and protecting personal data means a safer environment for families and their children. Your prospective and existing families will rest easy knowing that their personal data is in good hands.

How to Get Families to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST You Through Lead Nurturing

Thu, 19 Oct 2017 09:39:56 GMT

FACT: All of us like to conduct business with people that we know or feel like we know.

Building relationships with prospective families begins with their first point of contact with your school and that’s likely long before they actually reach out to your admissions department. So, how can you start a conversation that builds trust without even speaking to someone? Two words: Lead nurturing.

Simply defined, lead nurturing is an education process that facilitates the development of relationships with prospective families through emails during their journey towards deciding which school is right for them.

Let’s take a look at how you can create effective lead nurturing campaigns for your school.

The lead nurturing cycle

To fully understand lead nurturing, you first must understand that there are three stages along the Family Journey (the path a family takes when deciding on a school):

Awareness
Consideration
Decision

Each stage of the journey leads the family further into your admissions funnel by providing relevant information that answers their questions and addresses their pain points. The content you send them in your lead nurturing campaign should be created specifically for the stage the family is in, with the ultimate goal of moving them towards submitting an application.

Content can take on many forms including blog posts, webinars, virtual tours, eBooks, white papers, and checklists. It’s important to choose the format that’s appropriate for the candidate’s stage in the Family Journey, ensuring the content is speaking directly to their relevant challenges.

To discover what content your families want - and need - to see, we recommend creating candidate personas.

How lead nurturing ties to the admissions process

Admissions department staff are extremely busy and shoulder the responsibility of filling the school to capacity. The idea of adding a lead nurturing strategy to their admissions funnel management can seem daunting – until they understand how it can be automated and will actually help streamline their admissions and marketing tasks.

Here is how the admissions process plays out in a typical school:

The marketing department builds a very robust website in an effort to communicate as much as possible.
A prospective family begins their search online and visits the website where they try to absorb all of the information.
The family then may (or may not) choose to fill in an inquiry form to either speak to someone or book a tour.
During the tour, the admissions team member tries to convey all the features and benefits of an education with their school and the family tries to think about all the questions they have.
After the tour, the admissions team will try to remember to email the family to check-in on their decision-making progress.
The admissions team either hears from the family because they submit an application or, they never hear from them again because another school captured the family’s attention by having a strategy in place that developed a stronger relationship.

Sound familiar? In this scenario, the touch-points are inconsistent and are almost entirely up to the prospective family.

Here’s how the admissions process plays out when a lead nurturing campaign is in place:

The marketing department builds a robust, search optimized website that offers relevant information for prospective families and includes content that answers candidate questions and solves their problems with various blog posts and web pages.
Prospective families initially get to KNOW the school as they begin their search online.
Prospective families find compelling information on the website that answers their questions and they spend quite a bit of time engaging with the content. They LIKE the school when what they’re seeing aligns with their values and needs.
The families then come to see the school as a valuable source early on and as TRUST develops , they offer up their contact information in exchange for something they see of value such as downloadable checklists, guides, virtual tours, etc., because it is helping them navigate the journey to deciding on a school.
Upon filling out a simple contact form with their information, the family is added to the school’s database where a series of automatic emails are triggered to send relevant content at timed intervals that help build a relationship and keep your school top of mind.
The family feels a connection to your school culture BEFORE they speak to your admissions department.
After their tour or conversation with the admissions department, the lead nurturing continues with content that conveys your school’s story and helps them understand the steps to apply.
The mission appropriate family chooses to apply to your school and your team celebrates a successful journey.

In this scenario, the marketing and admissions departments take the lead in developing the relationship while reducing their workload.

An effective lead nurturing strategy will create a connection between your school and a prospective family. This connection is the foundation of a relationship that will move the family through the admissions funnel by telling your school’s story in a way that solves problems and builds trust.

Without this strategy in place, you’re leaving the entire process in the hands of the family and the door open for another school to form a bond with the family.

With some up-front time investment to plan the strategy, you’ll be able to propel the right families through the family journey all while reducing the stress placed on the time and resources of your admissions department.

Click the image below to download our FREE ebook:

Before and After the Tour – Nurturing Families from Inquiry to Application

How to Create Content for Your School That Families Value

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 15:05:00 GMT

While it’s important to consistently generate content for your school’s website, it’s critical that the content be valuable to the families you seek to connect with. But how do you know what content your audience wants? This is where you need to have detailed personas to guide you.

Buyer Personas are fictionalized descriptions of the families you want to attract. Most schools will have several personas, but there could be as many as 10 or 15, depending on your target markets.

A good way to create personas is to interview or poll the families of students currently enrolled at your school. Ask them questions that will really help you understand their mindset when they first started looking for schools. Example questions include:

How old is the child and how old are the parents?
What are their goals for their child?
What gets them excited? What keeps them up at night?

Once you have a sufficiently detailed persona, you can use it to generate a wide range of content by answering questions that you know your audience has.

Creating a Basic Persona

Let’s create a simple persona as an example. Susan is in her mid-30s and is a successful executive at a multinational tech company. She is married and has two young children aged 5 and 2. She has accepted a lucrative offer from her company to move to Hanoi and take a senior management role in their office there.

Susan’s own education was from the public school system in the US and she went on to earn a degree at a reputable post-secondary institution. However, she is largely unfamiliar with private schools. While she is excited about the new direction her career is taking, she’s concerned about how the move will affect her children and unsure of how to proceed in selecting a school for them.

A well-crafted persona should be detailed enough to allow us to generate many different ideas for content. Let’s see how well our basic persona does this. Looking at the description, we can see that obvious choices for content include an explanation of the importance of enrolling her children in a private school, what to look for in a school, and perhaps information on how the culture of schools in Hanoi differs from the US public schools Susan is familiar with.

Beyond these obvious first ideas, however, we quickly run out of material to work with. The problem is that while the description of Susan seems sufficiently detailed, it really is not. We need more information about her and her children.

Creating a Better Persona

Now consider the following additional information about Susan and her young family. Although Susan is a busy executive, she has an active social life and is somewhat concerned about what her life will look like in Hanoi outside of work. Susan has never lived outside the United States for any length of time and has never been to Asia, not even for vacation. Susan’s five-year-old, Elli, is bright and inquisitive but has some difficulty sitting still in school. Susan’s two-year-old, Jake, is enrolled in day-care, but does not enjoy it and spends the day largely waiting for Susan to take him home.

Now, What Content Can We Create?

This more detailed persona gives us more information about Susan’s hopes and concerns. These can help us generate additional content ideas. In addition to information about our school, we see that we could provide her with ideas on how to develop her social life in Hanoi.

A video interview with teachers could feature an explanation on how the curriculum is tailored to the needs of each individual student to avoid some of the challenges Elli currently experiences. And although Jake may be too young to be enrolled in your school right now, a blog post explaining how your PreK classes are designed to make uncomfortable students feel at home would certainly help Susan see how your school is a great choice for both her children.

If your personas don’t provide a wealth of content ideas, this may be an indication that you need to develop them further. Even though this takes time and effort, creating these personas will go a long way to helping your school provide content that will make it stand out from the crowd.

For more information on developing personas, download our free template to help you create your own.

Using Storytelling In Your School’s Marketing

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 16:09:00 GMT

Last week, we discussed why storytelling is a powerful addition to your marketing efforts. This week, we’ll look more closely at how you can tell those powerful stories.

The purpose of storytelling is to communicate an idea, concept, or value in a way that resonates with prospective and current families. Doing so will both provide value to your audience and differentiate your school from others in the area. After all, it’s far more effective to tell a story that demonstrates your values than it is to simply state them.

Storytelling 101

Peter Guber’s Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph With the Hidden Power of Story outlines three important parts to an effective story:

Get your audience’s attention with an unexpected challenge or question,
Give your audience an emotional experience by narrating the struggle to overcome that challenge, and
Galvanize your audience’s response with an eye-opening resolution that calls them to action.

Capture your audience’s attention first, fast, and foremost. For example, let’s say you are writing a story about a difficult school project that a group of students successfully completed. The “unexpected challenge” might be the moment the students realized it would not be as easy as they thought.

Guber continues to list four elements necessary to elicit emotion from your audience:

The heroes are characters the audience can recognize and sympathize with. If we use the example above, your audience (parents and families) would be able to sympathize with the students, as they would see their own children in the group of students.
Drama must be present—in the form of a difficult school project in the above example.
The audience experiences the same epiphany the storyteller experienced at the climax of the story. This would be a solution to the difficult project in the case of the students.
The story should shine light on an interest, goal, or problem that both the storyteller and audience share—the success of the students as they see this difficult school project to completion, similar to how your audience would want to see the success of their own children.

Lastly, the story should conclude with a resolution that couldn’t necessarily have been guessed from the start. Ideally, this resolution causes the audience to see the world differently and take action accordingly.

In the example above, the students may come up with a creative solution that demonstrates the type of innovation and ingenuity encouraged at your school, causing your audience to consider your school as an option for their own children.

Use the IMPACT candidate persona template to craft the best story for the right audience.

Be Concise and Authentic

Effective stories walk the fine line between being concise and weaving an engaging narrative. While some details help the audience feel as though they are part of the story, too many bog down the narrative. In many cases, a story should not take more than two minutes to tell (or read).

But above all, be authentic. There is something inherently magnetic about authenticity. It makes it easier for the audience to sympathize with the protagonist(s)—one of the important elements to evoke an emotional response.

Also, resist the temptation to use stock photos in a story-based blog post, as the lack of authenticity of these images will diminish the power of your story.

Experiment With Different Formats For Your Stories

Stories can take many different forms on your website from blog posts to testimonials. In fact, the best testimonials are usually in the form of a story. It’s a good idea to include a few of these testimonials somewhere on your school’s site.

Another very powerful format for storytelling is video. Study a few short human-interest stories on YouTube or news websites and notice how they include the three components of a story listed above.

In Summary

Storytelling is a powerful, yet under-utilized, means of providing information to families that resonates with them long after they’ve left your site. Look for opportunities to include stories about your school, your students, and families on your site. And make sure to keep an eye on your analytics to see which perform best with your web visitors.

Need a few more ideas for telling your school's story?

Download the free PDF below for 50 Blog Post Ideas for Schools that will engage prospective families.

6 Reasons Why Your School Needs to Blog

Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:43:00 GMT

Your marketing and communications department is strapped for time and resources. You’re trying to prioritize what content gets written and distributed and are often pulled in many directions: internal communications, advertising planning, event promotion and coverage, etc

With all of these things on your plate, the school’s blog is often very low on the priority list. It can feel like the blog is not as important as many of the other items vying for attention.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Your blog is an invaluable communication resource, both internally and externally. Let’s take a look at six reasons why your school should prioritize its blog in your communications and marketing strategy.

1) It Differentiates Your School from its Competitors

In an ever-increasingly competitive landscape, your school needs to find a way to stand out from its competitors. While it may seem that blogging is a bit “old-school” and that people are no longer reading them, nothing could be further from the truth.

We have found that, compared to the number of schools out there, the percentage of those using their blog effectively is quite low. In fact, many schools don’t even have a blog on their website which means they are missing out on a multitude of story-telling opportunities.

47% of buyers (prospective families) viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep (admissions department). Source: Demand Gen Report, 2016

Think about how you do research for a product or service you are considering. Let’s use your next vacation as an example. You’re looking for a family-friendly adventure resort but you don’t have a destination in mind. Your first stop is likely Google (or Bing, Yahoo and Baidu) and your search brings up several blog posts several options in South America.

Which website captures your attention? Obviously the ones that are well-designed. But let’s take it a step further. You find yourself spending the most time on the website of a resort in Brazil that has a series of videos showing families just like theirs enjoying the various adventures they have available for all age levels. By offering you beautiful, useful, generous content that answers your questions and begins to form a relationship with you because of that content.

The same is true for families beginning their search for the best school for their child. By using your blog to offer content that goes beyond the typical academic and admissions information, you are creating a connection that sets you apart from your competitors. You are creating a differentiator.

2) It Communicates Your Mission and Vision

Your mission and vision is the very core of your school and is the driving force of your brand. It is your “why”. It defines who you and what you stand for. It forms the basis of your school’s personality. More importantly, it is the uniting factor that brings every stakeholder together to build a community based on a common perspective.

Building that community only happens when all stakeholders (administration, board members, faculty and support staff as well as current and prospective families) know and understand it. It must be continually woven into your communication strategy for it to achieve its intended result: building a community of families who are aligned in their purpose.

How can you effectively communicate your mission and vision to attract families who are in alignment? It starts from the moment a family is researching your school. And where do they go to do their research? Your website. And where on your website can you most effectively tell the story of your mission and vision? I guarantee it’s not on the page titled “Mission & Vision”.

Your blog is one of the best places to demonstrate your mission, vision and purpose in action. If your mission to raise up global citizens, share stories of how your school is doing just that. Whether your school values integration with the local culture, or is passionate about saving Lemurs, showcase what that looks like in the day-to-day life of students.

However you choose to tell the stories, remember to always tie it back in some way to the “why” behind the experience. Be sure your blog posts, whether directly or indirectly, tell the reader why this experience is important and how it supports your mission and vision.

3) It Builds Your Community

Communicating the mission and vision does not stop once a family is part of your school. People very easily get caught up in their personal wants and needs and can lose sight of why they chose the school in the first place – because they wanted to be part of the culture and community you offer.

Continually sharing stories that reinforce the promise made to families while they were in the admissions process will build community and foster alignment between families, faculty and administration. You’ll likely notice an increase in school pride and overall satisfaction level with life at your school.

4) Blogging Builds Authority and Reputation

You employ world-class faculty and administrators. They’re both knowledgeable and experienced in their field and are often thought leaders on a particular subject, theory, or teaching method.

Tap into their expertise to increase the authority and reputation of your school by encouraging them to contribute to the school’s blog. Publish their recent white papers, research projects and theses.

While these topics may not be of as much interest to current and prospective families, they will build recognition in the education community. Colleagues (and competitors) will take notice of the innovation and insights emerging from your team. Your faculty and administrators will be sought after for speaking engagements and training opportunities – all which increases the reputation of your school.

5) It Helps Your Admissions Department be more Effective and Efficient

We’ve talked about how your blog can attract mission appropriate families by demonstrating the school’s mission and vision in action, but let’s take it a step further and relate it directly to admissions goals. Consider what would happen in your admissions department if the number of applications from mission appropriate families increased.

When the blog is used to express the essence of your school’s culture, it will attract more families that align with your values and school culture and less of those that don’t because the stories offer a glimpse into the community and a taste of its unique personality. Those that can relate will naturally be drawn in.

So, how does this affect efficiency and effectiveness? When your admissions department is working with families who understand and align with your core values, their time (efficiency) is spent with families who want to come for the right reasons. When you’re admitting families who will contribute to the school community rather than fight against it, your are effectively executing the mission and vision.

6) It’s GREAT for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Blogging is THE most cost-effective method to increase organic search results. A study conducted by MarketingProfs in 2016 found that 72% of respondents say relevant content is the most effective SEO strategy.

Why?

The simple answer is that it creates authority with search engines. The more engaging content you have on your site, the longer viewers will spend time reading, signaling to Google that it is relevant. The more relevant Google feels your site is, the more it will be served up as a search result. See the cycle there?

Frequency matters, though. It’s not enough to just put up a couple of press release style blogs each month and expect them to bring in marketing or sales qualified leads. A Hubspot study in 2015 showed that business to consumer companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4X as many leads as those that blog only 4-5 times per month. That may seem like a lot of content, but it is necessary a manageable with a proper content strategy in place.

Download our blog editorial planning calendar to help streamline your content strategy.

And, it’s not just new content that builds your SEO “juice”. In fact, according to another Hubspot study, older, or compounding, blog posts generate 38% of overall traffic and, over its lifetime, a single compounding blog post can generate as much traffic as six decaying posts.

Over time, you would typically expect your blogs to plateau, or even a decline, in traffic. Compounding blog posts are just the opposite: they continue to increase in strength and ranking which generates higher levels of organic traffic – no extra effort needed.

Ultimately, content is king when it comes to SEO. Regardless of whether your blog post is new or wise with age, its presence on your website builds authority, generates traffic and helps attract mission appropriate families.

Start Writing

Now that you have a better understanding of why blogging is important and how it can help your school communication strategy, it’s time to get started. We know that it can be a challenge to come up with topics to write about that take your content beyond “press release”, so we’ve created a list to help you put fingers to keyboard.

Need help getting started? Take a look through our list of 50 blog post ideas created specifically for schools.

5 More Ways to Optimize Blog Posts for Your School

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 21:02:00 GMT

In part 1 of this series , we explained the importance of using the principles of search engine optimization , or SEO , when creating a blog post for your school and provided five such principles. This article provides five more that you should use to optimize all the blog posts for your school.

1) Use Subheadings Liberally

While some people read articles starting at the first word and continuing to the last, others prefer to skim first. They will often scan subheadings as first to decide whether they want to read. It’s a good idea to break up your blog post content by using several subheadings. Ideally, they should be written so that if that is all the reader takes in, they’ll have reasonable summary of the article.

2) Link to “Cornerstone Content” on Your Site

Some content on your site will be more popular than others. Because families have found this content useful, you may want to consider featuring it on your site. One way to do this is to create links to it from other blog posts on your site.

Such featured content is sometimes referred to as cornerstone content and can be on a topic that you want to rank highly in search engines for. Let’s use the example from Part 1 of this series, namely, that your school is in Seoul and regularly hosts a science fair. Now let’s say that you’ve discovered that posts about this fair are some of the most popular on your site.

It makes sense to create a single webpage about your science fair and design it around the appropriate keyword. Then in each blog post that is related to the fair, include a link back to this featured webpage. These internal links help search engines understand that the cornerstone content should be considered an authoritative source on your site and ranked highly.

3) Link Directly to Your Content on Social Media

An important part of optimizing blog posts for your school is to get other sources to link to it. Social media is a great place to promote your new content. But while it’s okay to post a link to your school’s homepage, it’s better to post a link directly to the content that you are promoting.

The SEO value of a link from a social media site varies considerably from site to site. One important – and often neglected -- platform is Pinterest. The links from Pinterest are special in that search engines consider links to your content from Pinterest to be “votes of confidence” in the value of your content

4) Keep Your Eyes on Your Analytics

The only way you’ll know whether your blog posts are being read (or fully read) will be by analyzing measurements. Google and other services provide data called analytics on how many people are reading your blog posts, how long they are reading them for, and so forth.

It’s important to watch these measurements after you publish new content so you can optimize the blog posts for your school. For example, if a new piece of content is not attracting much attention, you may want to modify your post and use more of these tips we’ve presented.

Alternatively, if you find that certain content is much more popular, these could be good candidates for becoming cornerstone content. The bottom line is to never assume what results you’ll get. Always collect data to find out for sure.

5) Enlist the Help of SEO Specialists

As we mentioned in the first part of this series, SEO is a large subject. These techniques should provide you with the ability to do basic optimization of blog posts for your school. But if you want to take your results to the next level, it’s probably a good idea to retain a marketing firm that specializes in SEO.

Optimizing Blog Posts for Your School Is Well Worth It

While performing the techniques listed here (and in Part 1 of the series) does require a little extra effort, you’ll find that they will result in many more families finding your content. Once you’ve used them on a few blog posts, you’ll probably find they come second-nature to you. Start using them today and make sure to send any questions you have to us so we can help!

Learn more about how IMPACT Marketing International can help your school use its content to attract mission appropriate families in our free ebook, Inbound Marketing for International Schools.

5 Ways to Create Optimized Blog Posts for Your School

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 16:27:00 GMT

Blogging should be a critical part of the content strategy for your school, however, your posts won’t help increase admissions inquiries unless anyone actually reads them! Your school’s blog posts should be optimized so search engines like Google and Bing give it high authority and serve it up as a result to a search query from a family.

Knowing and implementing the basics of this type of optimization, known as Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short), is important when creating blog posts.

This is the first of a two-article set of items to keep in mind when creating new blog posts.

The Basics of Optimized Blog Posts for Schools

Let’s consider that you want to create an article about a recent science fair your school, which is located in Seoul, produced. Employing the following five tactics will increase the optimization of your blog post.

1) Use Long-Tail Keywords That Families Will Search For

The goal is to have your school’s blog post to be returned in response to a search query that a family types into a search engine. Regardless of how many words this query is, it is referred to as a keyword in SEO terminology.

When optimizing blog posts for your school, it’s generally a good idea to select a longer, more detailed keyword. These are commonly referred to as long-tail keywords. For example, we would want the article on the recent science fair to be found if a family searches for “Which schools in Seoul have science fairs?”

It’s important to note that you do not need to use this exact keyword word-for-word. Search engines are smart and are able to pull results from the content in your blog. If the post contains the words in the long-tail keyword throughout the content, it’s more likely to be given higher authority.

2) Use Your Keyword in Strategic Locations

Once you’ve decided on a keyword, be sure to use variations of it in several important parts of your post. These are:

Webpage title
Article title
URL
The actual blog article
The meta-description for the webpage.

To use the keyword in the URL for your page, use hyphens for spaces and as much of the keyword as possible. For example, we might choose the following URL for our post: http://www.yourschool.com/science-fair-seoul-school-oct-2016/. The date is optional, but might be good to use to avoid address clashes with the 2017 fair.

The meta-description for the webpage is a sentence or two that is only read by the search engine and not by the families visiting your site.

3) Use Your Keyword Throughout Your Article

It’s important to use the keyword in the main body of your article. However, don’t go overboard and use it too many times – write for humans and not for search bots.

Search engines discourage this practice, known as keyword stuffing, and may actually penalize you if you use the keyword too often! Optimize the blog posts for your school by making your keyword about 1-2% of the body text.

4) Keep Your Blog Articles Short

Generally, people would prefer to read several short articles on the web than one long one. Search engines know this and will rank shorter articles more highly.

Shoot for articles about 300-700 words long. If you have content that is considerably longer than this, consider creating a video or eBook instead. One important reason for making shorter articles is that more and more families are using mobile devices to do their research. Long articles are difficult to read on such devices and search engines reward webpages that are mobile-optimized to be easy to consume on portable devices.

5) Use Short Paragraphs and Short Sentences

In keeping with making your blog posts easy to read, use shorter sentences when possible and smaller paragraphs. Each paragraph should have only one main idea. If your paragraph is several lines long, consider breaking it into multiple paragraphs.

To check for ease of readability, you can use a variety of online tools to calculate measures like the Flesch Reading Ease score. The easier your text is to read, the better the user experience.

There’s More…

We’ll cover another five techniques on how to optimize blog posts for your school in part 2 of this series. Until then, make sure to use these tips in each blog post you put on your school’s site.

To learn more about developing a content strategy for your school, download our free ebook, Inbound Marketing for International Schools today.

8 School Blog Topic Ideas to Attract Prospective Families

Fri, 07 Jul 2017 23:42:00 GMT

You’ve invested a significant amount of resources, both time and financial, into your website – it is the virtual window into your school. Your website has the potential to fill your admissions funnel, communicate with current families, build community and increase school spirit.

But, are you utilizing its full potential? If you’re not maximizing the blog on your website, then you are missing out on countless communication opportunities. The benefits of blogging for your school are endless, but so are the possible topic ideas. How do you know where to start? It can be difficult to decide what you should publish on your blog.

Every piece of content you create should do three things: educate, elicit emotion and ask the reader to take an action.

If your story is about the school’s programs, include a call to action that directs your audience to the most relevant pages on your website. If you’re writing about the fact that you have the best high school basketball team in the country, share “hero” photos in the post.

Maybe you want to talk about how your students graduate and move on to attend the colleges and universities of their choice. You could then share a video testimonial about why they chose that particular school and how it is the best fit for them.

You can see how we took topics that could simply demonstrate the academic or athletic successes of your school and infused the story with an emotional connection that elicits an action. Without the story a blog post will miss its mark. Sharing stories about your school’s close-knit community, thought leadership, and school initiatives are incredibly important.

So, are there any blog topics you should focus on?

Not necessarily. You have to choose the topics that are the most relevant to your audience, as not all blog topic ideas will work for your school.

Using the power of content marketing, your blog has the potential to encourage the school’s community to engage and participate. The topic suggestions in this article can build school pride and elevate its reputation, which naturally piques interest in, and attention to, your school’s brand.

With all that being said, we’ve worked with various schools and determined that these 8 blog topic ideas can be fundamental in attracting prospective students and their families to your school.

“A Student Athlete's Experience at (School Name)”

Prospective parents and their children will want to know what the student classroom experience is like. Personal story articles can help generate some buzz within a prospective student’s family. If a student’s story resonates with a family in your admissions funnel, there’s a stronger chance they apply.

"Personal story articles can help generate some buzz within a prospective student's family."

Consider choosing one of your students to interview. They could be an athlete, band member, or even the student body president. The title above can be interchanged as you interview different students. Keep in mind that this topic can be used to communicate the diversity of your school, and that each student has a unique story to share.

Recognizing students on your school blog can motivate others to become involved. Your students could act as ambassadors and share their stories, thus creating content for your school’s blog.

Gathering personal student stories shows that no matter the type of interests they have, all students can experience the benefits of a higher level of education, community, and opportunities provided by your school.

This is an easy way to demonstrate to families within your admissions funnel that your school is involved with understanding the different personalities and interests of your students, which builds the fundamental aspect of trust.

“How (Alumni Name) Became (Achievement) After Graduating (School Name)”

Some of the questions most frequently asked by candidate families are around matriculation and where alumni now work. This is the perfect opportunity to tell the school’s story and share how mission-appropriate students achieve success because of the education they received at your school.

Not only should you reach out and interview current graduates, but connect with alumni for their stories. Everyone defines success differently, so you’ll need to aim for graduates that are in different walks of life.

Some alumni may attend schools like Oxford or Harvard, which shows they are academically successful. Some could be budding entrepreneurs; because they’re taking their science fair project into the marketplace. Others may be travelling the world to experience different cultures. Whatever path they’ve taken, it highlights how different students find success at your school.

Asking graduates and alumni to set aside time for an interview may be easier than you think, especially when they understand how sharing their experiences can also benefit them. Firstly, asking them for an interview can make them feel recognized for their accomplishments. Chances are, if someone is asking you for an interview, you’ve definitely done something that people want to talk about.

Secondly, an interview on your school’s blog can also elevate their profile by adding to their thought leadership reputation, as well as contribute to any causes, beliefs, or companies they may be involved in.

Sharing alumni and student stories will show future students and their parents that graduating from your school can bring upon greater opportunities. The end result is different for everyone, but each graduate has a different story to share with different benefits to show.

“What Mr./Ms.(Teacher Name) Learned This Month at (School Name)”

This topic gives your school’s administrators and faculty members the opportunity to share their personal stories. They can explain who they are, their history teaching, and notable moments they’ve experienced at the school.

Choose a variety of faculty members to feature and be sure to include perspectives from people who are newer to international education and those that are veterans in the field. You can also consider team members who are championing a new teaching method or talk about the drama teacher who has had Broadway experience.

Whomever you choose, be sure to demonstrate how they are creating innovative learning moments for the students.

Your school employs world class educators who are thought leaders in the industry. Take advantage of that depth of knowledge by sharing whitepapers, industry journal articles, books, etc., they have written. Not only will this showcase the level of academia students will learn from, but it elevates the reputation of those faculty members and, in turn, the reputation of your school, within the international education community.

"Your school employs world class educators who are thought leaders in the industry."

When you share faculty’s personalities, teaching philosophies, and credentials, you are more likely to attract mission appropriate families whose values align with the school’s visions and strategy.

“How (Family Member Name) Family Helped (School Name) Raise $1,000 for (Cause Name)”

This is a huge blog topic; one that allows you to share the personal perspective of the parents at your school and there is no better marketing tactic than parents spreading the word about how happy they, and their children, are at your school. Think of these articles as a form of testimonials or word of mouth marketing.

But this topic goes beyond its marketing benefits. This is your school’s opportunity to showcase its diverse culture and share how families from so many different countries and walks of life, come together to create a community that celebrates these differences and nurtures each other during their expat time.

Since you’ll be gathering the opinions of parents, it would help to put some sort of structure together for them. Consider creating a formula for writing each article to discuss sub-topics like “How many years have you been with the school?” and “How often do you try to get involved with school activities?” or even “What have you learned since enrolling your child in this school?”

Parents love to tell others about how their kids are progressing academically or athletically. They’ll definitely enjoy telling the story about Timmy leading the school basketball team to victory.

There’s also the idea that the parents you interview could be encouraging other parents to get involved. For example, if Timmy’s super busy CEO dad can find time to partake in school activities, why can’t the other parents?

This doubles as valuable qualitative data for your school as well as sales copy for the families in your admissions funnel.

When other parents chime in on how their experience at your school has been, it sets a more realistic expectation for other parents. It also shows how the school’s existing parents form a community and consistently get involved to promote school values, build school pride, and ensure the development of all students.

“10 Study Tips to Help You Pass the (Course or Program) Final Exam”

Geared towards prospective and current students more than anyone else, this topic wouldhare actionable tips for students (and even parents) to succeed. This type of article could give an inside look into the school’s support system and general academic structure.

You could easily create an article by selecting one of your top students and interviewing them to share their studying tips. This would prove useful to your existing students as well. On the flip side, you could pick a faculty member to share some tips too.

Not only can this blog topic help your school generate leads, it could also encourage your current student body to adopt and innovate successful studying habits.

Providing useful resources to your students and their parents shows how involved you are with maximizing a student’s learning capabilities. Parents who are considering admission into your school will ultimately see how the faculty and student community work together to encourage and foster success.

“(School Name) Goes to (Initiative Name) to Win First Place”

This topic can act like a press release or school newsletter. A dedicated blog post highlighting the school’s involvement at a local or international level can magnify the importance of an initiative.

For example, if you’ve sent 30 students to participate in a high school debate competition in Europe, you’ll definitely want to write a dedicated blog article. You could take it a step further by including a video clip of the debate. Discussing the learning opportunities for the students and sharing the experiences they enjoyed, communicate the opportunity for development when their children participate in these activities.

As with some of the other blog topics, this type of blog posts will add credibility to your school. When candidate families see that the school puts their written values into action through involvement, both in the local community and in other countries, it elevates its reputation in the industry.

“Join Our School and Take Part in the (National/Local Event or Activity)”

Use your blog as a resource for families to discover different activities to enjoy. Focus on offering parents and students a list of seasonal activities, whether they’re on school campus or not. These activities need to align with both your school’s value and the local culture.

For example, a school in Thailand would very likely want to write about events or activities that celebrate the King. You can also draw awareness towards seasonal activities like a Spring Choir event, which could show how much your school values their music program.

Encouraging key stakeholders such as the choir teacher to write a blog about this event can encourage attendance rates. A larger attendance number, however, isn’t the only aspect that dictates the success of the event. Success is measured by the amount of community support and involvement it fosters.

This can also increase future participation from parents, students, and faculty members.

By sharing the different activities families can participate in together, you’re not only speaking to current families, but to potentials families who are wondering what life is like, both in your school and within the community they will be living in.

“Come Support the Grad Class of 2017 Walk the Stage Next Month”

While your school likely has a calendar of events, big campus celebrations like graduation day, prom, orientation day, or other events should have a place in your school’s blog. They encourage both parents and students to participate in milestone events while also building community spirit and school pride.

Here’s how a blog article can help promote campus celebrations:

A school might hold a summer barbecue on campus to celebrate the end of the school year. To prepare for this event, the school may opt into creating a newsletter and a blog post that highlights the reasons why families should participate.

To follow up, you could write a post-event article about how 200+ parents participated and that all of the proceeds went towards donating to a cause the entire school believes in.

This blog topic demonstrate how close-knit the community is at your school. Writing about how the school celebrates the end of the school year and also donating the proceeds shows the school can come together and achieve a unified goal.

Wrapping it Up

Use your blog to communicate the whole-child education experience that students will have at your school.

The above topics are only a few of the options you could consider. They are, however, very relevant for families who want to be a part of a strong community. Your blog should be about your entire school experience and not just about reiterating your accolades or school programs.

These topics should help your school show parents and students that community involvement, formulating your own values, establishing global awareness, and going through real life experiences, are all part of education.

Do you have a content strategy you can follow to stay on top of producing content for your admissions funnel?

What blog topics will you be writing about for your school’s blog?

8 Blog Topic Ideas to Attract Prospective Families to Your School

Fri, 07 Jul 2017 10:47:22 GMT

Every piece of content you create should do three things: educate, elicit emotion and ask the reader to take an action.

So, are there any blog topics you should focus on?

Not necessarily. You have to choose the topics that are the most relevant to your audience, as not all blog topic ideas will work for your school.

Your blog has the potential to encourage the school’s community to engage and participate. The topic suggestions in this article can build school pride and elevate its reputation, which naturally piques interest in, and attention to, your school’s brand.

With all that being said, we’ve worked with various schools and determined that these 8 blog topic ideas can be fundamental in attracting prospective students and their families to your school.

“A Student Athlete's Experience at (School Name)”

Recognizing students on your school blog can motivate others to become involved. Your students could act as ambassadors and share their stories, thus creating content for your school’s blog.

“How (Alumni Name) Became (Achievement) After Graduating (School Name)”

“What Mr./Ms.(Teacher Name) Learned This Month at (School Name)”

Whomever you choose, be sure to demonstrate how they are creating innovative learning moments for the students.

“How (Family Member Name) Family Helped (School Name) Raise $1,000 for (Cause Name)”

Parents love to tell others about how their kids are progressing academically or athletically. They’ll definitely enjoy telling the story about Timmy leading the school basketball team to victory.

This doubles as valuable qualitative data for your school as well as sales copy for the families in your admissions funnel.

“10 Study Tips to Help You Pass the (Course or Program) Final Exam”

Geared towards prospective and current students more than anyone else, this topic would share actionable tips for students (and even parents) to succeed. This type of article could give an inside look into the school’s support system and general academic structure.

Not only can this blog topic help your school generate leads, it could also encourage your current student body to adopt and innovate successful studying habits.

“(School Name) Goes to (Initiative Name)

to Win First Place”

“Join Our School and Take Part in the (National/Local Event or Activity)”

This can also increase future participation from parents, students, and faculty members.

“Come Support the Grad Class of 2017 Walk the Stage Next Month”

Here’s how a blog article can help promote campus celebrations:

To follow up, you could write a post-event article about how 200+ parents participated and that all of the proceeds went towards donating to a cause the entire school believes in.

Wrapping it Up

Use your blog to communicate the whole-child education experience that students will have at your school.

What kind of blog article will you be writing for your school’s blog? Do you have a content strategy you can follow to stay on top of producing content for your admissions funnel?

How to Create Candidate Personas for Your School

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 16:55:00 GMT

Candidate personas will help your school attract mission appropriate families by understanding who they are.

Candidate personas are a fictional representation of your ideal student and family. Though it is a general, broad overview, it is also a realistic perspective based on research. Understanding the various personas will help your school attract ideal families by tailoring content to the specific desires and concerns (pain points) of each group.

Why are personas important?

If you don’t know who you are creating content for, how will you create messages that speak directly to that person?

Creating candidate personas for your school will help identify the different types of families you want to attract, thereby making it easier to tailor content: blog posts, social posts, ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, etc. When you know exactly what a particular segment’s desires, needs, and concerns (pain points) are, you will be able to create marketing messages that work.

The foundation of a successful inbound marketing campaign is that you begin to solve the problems and provide resources for potential families BEFORE you even speak to them about school options.

Where do you find information to create a persona?

The strongest candidate personas are based on market research as well as on insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.). Depending on your school, you may have as few as two personas, or upwards of 10 or more. The most important thing is to start with two and create the main personas for your school. You can always create more later.

Whether these are your most challenging groups or the segment of your community that needs the most growth, begin with the two personas that best reflect the most mission-appropriate families for your school.

Think about the target audience that you most want to serve. This could be families that are already part of your school or maybe the audience is one that is becoming more challenging to reach. It could also be a demographic that you would like to grow within your school.

Another audience to consider in international education is faculty recruitment; you want the best teachers and administrators in their field. Developing a candidate persona for these positions will help your HR department find mission appropriate candidates.

Often with international schools, information for family or student personas can be found in the admissions department database. It can be pulled from actual applicant files and extrapolated from information staff receive as they are conducting school tours and answering parent inquiries. The more specific you are, the more effective your marketing messages will be.

Download our FREE Candidate Persona Template to learn how to create profiles that attract mission appropriate families.

A persona can also be identified by analyzing the changing demographic landscape in your city and surrounding your school.

While parents may come in to visit the school or make their final decision together, it is typically only one of them doing the research in advance. And this decision maker is you want to focus on while producing your marketing messaging. You’ll need to decide who that is and craft the persona around that person.

Whatever the audience is, the purpose of a persona is to identify a variety of target audiences and understand them as much as possible so you can engage them in a conversation through an inbound marketing campaign or what we call a "Bundle".

How to use the Candidate Persona Template.

It may seem a little daunting to tackle the research and compile it into a manageable document which is why we’ve created a Candidate Persona Template for you to use. Each of the four slides answers one of the critical components of a story: who, what, why, and how.

Here’s an example of how you can use the template.

Start with the basics.

This is the who. Research the persona’s background. What is their family situation? How old are they? How many children do they have? Think about how they like to do their research and communicate.

Questions to consider:

General:

Which individual conducts the research for the child’s education?
Include this person's name.
Include a picture of what this person most likely looks like.

Background (Who):

Where are they currently living?
What type of job does this person and/or their spouse have?
What is their education level and from what type of school?
Who will make the final school decision?
Are they a first time expat?

Demographics (Who):

Age?
Family income?
Do both parents work or just one?
What passports do the family have?
Languages?

Identifiers (Who):

Are they friendly and easy to speak with?
Do they want to be involved in the school?
Do they ask a lot of questions?
How do they do their research? How do they find out about school options?
Blogs
Print
Social media
Referrals (word of mouth)

5. What type of communication do they like to receive?

Email
Social media
Print materials

What is their what?

This is where you identify what is important to them; their goals and their challenges. It’s also where you begin to outline what you can do to help this persona, not only achieve their goals, but overcome their fears and challenges.

Questions to consider:

Goals (What):

What do they value?
What do they want from a school?
How do they define a successful eduction for their child?
What type of education do they want for their child?
What are their expectations from the school they choose?

Challenges (What):

What are the biggest problems they need to solve before choosing a school?
What are their biggest fears for themselves?
What are their biggest fears for their children?
Have they heard of your school before?

What can we do (What):

How can your school answer and/or solve their challenges?

Next, start asking why.

What are some of the most commonly heard objections? Try and identify some real quotes you’ve heard from prospective families. By tying the persona to real-life experiences, it becomes more authentic and valuable.

Questions to consider:

Real Quotes (Why):

What are the most common statements or phrases you will hear from a parent during the admissions process?Positive
Negative

Common objections (Why):

What are the common things people say as a reason to not choose your school?
What things might they “complain” about?

And then there’s the how.

This is where your marketing and admissions departments begin to take action – together! When you craft marketing messages and elevator pitches that are easy for all team members to adopt and use, your marketing efforts multiply exponentially and your admissions funnel fills up with mission-appropriate students and families.

Questions to consider:

Marketing messaging (How):

What messages can you send to help answer their pain points?

What information can you provide to solve their problems and overcome their objections?

Once you compile all of the information about your candidate persona, make sure you give them a name and identifier. You could choose something like US Expat Susan, or CEO Katherine. Take it to the next step and choose a photo that represents this persona. There are several stock image sites where you can purchase one very affordable. This may seem like it’s taking things a little too far, but trust us, it really helps to identify the persona when you have a face and a name associated with it.

Video Marketing for 2017 and Beyond

Sat, 18 Feb 2017 03:30:00 GMT

As you think about your content marketing strategy, it's imperative that you consider adding video and if you already use video, consider adding more.

The effectiveness of this marketing trend should come as no surprise with internet speeds and mobile usage continually rising to enable users to stream videos wherever they are, whenever they want.

Video does not have to be viral to be valuable

How many of you remember this viral video from last year? While it is a silly example, “Chewbacca Mom” demonstrates us how important using video and having a visual storytelling strategy are. You can bet that Chewbacca masks sold out around the globe!

But, don’t get caught in the, “It’s not effective unless it goes viral” thinking. It’s a mistake to focus your video strategy solely on viral video. Instead, build a process for the ongoing creation of valuable videos specifically for your target audience.

After all, 74 percent of all Internet traffic in 2017 will be video, which means it doesn’t have to be viral to be valuable.

In fact, studies show that using the word “video” in the subject line of an email will prompt:

19% more recipient to open them
65% more to visit your website
and 26% less subscribers to leave.

Of course, email is not the only place you can promote videos. In fact, it’s more typical to think “social media” when talking about sharing videos.

But not all social media platforms are created equal in the video marketing world. Keep in mind the effectiveness of

videos is very much platform-specific. For example:

Evergreen video content (content with a long life) works well on YouTube due to how users search and discover videos
Shareable and time-sensitive videos work well on Facebook and Twitter due to the social nature of consuming content (Twitter says that videos and photos get the most retweets)
While short-form, attention-grabbing videos are more suited to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat

Remember to consider where YOUR target audience spends most of their time, and create videos that match that platform (rather than creating multiple types of videos and trying to cover every platform). There are a few video platforms in particular that began trending in the last two years and show now signs of slowing down.

Facebook Live

If you’ve updated your Facebook app over the past few months (or if you have been obsessed with April the giraffe giving birth), you may have noticed Facebook has reorganized its appearance to draw more attention to the ability to “go live”, as well as a specific notification just for videos.

Although Facebook is not the largest video streaming platform, it does have the largest number of active users. For this reason, it’s a great option for organizations to increase their visibility. It’s fantastic for large and small organizations alike because of the ability to create and share videos that don’t require excess scripting or editing, It can be done fairly quickly. Plus, it is accompanied by an app notification when a live stream is happening which grabs your audience’s attention with minimal additional effort.

Facebook Live is very easy-to-use and businesses of all types can use live streaming to increase engagement with their Facebook followers. To get started on Facebook Live, simply click on the Live button in your News Feed, write a short description of what your audience is going to see and start filming. Note: some business pages still require the use of the Pages for Facebook app to access the Facebook Live function.

Update: Facebook has released their own version of stories called, you guessed it, Facebook Stories . More to come on that later.

Snapchat

With over 100 million daily active users and 400 million snaps per day, Snapchat is one of the fastest-growing social networks. As you might already assume, 71% of Snapchat’s users fall into the 18 to 34 age range.

It has a variety of features, including 10 second photo and video sharing, short stories that are viewable for 24 hours, a mobile messenger with live video streaming (similar to apple’s facetime), and more.

So how can you use snapchat for your business? Here are 3 ideas:

Provide access to live events
Offer contests, perks or promotions
Take people behind the curtain

Instagram Stories

Lauched less than one year ago, Instagram Stories has become THE platform for social influencers and just about anyone else wanting to share video snapshots of their day.

In a big leap from sharing just photos or 15 second videos to your profile (or feed), Instagram Stories lets you share multiple photos and videos in chronologocal order. Essentially, it is a slideshow of your life.

The worry of over-posting on social media is gone with Instagram Stories. It's all about sharing as much as you want throughout the day in the most creative way you can. The photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and they don't appear on your profile grid or in the feed.

This platform, like Snapchat, is all about authenticity. By sharing behind-the-scenes, not-so-perfect moments, followers are able to connect with a brand and feel like they really know what's going on. Organizations can maximize this platform by inviting followers along on the day-to-day happenings and enticing them to engage.

So, now that we've talked about how to incorporate video into your social media marketing...

Here's how you can jump on the trend

Go live or post a story. If you are unsure how to use the tools for your organization, play around with them on your personal profiles first.
Consider what video platform your audience spends the most time on. Determine which will have the biggest impact, then make videos that match.
Develop a strategy based on your platform. Should your videos be short? Long? Time-sensitive? How frequently should you share?

The long and the short of video is that it is here to stay. Smart marketers will latch onto this trend by creating relevant, high quality video content and leverage it on video-friendly social media networks.

Regardless of the platform you choose to share it on or the content you create, it's important for organizations to focus on how best to maximize the benefits of video as a part of their long-term content marketing strategy rather than chasing after the elusive "viral" video.

And remember, authenticity is vitally important; anything that can help humanize your brand to your audience is a definite bonus.

Aligning Marketing Efforts to the Family Journey

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 05:17:43 GMT

Creating content that attracts prospective families to your website is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. First, you need to consider your target audience (the persona) and then factor in the stage the family is at in the Candidate’s Journey. There are three stages of the journey a candidate family walks through before choosing the school that’s right for them: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

When you clearly understand each of the three stages, you can be proactive in your marketing strategy and create content that speaks to mission-appropriate families in each stage of their journey.

A candidate family’s journey leading up to applying to your school can vary in its length. Some families decide quickly and others take a bit longer. Whatever pace they set, each of them go through three stages to get there: Awareness, Consideration and Decision.

While you’d rather have them skip straight to submitting an application, the reality is there are very few people who make an investment of this size without conducting research and learning about their alternatives, particularly when it affects their children and lifestyle.

1. Awareness

It all starts with awareness; that moment when something changes and a potential family realizes they’ve got a new challenge to solve or opportunity to grab hold of. Maybe they’ve decided to move back to their home country after years abroad. Perhaps mom or dad are being transferred to a new posting in a foreign country. Or maybe the family just isn’t happy with their current school situation.

Whatever the change may be, it is the reason a family embarks on the candidate’s journey to find the best school for them – even if a school search is not where they start.

Let’s look at an example of how your school can provide content that builds trust and a relationship without selling your school. Jane Smith just found out that she is being transferred to Frankfurt for a three year posting within her company. She has a husband and two children who will make the move with her and her first concern is where the family should live. Having never been to Frankfurt she is not familiar with the city and has no idea what neighbourhood would best suit her family.

Where her family will live is her first “awareness pain point”.

So Jane takes to the internet to start searching for “the best family neighbourhoods in Frankfurt” and one of the results is your school’s e-book, “A Family-Friendly Neighbourhood Guide for Frankfurt”. Jane is pleasantly surprised to see that a school is providing this content. She downloads the e-book and it becomes her biggest resource when they begin their house hunt.

Remember, this neighbourhood guide has absolutely nothing to do with promoting your school. It does, however, accomplish three things:

Your school provided the answer to Jane’s biggest pain point even though it had nothing to do with your school directly.
You’ve established a relationship and earned her trust by being a valuable resource to her.
Your school captured Jane’s information when she filled in the form to download the e-book and she has become a marketing qualified lead.

Now that Jane has become aware of her situation and is immersed in the many details of moving a family overseas, she moves from the Awareness stage of the journey to the Consideration stage.

2. Consideration

In the Consideration stage, candidate families now understand their goal or challenge (finding the best school for their children) and have set out on the path of finding a solution. They are evaluating the various options available and are and conducting research to gather all relevant information.

This doesn’t mean it’s time to start “hard-selling” them on your school. In this stage of the journey, candidate families are not looking for a specific school, they’re looking for solutions to their problems. This is your opportunity to nurture them further through the journey by providing them information on their options.

You can, however, begin to show them how your school fits their needs. We find that this can be the most challenging stage to create content for because you’re endeavouring to demonstrate how your school can meet their needs without launching a full-on sales campaign.

Remember to create your content for this stage from a solution perspective rather than a vendor perspective. We have found that these types of content work well in the Consideration stage:

Checklists. Create a list of questions families should ask when speaking with various school admissions departments.
Comparison Charts. This is a great way to showcase your school’s solution to their problem as compared to your competitors without putting your brand front and centre. Don’t forget to be honest in the comparison and give your competitors their due credit. If you don’t, readers will see through this tactic which devalues the content.
Blog Posts. A blog post is a good platform to dive a little deeper into your persona’s pain point. You can offer a more in-depth perspective on solutions as well as include calls to action that direct them to relevant content offers.

DOWNLOAD OUR 50 BLOG POST IDEAS CHECKLIST HERE!

Video. In 2016, Google found that almost 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store (school). Video is powerful and has the ability to elicit emotions and create connections like no other platform.

Again, knowing your target audience (or persona) inside and out is essential. By understanding who you’re speaking to, you are better able to identify their pain points and frustrations and create quality content that speaks directly to them.

Get started on identifying your school’s personas with our free Persona Template.

3. Decision

The Decision stage is where families are choosing the school that’s right for their child. They’ve identified what they’re looking for and now they’re seeking out facts and hard data about their various options.

How do you know they’ve entered this stage? Maybe they’ve downloaded a piece of content that you’ve designed for this stage. Or perhaps they’re reaching out to the school with inquiries and are booking school tours. Your analytics data would show they are also viewing admissions pages such as tuition or how to apply.

How are you continuing to nurture them through this phase? What information are you offering to help them make their decision? Decision stage content focuses solidifying your relationship and assuring them your school fits their needs.

If a family is in the decision stage this means you’ve already established trust and formed a relationship. While we don’t think it’s ever a great idea to adopt a hard-hitting sales approach, it is time to take the information you’re providing to the next level.

Think about the last time you were making a purchasing decision. What helped you decide? What did the company do or offer that make the difference? Was it a testimonial or review? Did you watch more videos? Look at a detailed comparison of the features and benefits? Or maybe you made your choice on how easy it was to make the purchase.

Know what your persona needs and create content that provides answers. Recommendations and word-of-mouth referrals are often the biggest source of leads for an organization. That’s why testimonials and case studies are very powerful during the Decision stage. It is very reassuring for a candidate family to hear how happy current and past families are with their experience at your school.

Engage your alumni and grads during this stage as well. Hearing first-hand stories about student life on campus and where their education has taken them could be the final piece of information a family needs to make their decision.

Ultimately, your goal is to have a mission appropriate family click on the Apply Now button on your website, but if that is the sole focus of your content marketing strategy, you will fail. The road to an application submission is filled with content, content that helps solve your personas’ pain points and speaks to their specific stage in the candidate’s journey.

The awareness, consideration, and decision stages are part of creating an overall inbound marketing strategy. Download the free Inbound Marketing Guide for International Schools and learn how to attract, convert, and close prospective families.

6 SEO Tips to Consider When Designing a New Website

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 06:32:05 GMT

You have taken the big step and decided to have a website built. You have grand visions that your newly claimed digital space will have visitors flocking to your website begging to buy your product or service. You are confident that this step will see stratospheric growth for your company.

These dreams are all well and good, but have you made an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan for your website? Have you considered how these potential customers will find you in the vast wilderness that is the internet.

In this blog post you will learn 6 key Search Engine Optimization tips that will help you optimize your new website design.

Organize Your Content with the Viewer in Mind

It’s all about the viewer. Think about what information they are searching for and structure your website around those subjects.

When deciding the navigation and page content for your website, it’s important to have specific pages for specific content. If you have all your product and/or service information on one page (unless you only offer one widget) it will be difficult to define quality keywords as the focus is too broad.

Take a look at one of our clients, Vancouver mortgage broker, INVIS Team RRP. As a mortgage broker firm they offer a variety of specialty products including first-time buyer, commercial and refinancing, to name a few. Rather than have a single page listing all of their services, each specific product has its own landing page. This makes it easier to choose effective keywords and phrases for each product, thereby enabling Google to index the content more accurately.

Make Sure Your Site is Mobile Friendly (Responsive)

So, what does "responsive" mean in terms of a website? Simply put, it is a website design that is optimized for viewing across devices. If your visitor is viewing your site on a smartphone, they will see a simplified version for easier navigation on their device. The same applies for a tablet, desktop and laptop. The content is automatically re-sized for optimal viewing across all devices.

This is vitally important as, on average, 52% of visitors to a website are viewing it on a smartphone or tablet. Additionally, Google ranks your site with a higher authority when it recognizes it as built with a responsive design.

Install Google Analytics Immediately

Data is your best friend. You want to understand your viewers and know what information they are consuming so you are better able to meet their needs and provide answers to their questions.

The sooner you add your Google Analytics tracking code, the sooner Google will start to index (crawl) your content and rank your website and the sooner you’ll start collecting valuable data on your visitors.

Optimize Your Images

Yes, Google reads images and with a few simple adjustments you can optimize them for maximum results.Reduce the file size of your images. This is important because the larger your images are, the longer it takes your web pages to load and Google uses page load times as a factor in their ranking algorithm. But it’s not only Google who penalizes slow loading websites; viewers wait an average of 3 seconds for a page to load before abandoning the site and searching elsewhere.

Optimize Your Image Alt Tags

Alt tags are the text description of an image on your website. This is the text that Google used to index the image (for both website and image searches) and it is also what viewers will see in place of an image should it not load properly.

When choosing and Alt Tag for your image, describe the image in plain English, just like you would a document name. While it can be helpful to include keywords with some of your images, don’t stuff your Alt Tags with keywords.

Let’s take a look at an example. You’re writing a blog post about the latest car model releases from Nissan and you’ve chosen this image of a 2016 Nissan Murano. An example of keyword stuffing would be “nissan murano luxury vehicle great price on sale”. Conversely, a good example would be: “2016 Nissan Murano SL dark grey”.

Don't Load Your Content with Keywords

It’s a whole new world for SEO. The practice of keyword stuffing your content (often to the point of devaluing your message) was never a recommended tactic but has become even more detrimental to website ranking. With Google’s release of their Hummingbird algorithm in 2013, the focus shifted to a content-centric SEO strategy. Meaning your content needs to be relevant to what your customers are searching for with keywords included organically in the content.

To truly simply this difficult to understand concept, think about it like this: write your content for people, not for search engines.

Install a Blog and USE IT!

You need to think about your website as a living, breathing entity; it needs regular care, attention and updating. A large component of a successful SEO strategy lies within fresh, relevant content being posted regularly. A static website that is never updated may be viewed by search engines as dead.

A blog allows you to upload new content on a regular basis, thereby giving search engines new content to index. Here’s the important part of blogging: the content needs to be relevant and of interest to your viewers. We can’t say this enough: write for your reader.

Link Back to Your Site from Your Social Media Channels

The more other sources (websites, directories and social media sites) link back to your website, the more Google considers it a valuable source of information. One of the easiest methods of creating these backlinks is to post on your own personal and business social media profiles. Profiling a new team member? Post it. Highlighting a product or service? Post a link to the information on your website. Did you just release your latest blog post? Let everyone on your social channels know.

Considering the fact there are over 2 million unique blog posts loaded to the internet every 24 hours, keeping these 6 tips in mind as you embark on your website design journey will help you secure your piece of the the world wide web.

Embarking on a website design or re-design?

Download our free guide titled 10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid When Redesigning a Website.

5 Online Marketing Tips that will Set Your School Apart

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 07:05:23 GMT

Education is a competitive business, one that requires the same time and attention to marketing as a successful corporation. You may have a world- class school, worthy of international applicants. Great, but are you effectively communicating to your market about what sets your school apart? Online marketing for schools can be complex at first.

By using these tips you will improve your school’s marketing strategy and help it appeal to prospective applicants. Because like big business, a school needs customers- students- to be successful.

1. Don’t be shy about what sets your school apart.

What differentiates your school from the competition? Is it the quality of the instructors, variety of courses offered, award- winning programs? Consider these attributes your school’s ‘bragging rights’ and make sure that these features are promoted front and center in marketing the school. Include images and quotes that link to specific web pages on the school website to make it easy for visitors to learn more; also make sure to promote these attributes in social media. Don’t be afraid to show- off what makes your school special.

2. Address questions and concerns parents have.

What are common questions your school receives when parents of prospective students reach out? What are they concerned about? Topics such as class size, school safety, and location are probably at the top of their list, so make sure you address them head- on and in a clear manner. The answers to these questions could be the deciding factors when selecting a school. Include a FAQs page on your website and encourage parents to reach out with questions. You can even feature some of the most common questions with the school’s response via its social media channels. This will demonstrate that your school does not ignore parent’s concerns; rather it respects them. By being proactive, the school may answer parent’s questions before they even ask them, helping them in the decision process.

3. Be clear in communicating your school’s mission and vision statements

This is valuable in communicating what your school stands for, what it’s goals are. It’s important that the school’s mission and vision are clearly communicated on the school website. Another great way to reiterate the vision and mission are to reach out through social media, asking staff and students to express what the school’s mission and vision mean to them. This can demonstrate how well your school is committed to delivering on its promises. Particularly poignant responses can be included as quotes on the school website and marketing materials.

4. Don’t just say it once, say it often

It’s great to communicate something, and another to do it well. The frequency of communications is important to ensure it is reaching your audience effectively. This includes updating your website regularly and being proactive in your social media efforts. Don’t simply toss out a piece of information- such as a special event announcement- once and expect a great response. Continue to promote daily to ensure it is on the fore- front of people’s minds. Share student successes and promote them- and how they showcase your school, its programs, and faculty to communicate what your school does to further education. Presenting it a little differently each time will ensure people don’t get bored with the same old message.

5. Invest in a quality website & ongoing maintenance

Having a top-notch website is an essential tool in your marketing efforts. Often your school’s website will be the first impression parents and prospective students have and it’s important to make it a good one. To build on the above points, include important information, including the school’s vision and mission statement, what sets it apart (faculty, quality of programs, etc) and clear links to help viewers easily navigate the website. It is important that the website is not only professional and attractive, but simple to click through. Include a mix of copy and images with clear links and calls to action (‘request more info’/ ‘apply now’, etc). Your website is the foundation for your online marketing strategy and it is important to invest some time and money in it. And once it’s live, continue to update it regularly to keep it current.

Make your school stand out. By employing these tips with your school’s website and online marketing strategy, you can help further set your school apart from the competition. Being proactive and ensuring you invest in quality marketing efforts can be the difference between an interested applicant, and one that moves on to another school.

Image source: NLU

4 Things You’re Doing Wrong with Your Online Reputation

Mon, 27 Oct 2014 10:10:14 GMT

In today’s world it isn’t enough just to have a website. For many businesses, only being present on one social media network isn’t enough. Companies have to actively monitor how their online presence is affecting their business- both to effectively market and grow their business and to manage their online reputation. Here are 4 common mistakes businesses make with their online marketing efforts, and how these can be harmful to their reputations. Don’t let these mistakes harm your company’s bottom line.

You’re Not Being Proactive

A lot of businesses- especially small businesses- are guilty of not actively monitoring reviews and comments about their brand and products, which can subsequently lead to their brand and public relations suffering. This is especially harmful to business when potential customers search for your business or product online and only see negative information about the company.

Solution: Don’t wait for a problem or negative review to arise before you pay attention to your reputation. Assign someone within your company or hire someone from a company that specializes in online marketing and reputation management to actively search and monitor comments and reviews published online- this can range from blogs and review sites, to your company website and social media networks.

You Only Use One Social Media Network (or worse, you’re not on social media at all).

Each social media network attracts a slightly different audience, making it important for you to understand who your target customer is and how to effectively reach out to them via social media. In addition to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, and Youtube are all valuable options to consider- using a combination of several networks and linking them can help you reach a wider audience.

Solution: Consider your business, it’s branding, and target market. Depending on what mix of products and/ or services you offer can help inform your choices in social media networks. For more formal options, LinkedIn and Google+ are good choices; more informal options such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Youtube can allow you to showcase your company, it’s product, and unique culture in a fun way that will encourage engagement with your audience. This is a great way to nurture a positive online reputation. If you’re unsure of which networks are a good fit for your company, speak with a marketing expert who can help you understand the merits of the different networks and help you come up with a strategy that will work for your company.

You Don’t Do Regular Updates

So you have a great company website and accounts on several social media networks. Great, but are you using them effectively? Simply having a website and profile on a social media network isn’t going to help you leverage these tools effectively, and having stagnant accounts that aren’t being monitored and/ or updated can leave your company vulnerable to negative content that can go unnoticed- again, a major booboo when it comes to managing your online reputation.

Solution: When you have selected which social media networks to use, ensure someone is responsible for monitoring and updating the content regularly. This can include company announcements, events, product releases, and other content that will appeal to your target audience. Make sure the content is appropriate and engaging- mix it up by including articles, videos, quotes, etc from other sources that relate to what your company does. Again, if you need some guidance in how to effectively execute a social media campaign and how to use social media to help manage your online reputation, speak to someone who can help you effectively manage your online marketing efforts.

You Don’t Engage with Your Audience

Once you start posting content, you will hopefully receive comments and opinions from your audience. In addition, customers may feel compelled to post their thoughts on a product they used or an experience with your company. It is important that these interactions are monitored and addressed- especially if a negative comment is shared. This is where the value of social media as an element of your online reputation management is evident- especially with regard to the immediacy of your response time.

Solution: By actively engaging with your audience you will create and help shape your company’s culture online and enhance it’s brand. This is a valuable element of marketing and reputation management. Engaging with your audience and addressing questions and concerns- and any negative comments that may arise- will help mitigate against the damage caused if negative content goes unnoticed. Your audience will appreciate your company’s interactive and proactive stance in addressing any questions or concerns that are brought to light. Remember: it’s easy to be liked when it’s smooth sailing, but it’s a valuable opportunity to demonstrate your company’s commitment to it’s customer’s when it has an opportunity to address and effectively manage a negative review or comment.

Now that you know what is lacking in your online marketing efforts, you can identify areas for improvement and effectively leverage online marketing to grow your business and build a positive reputation online. Simply having a marketing strategy isn’t enough if it isn’t being executed effectively.

Stand out from the Crowd: Why Your School Website Design Matters

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 10:15:34 GMT

When it comes to websites, they are often the first impression of your school for visitors. How they look, are laid out, and what content they have all can make a big impact on visitor engagement, and ultimately their decision is school selection. By outlining what sets your school apart, how visitors can learn more, and- most importantly- contact you for more information are valuable elements to include in a website. Read on to learn about the importance of a well-constructed website, and if you need a website redesign or not.

Answer theses questions to improve the online success rate of your school website design:

How Are You Unique?

What sets your school apart? Why should people be interested in your school over the other choices? Identify what sets yours apart from the rest with facts and photos that users can click on and link to the relevant pages of the website. For example, if you have a fact about or image of a popular program, ensure the link goes to that program’s landing page so that visitors receive valid information when they click through your website. This is a great way to encourage engagement and trigger their interest.

Examples of quick facts to include are faculty to student ratios, special programs offered, awards and recognition, and program highlights/ awards. Photos should showcase how attractive the campus is, in- class images to highlight programs, and team/ organization achievements (ie did a school team rank best in a recent competition?). Eye- catching images are a great way to draw people in and encourage them to learn more about your school.

How Can Interested Parties Learn More?

A valuable element of every homepage is a call- to- action, whether it be in the form of a button or an easy- to- find drop down menu. The goal is to convert curious individuals into leads and a call to action encourages them to take the next step. Capturing a candid audience’s attention is one thing, getting the response you want is another; don’t let an opportunity slip by.

Where Can People Reach You?

Contact information should be clearly visible on your homepage, not buried somewhere deep within your website. It’s important that visitors can learn where and when to contact your school so that they are more likely to reach out. If they have to work too hard to find a way to reach you, chances are, they’ll look elsewhere.

Have information such as address, email address, phone number, and social media networks on your homepage. Address information is good to display at the top, while links to your social media profiles can be displayed along the top or bottom of the page, depending on what works best with the layout.

What’s Your Campus Culture?

Often when people visit your website the first time, they will be unsure about what to expect. Some visitors may already know a bit about your school, but you shouldn’t assume. You want to make sure you communicate what makes your school special, what sets it apart.

Treat this first interaction like a ‘first date’ scenario; you want visitors to feel comfortable and at home on your website, not alienated and confused. This will directly influence how they feel about your school as a result. Here’s another opportunity to include some photos that link to relevant pages on the website: use student quotes about why they like the school with an accompanying photo that links through to a ‘Testimonials’ or other relevant pages. Testimonials are a great way to create a positive impression about the school and help potential students get excited about the prospect of attending.

Designing your school website is a key element in gathering more applications. Your website is a valuable tool and can make a lasting first impression with visitors. Having one that is well laid- out, is easy to navigate, and promotes the positive attributes of your school can help convert curious visitors into successful applicants.

Let your website tell the story of your school and watch your attendance increase.

A How-to Guide to Using Hashtags in Social Media

Tue, 21 Oct 2014 10:20:16 GMT

The use of hashtags in social media has become a valuable marketing tool across a variety of platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+. The goal is to help make it faster and easier for potential clients and other prospects find what they’re looking for- your business. It’s one thing to use hashtags and another to use them effectively. This guide will help you do so; read on to learn how to maximize on the potential of hashtags in your social media marketing efforts.

“Your hashtags should have a purpose, be easy to search, and aim to build upon what you had to say”

Twitter

Given the limited amount of characters you can use on Twitter, you want to make sure your hashtags have a purpose- that is, that they add substance to your Tweet. As the “birthplace” of modern hashtags 2 , Twitter is a great platform to start and engage in conversations around specific topics or hashtags.

Best Practices: It’s best to use hashtags in every Tweet if possible. A good rule of thumb is to include no more than 2- 3 per Tweet. This has been shown to improve engagement over those Tweets with no hashtags or too many. Be selective and make the most of those 140 characters!

Facebook

While using hashtags on Facebook hasn’t taken off the same as on Twitter, it’s still a great place to utilize them. As the largest social media network, Facebook can be instrumental in helping you reach out to your audience. Selective use of hashtags can help build brand recognition across social media platforms, and where better to translate your branding on social media than with Facebook?

Best Practices: As with Twitter, being selective of what you #hashtag is the best bet- no more than 2 hashtags per post is best.

“Using effective hashtags will maximize your visibility and searchability” 3

Instagram

In this photo- driven social media network, hashtags can help you build your online following by attracting followers with similar interests and posts to those you share. You can also find other individuals and businesses to follow that relate to your business- this can be a great online networking opportunity.

Best Practices: Unlike Twitter and Facebook, the more hashtags you use in Instagram, the merrier- so hashtag your little heart out!

Pinterest

Another image- driven social media network, Pinterest is credited with being “the highest revenue- generating social site for businesses” . 4 Which means, if you’re not already leveraging Pinterest for your business, you better start ASAP. Don’t underestimate the power this network can have in helping market your business to a candid audience. Organizing Pins and boards that relate to different areas of your business and including items that will appeal to your target audience is a great way to draw attention to your business

Best Practices: On Pinterest, hashtags help organize content and can make it easier to narrow search results based on the hastags used in the image description. To maximize on this opportunity, make sure you hashtag the key factors/ descriptors of an image you Pin. Categorizing with hastags can help keep you organized and help others find your business’s pins; on Pinterest, like with Instagram, more hashtags aren’t a bad thing.

Google+

Considered the web’s “smartest” hashtags , 5 those used on Google+ help you garner attention from the world’s largest search engine. Even if you neglect to include hashtags in something you share on Google+, the network will automatically assign a hashtag to it to make it searchable. To differentiate, the hashtags you include appear in blue, Google’s appear in grey. When you add hashtags in a Google+ post, you optimize your content to appear in Google search engine results as well as alongside other Google+ posts using the same hashtag.

Best Practices: As with Twitter and Facebook, less is more. Limiting your hashtags to 1-2 per post is best; and remember, if you forget to include them, Google’s got your back.

Source Article: Final Site: The School Marketer’s Guide to Effectively Using Facebook

Image Source: Greg Bealzley

[1] http://bit.ly/1Dv5Yvt [2]http://bit.ly/1Dv5Yvt [3]http://bit.ly/1Dv5Yvt [4] http://bit.ly/1Dv5Yvt [5] http://bit.ly/1Dv5Yvt

How to Use Twitter to Boost Your Online Reputation

Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:06:00 GMT

Social media has revolutionized marketing and how organizations interact and reach out to their audience. The challenge is how to stand out for the right reasons and leverage this to build your business. Whether you’re familiar with social media outlets, or completely new to the game, this article will help you understand how to use Twitter effectively to grow your brand and improve your online presence.

Your Profile Should be Consistent with Your Brand

When you set up your account, make sure your username (@________) and the images you select for your profile & background pictures represent your organization. A general rule of thumb is to use a logo or other recognizable image for your profile picture with an eye- catching picture as your background picture (such as a product shot, photo from a special event, etc). Generally, don’t change your profile picture often (or at all) unless necessary; change your background picture to promote an upcoming event, seasonal promotions, etc. Make sure they are eye- catching and show up well. This basic step is important as it ensures your organization is recognizable on social media and its brand is represented consistently.

Follow Persons of interest in the Same and Similar Industries to your Organization

This is a great way to help build your Twitter audience and share content your followers will find interesting. Participating in conversations on Twitter that positively represent your organization and allow you to share your opinion (in an appropriate and professional manner) are a great way to establish and build an online presence and reputation. Being proactive and commenting on follower’s tweets can help attract new followers and build a loyal following of your own. This is a valuable foundation to build, as followers who you interact with can help boost your online presence in a positive way and reduce any negative attention you may receive.

Track Engagement & Hashtags

There are a variety of different tools available to help you manage and track your social media accounts and searches that include your hashtags. This is important as it can help you manage your account(s) and interactions effectively. Setting up a monitoring tool for Twitter such as TweetBeep that monitors conversations that mention your company, products, etc can help you respond and interact with others; this is a valuable time- saver when you have a strong following with plenty of interaction to manage. Further, you can search hashtags that you are using to find out what others are saying about the subject. This is similar to searching keywords that you include on your website.

Engage and Interact in a Positive & Timely Manner

Building on the previous two points, make sure you engage with your audience. This is especially important for ORM when someone makes a negative comment about your organization, a product, or experience. Responding to tweets and comments that present your organization negatively as quickly and positively as possible can help prevent the negative effects from spreading. By addressing a concern in a timely manner, you mitigate the negative effects it may have on your brand and can turn it into an opportunity to showcase your troubleshooting abilities. An organization that can effectively address and respond to negative reviews or comments will gain support and respect from its audience.

Twitter is a great platform to use when you want to bridge the gap between your brand and customers. The only problem is, you need to be able to break through the noise.

Chat with IMPACT to get a few more tips on how Twitter can be used to boost the reputation of your brand.

H2H Schools Blog

Changing Dynamics of International School Admissions in Japan

Real Stories, Real Impact: 6 Community Groups to Engage in Your International School Marketing Efforts

1. Teachers & Faculty

2. Parents

3. Students

4. Alumni

5. City and local tourism offices

6. Event organizers and hospitality teams

Navigating the digital marketing maze: How a digital marketing dashboard can revolutionize your international school marketing

From Click to Classroom: Why International Schools Need a Google Ads Strategy

Meta Momentum: Igniting Growth in International School Enrollment Strategy

Why a Digital Marketing Audit is a Worthwhile Investment for your School

A Double-Edged Sword: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Using AI as a Brainstorming Assistant in School Marketing Strategies

Data-Driven Excellence: Why Schools Need a Digital Marketing Dashboard

6 Reasons Regional Exclusivity Matters: Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency for Schools

Essential Checklist: How to Conduct a Digital Marketing Audit for Schools

Five Creative Marketing Ideas for International Schools

A Roadmap to Fueling Momentum with a Digital Marketing Audit for Schools

58 Questions to Help You Develop a Persona for Faculty Members

13 Ways a Competitive Digital Marketing Audit can Improve Your School's Online Presence

Strategic Techniques for Optimizing Job Posts to Attract Great Teachers

Understanding and Enhancing Market Position for International Schools

Unleashing the Power of Storytelling in Teacher Recruitment

How to Develop a Content Plan Highlighting Your USP for Teacher Recruitment

How to Measure a Content Marketing Strategy for International Schools

How website structure impacts user experience

What to expect from your SEO service provider

LEVEL ONE SEO SERVICES: LOCAL OPTIMIZATION

Personalized Marketing Techniques for International School Marketing

INBOUND Website Personalization

Facebook and Google Retargeting and Remarketing Campaigns

Lookalike Audiences

Email Marketing and Lead Nurturing

Four Ways to Measure the Success of Your Blog Post

What You Need to Know About Hubspot’s Contact Tier Pricing Changes

Five Creative Marketing Ideas for International Schools

The Social Dilemma - 10 Ways to Protect Your Privacy Online

Why your business association should be podcasting

What do you need right now to navigate admissions through this pandemic?

Technology

Orange Lutheran High School's investment into creating a comprehensive virtual tour is paying off. Prospective families can get a feel for the campus and facilities from the comfort of their own home.

﻿

Promotion and Optimization

ISB Bangkok - Virtual Open House

To learn more about how to market effectively with a Marketing Action Plan for International Schools, Inquire Today!

To find out more click the button below.

Building an International Digital Marketing Strategy

Three Easy Ways to Find the Perfect Keywords for your Blogs

Why is using the right keywords important?

Content Ideas for Each Stage of the Admissions Journey

How to Create a Basic Marketing Plan for your International School Part 2

How to write an SEO Friendly Blog Post

Headlines

Meta description, alt text, and URLs

How to write an introduction for your blog post

﻿

Body text

H1 and H2 tags

Bullet points

Links

Writing an SEO Friendly Blog Post - Key Takeaways

How Storytelling Makes Your International School Stand Out

A Message from IMPACT CEO about COVID-19

How to Productively Work in a Remote Environment

What is Content Marketing?

Where should you publish your content?

﻿

Know your audience.

What do they care about?

Where can we, as an organization, excel?

What types of content should you use?

Jump on the trend.

Are you ready to kickstart your school's content marketing efforts?

3 Ways to Generate Content for Lead Nurturing Campaigns

How to Make Sure Your Organization is GDPR Compliant

How to Make Sure Your International School is GDPR Compliant

Consent Required from Individuals

“But I’m already stating that ‘by using this site, you accept the use of cookies…’”

New Data Control Rights for Individuals