2. Today’s Presentation
• What is Inbound Marketing?
• Persona Development
• Content Strategy
• Social Media
• Optimizing your Website for SEO
• Email Marketing
4. What are the Main Channels?
Organic SEO traffic from search engines
Email Promote and link to website content
Direct Enter URL directly into browser
Referral Other websites link to yours
Social Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Paid Google Ads, social ads, etc
5. Why Inbound Marketing?
• Today’s prospective students are digitally literate
• They expect meaningful dialogue and relationship-building
• Inbound marketing is 10x more effective for lead conversion than outbound
• 76% of marketers use inbound marketing approach as their primary strategy
6. The Inbound Marketing Process
Develop personas,
Key messaging & a
comprehensive
inbound strategy
Create & deploy
custom content
Build meaningful
relationships on
social media
Nurture &
convert leads
Track & measure
for continuous
improvement
7. Persona Development: Identify your Target Audience
Segment prospects by: program, level, source country, etc. &
research their distinct characteristics:
8. Persona Development: Research Tools
1. Survey your admissions & recruitment team for their insights
2. Survey/poll your students & alumni directly
3. Use journey-mapping to track key touchpoints
4. Conduct market research to better understand what is impacting
decision-making
15. Poll #1
Does your school regularly create website
content that addresses your prospects’
needs, interests, or concerns?
YES NO
16. Blog Building Strategy
1. Provide career/study tips, industry news, and
other custom content your personas can use
2. Generate respect, trust and loyalty.
Become a thought-leader, never a salesperson.
3. Build your presence on social (as readers
“share” and “like” your posts)
4. Drive traffic to your site when students find
your posts during their online search process
17. Student-generated Content
• Invite current students to share their
personal experiences
• Ask students to contribute content in
multiple languages to recruit overseas
• Publish on website and share/promote
- social media
- “Boost/Sponsor” posts with high engagement
- Enewsletter
18. “Student Experience” Bloggers
• Current students chronicle
their journey through
various programs
• Offers inside access to
prospective applicants
• Provides motivation to
prospects who may be “on
the fence”
19. Repurpose Blog Posts
● Transform blog posts into
visual content and resend
to maximize their impact
✓ Infographics
✓ Email
✓ Newsletters
✓ Slideshare
22. Poll #2
Does your school have a multi-channel social
media strategy that includes
a variety of content types?
YES NO
23. Social media amplifies your college brand, provides communities for
engaging personas, helps promote your content, & supports SEO
The Power of Social Media
25. Social Content Sharing Workflow
Share on
Twitter
Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn
Publish content on your website
26. Prioritize Visuals
● Videos & photographs are
more engaging to students
& more “shareable”
than text alone
● Use across ALL social channels
27. Create Infographics
● Infographics make
complex info digestible
through images, charts,
diagrams, quotes, and
stats
● Interactive is the latest
trend
28. • Brand-building contests
✓ Campus photography/video
✓ Showing off college pride
✓ What you like most about your
school i.e. “What’s your favourite
study spot on campus?”
Create Social Media Contests
31. Poll #3
Do you strategically integrate keywords into
your website content and
follow SEO best practices?
YES NO
32. SEO & Inbound
• The process of optimizing
website content, design, &
performance to generate visitor
traffic from “organic” (versus
paid) search engine results
• SEO is vital for ensuring your
content and website get found
online by prospective students
38. Year over year comparison is very useful to measure the health of
your SEO Traffic and conversions from that channel
Measuring your SEO Efforts Year over Year
41. Poll #4
Does your school create automated email
workflows based on certain lead segments?
YES NO
42. • One-off emails to individual leads/students/alumni
• E-newsletters sent to your database
• Automated email marketing Workflows
Email Marketing Options
43. Address Persona Concerns in your Email Content
Address common concerns
Focus on different aspects of your
messaging as you move through the
lead nurturing process
Offer useful, practical
advice and solutions
45. Automated Email Marketing
• Automated Drip Marketing :
Sends a scheduled series of carefully customized messages over time
• Each message is crafted with your personas’ unique needs & goals in mind
• Start simple with an auto-response
• Build your relationship over time
• Include Calls To Action in every email
49. • Understand your audience
• Integrate content, SEO, email, social media & analytics
• Create high quality, visual-rich, personalized content
• Leverage and amplify your content across social media
• Measure your results and continuously improve
Conclusion – Essentials of Inbound Marketing
52. Free Inbound Marketing Consultation
Scott Cross
North America Representative
514-312-3968 x 117
scross@higher-education-marketing.com
www.higher-education-marketing.com