In the fast-evolving realm of education, the success of your learning centre hinges on the art of strategic promotion. But, before choosing a suitable marketing strategy to apply, it’s important to have a plan in place.
As business owners in this dynamic industry, we understand that staying ahead requires a thoughtful and professional approach to marketing. No matter how good the marketing strategy might be, it can’t work if you don’t plan and set it up for success.
Here are five good practices in crafting a marketing plan that will give you better results.
1. Identify Your Ideal Student’s Profile
Imagine your colleague speaking to you in a language you don’t even recognize.
Exactly the same happens to learning businesses that don’t know their ideal students. As a result, they overlook the way they should speak to them and become unsuccessful.
So, the first thing you need to do to avoid that is to establish your ideal student profile. Here are just a few examples of questions you need to ask yourself:
- What is the age range of the ideal student?
- What subjects or topics are they most interested in learning?
- What are their academic or career goals?
- How do they prefer to learn (e.g., individual tutoring, group classes, online courses)?
- Where do they typically seek information about learning centres (e.g., online searches, referrals, social media)?
Depending on the academic nature (e.g., tuition/enrichment/language/sports), the ideal student profile can be really different, as can the marketing strategies used for it.
Standard Methods to Conduct Market Research
- Surveys and questionnaires. Create online or offline surveys to gather feedback from potential and current students. Ask questions about their preferences, interests, learning needs, and expectations from an educational centre.
- Focus groups. Organize focus group discussions with small groups of potential students to explore their opinions, attitudes, and experiences related to education and learning centres.
- Interviews. Conduct one-on-one interviews with prospective students and their parents to gain in-depth insights into their motivations, preferences, and decision-making factors.
- Competitor analysis. Analyze other learning centres in the area to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and unique selling points. Identify gaps in the market that your centre can fill.
- Feedback forms. Provide feedback forms or suggestion boxes at your learning centre to collect input from current students and parents on improving your services.
- Google trends. Use Google Trends to identify popular search queries related to educational services and learning centres in your area.
- Community outreach. Engage with local communities, schools, and educational institutions to understand the needs and expectations of potential students.
Remember that combining multiple research methods will provide a comprehensive view of your target audience. The gathered insights will help you tailor your learning centre’s offerings to better meet the needs and preferences of your ideal students.
2. Determine Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
The unique selling proposition (USP) is a marketing concept that identifies and emphasizes the unique qualities or characteristics of a product, service, or business that set it apart from competitors in the marketplace.
In other words, a unique selling proposition is the reason why a student or a parent chooses your learning centre instead of your competitor’s.
Whether you already have a learning centre, or are just learning how to start one, here are some tips to help you determine your USP:
- Identify your strengths. Analyze the strengths of your education centre, such as experienced teachers, specialized courses, modern facilities, small class sizes, individualized attention, or a proven track record of successful students.
- Be clear and specific. Your USP should be straightforward, concise, and easy to understand. Avoid generic statements and focus on specific benefits that students will gain from choosing your centre.
- Highlight benefits, not features. Instead of just listing features, emphasize the benefits that students and parents will receive from your education centre. How will their lives improve by choosing you?
Show proven results. If your centre has a track record of successful students or has achieved notable accomplishments, highlight these achievements as part of your USP.
3. Define Your Marketing Goals
Defining clear and focused marketing goals is a foundational step in the success of any educational centre.
One effective approach to setting objectives is to employ the S.M.A.R.T. goals method.
It stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This method provides a roadmap for success.
For educational centres aiming to increase student enrollment by 15% within six months, the S.M.A.R.T. method entails creating specific targets, such as identifying the exact number of new students required to achieve the goal.
Measuring progress regularly enables adjustments to strategies while ensuring the goal remains attainable and relevant to the centre’s growth.
On top of that, setting a time frame provides a sense of urgency, motivating the team to implement innovative marketing strategies, harness the power of digital platforms, and leverage word-of-mouth referrals to attract new students and foster exponential growth.
S.M.A.R.T. Plan Example
For a better understanding of the S.M.A.R.T. approach, here is a specific example of how to set your goals for back-to-school promotion.
- Specific (S):
- Goal: Increase student enrollment by 15% within six months.
- Target Audience: Potential students and their parents residing in the local community.
- Marketing Focus: Back-to-school promotion to attract new students.
- Measurable (M):
- Measure success through enrollment numbers and track progress monthly.
- Benchmark: Calculate the baseline enrollment figure in August and aim for a 15% increase by January.
- Achievable (A):
- Assess the capacity of the learning centre to accommodate additional students.
- Review the marketing budget and allocate resources effectively for the planned promotional activities.
- Relevant (R):
- Tailor the back-to-school promotion to showcase the learning center’s strengths, courses, and benefits.
- Ensure that the promotional strategies align with the target audience’s preferences and needs.
- Time-bound (T):
- Set a clear timeline for each marketing initiative from August to January.
- Allocate sufficient time for planning, execution, and evaluation of promotional efforts.
4. Craft Your Marketing Plan
If you followed our previous steps, you know your audience, what your USP is, and how to define your S.M.A.R.T. Marketing Goals. Now it’s time to craft your marketing plan.
You still must choose the most effective channels and media for your business, create compelling content, establish a budget, implement strategies, and measure results.
To define channels for effective audience connection, you must understand your audience’s preferences, research competitors, start small, and scale based on results.
And when it comes to goals and objectives, be specific, set measurable goals, align with your centre’s mission, and consider factors like enrollment, program expansion, or student satisfaction.
5. Take Action, Monitor & Adjust
The next step involves the timely execution of the plan and vigilant monitoring of key performance metrics.
As we implement the various marketing strategies, it is crucial to track essential indicators such as the engagement rate for social media posts and conversion rates for advertisements.
These metrics provide invaluable insights into the effectiveness of our marketing efforts and enable us to gauge audience response. As we progress, we must actively review the results and analyze the collected data.
By scrutinizing the outcomes, we can identify strengths and weaknesses in the campaign, enabling us to make data-driven adjustments that optimize overall performance.
This critical review process ensures that our marketing endeavours remain agile, adaptive, and constantly refined, ultimately fostering continuous improvement and greater success in achieving our enrollment goal.
Improve Your Marketing Success With AOneSchools
The key to every marketing plan is to continuously monitor your efforts, evaluate them, and adapt according to the results.
AOneSchools provides a comprehensive dashboard that showcases key business data metrics, empowering you to make informed decisions about your operations.
We’re excited to share that with AOneSchools, you’ll have access to real-time insights on student enrollment, financial performance, and resource allocation. This means you can say goodbye to manual data collection and analysis, making decision-making a breeze.
With more time saved on mundane tasks, you can focus on refining the business and marketing strategies, driving growth and success for their learning centres.
Contact us and try a free demo today!
