(Expansion) – The current financial situation of thousands of private schools has led them to change their business strategies, considerably reducing their tuition and enrollment costs, instead of increasing their presence on the internet to increase their market share and offer added values in its educational offer.
Sadly, as a result of the current health contingency derived from SARS COV-2, probably more than 40% of private schools in the country will have to close their doors, and with this the institutions with high investments in infrastructure and human capital begin to disappear for having closed for more than 14 months, for carrying out their educational work through videoconferences, with the limitations that this entails.
Education is a fundamental axis for the economic development of a society, and although distance classes were an alternative, it does not replace the productivity and effectiveness of the classroom, the teacher and the students together. Federal authorities foresee a near return to the classroom, but now private schools have the challenge of maintaining and increasing their enrollment in order to survive the onslaught that the pandemic has left.
In my 10 years of experience in digital marketing specialized in the educational sector, I have seen that the main Achilles heel of private schools with a family organizational format is the lack of innovation in the commercial and promotional area.
At this point your stress begins the moment there is no new license plate and it is very difficult to retain the captive license plate. Today the strategies must be adapted to the needs of a more demanding consumer, more informed and who wants to take advantage of every penny invested.
It is important for the education sector to embrace innovation to improve the profitability of a private school. Through digital marketing strategies, the adoption curve and the cost-benefit will be reflected in a short time. For example, segmenting to whom you want the information about your educational offer to reach is vital, every school bases its enrollment on its geographical location, so it follows that up to 10 kilometers around may be your potential market.
How do you segment it? A large part of commercial social networks and internet search engines, when investing in advertising, give you the option of segmenting by areas.
Time is a key factor, registrations and re-registrations expire and no parent wants to put their children in the middle of the course, so anticipating a digital campaign that is circulating 30 days prior to registration could help you get to the acquaintance “Buyer persona”, -which is the ideal client, for whom you want to have basic information such as contact, demographic and socioeconomic information-; In short, it is a contact who may already have a profile and you can find out if that prospect may be a consumer of your educational services.
Consider the added value to the school, strengthen the offer with a diversity of languages such as English, French or Chinese; Innovative subjects such as robotics or caring for the environment or artistic and sports activities that help increase interest in your educational institution, in addition to strengthening the culture of hygiene, healthy distance and disinfection of surfaces.
This type of differentiators should also be well explained and broken down in your external communication, on a friendly, concrete and easily accessible website; in your corporate social networks, which will help you to massify your information. The correct planning and execution of a digital strategy can be the trigger between gradually opening and growing or closing permanently.
Editor’s Note: Luis Ávila is CEO and founder of Bizarro Media. Follow him on. The opinions published in this column belong exclusively to the author.
