Inbound marketing is a great way to set your business up for success. And schools are no different, and this article by hubspot does a great job of showing how a school can increase their enrollment rates via segmentation. But what about your business? Are you feeding the content each type of customer you have most wants to see all the time? If not then you need to look into adding more segmentation.
Think about the school example. A student is looking for a much different thing at times then a parent is. So when a student lands on your page, why not show them how fun your school is. All the great extras they could be a part of, and the amazing campus life. Where when a parent lands on it show them how successful your students go on to be, how safe your school is, and how your there to help make it more affordable for them, two different paths both leading to the same outcome of the student and there family wanting to go to your school. How can you apply this to your business? Every industry can be broken down into some form of niches to focus in and capitalize on. What are yours? Can’t think of any, leave your industry below and I’ll throw a few ideas your way!
Chances are thousands of prospective students and parents visit your website each year. Perhaps hundreds of them fill out a form to learn more about applying to your school. Great – now you can market to them. But, not all prospective students are the same and nor should your emails be that way. According to HubSpot, your click through rate (CTR) is higher when using the recipient’s first name in the subject line versus not using the first name. And CTR is also higher when using the recipient’s company name in the subject line over no company mention. Segmenting your email list is a fundamental building block of personalization. Think of all those parents, school counselors, graduating students, students just starting to look around – they all need to be identified and segmented into separate email groups so you email them the content most relevant to them. "Are You Talking to Me?" The first step in segmentation is know who you’re talking to. As the marketing cliché goes, sending a vegetarian a coupon for a free meat-lovers pizza is no way to build trust with your prospect. Effective segmentation means tracking online behaviors and designing sign-up forms on your offers that collect the information most valuable to you. Identify the key distinctions among your different personas . What are some simple questions you can ask so you can put the lead in their proper persona bucket? You don’t have to be coy. Your form can include a dropdown question: I’m a: Parent High school senior Other high school student Guidance/ career counselor When you analyze your distinguishing persona characteristics, prioritize them. You can’t ask for all the information you want at once. Knowing which contacts in your database are potential future students, or people in the position to influence the decision of a potential future student, is a basic distinction. Same with knowing what programs are most interesting to your prospect or when they plan to enroll. But from there, consider your school’s priorities. For instance, are you looking for a more geographically diverse student body? Or maybe you want to enroll local high school juniors in an advanced placement program. Also consider the niches of content you have available to send. If you have a report on graduation employment rates and articles of curated links to academic journal and press accounts of your school’s achievements – wouldn’t it […]
Click here to read orginal article at How Schools Can Use Segmentation to Increase Enrollment Rates