Businesses get a lot of help from experts on how to attract customers, win more sales, and market their enterprises. In fact, there is advice out there on practically every start-up-related topic you can imagine, from building product pages to winning minority clients. 

The same, though, is not true for educational establishments. Support available for them is limited, even though many are bona fide businesses, too. 

This post attempts to redress the imbalance. Here, we discuss some of the ways that educational institutions, such as colleges and schools, can boost enrollment and get people pumped about their courses and curricula. 

So what should you be doing?

Offer Interactive Open Days

Open days shouldn’t feel like home viewings. You want to do more than just lead people around, showing them the gym, the tennis courts, and the science lab. Instead, you want to find ways to get students personally involved so that they can get a sense of what being at your institution will really be like when they come to enroll.

For instance, you could split the day in two. In the morning, you could hold classes or interactive seminars where students learn something important, but approachable. It could be a fun math-related problem, a science project, or even something to do with linguistics. Then, in the afternoon, you could arrange enjoyable outdoor activities, like team games, mock Olympics, or orienteering where visitors work in teams.

When you take this approach, it gets students excited about what the institution has to offer. They begin to imagine their future there, and what it will be like. 

Provide Ebooks And Other Downloads

The next step is to improve the digital content you offer. While having a few web pages describing what you do is okay, what you really want is a digital brochure that focuses 100 percent on selling your offering. 

Look for ways to grab people’s email addresses and get them to share helpful information with you, such as where they live. Then, in return, give them access to the download. 

Make Your Website Interactive

Learning how to create a beautiful website for your school is important for boosting enrollment. Today’s students are more sensitive to the quality of online interactions than any prior generation. If your site doesn’t look great or runs slowly, then you can find yourself failing to attract people to your organization. 

The trick here is to use the principles of professional website design. If you don’t know how to do this, get professionals to do it for you. While it requires a small upfront investment, the payoffs are generally significant in the long run. 

Add Clear Call-To-Actions

It doesn’t matter what college recruitment strategy you’re using, clear CTAs are vital. While they function slightly differently than in conventional businesses, they provide a key role in making prospective students feel more invested in your organization. 

For example, you can use CTAs as a way to get students started on the application process. You can also use them to link them to ebooks full of helpful advice on how they can get started on a new course with you.

In some cases, you may be able to drum up significant interest by associating CTAs with financial aid. Giving students a way to get money off their course is a great way to drive engagement and increase interest in your institution, even if applicants are ultimately unsuccessful. 

Become Known For Something

Regular businesses are constantly looking for new ways to define their niche and become great at something. Educational institutions, however, don’t usually do that. Instead, they focus on being all-rounders. 

Because of this, they can run into recruitment difficulties. Wanting to be good at everything makes sense from the standpoint of the curriculum, but from a business perspective, it’s insane. 

Think about what you are good at already and then double down on that. Create a marketing campaign to establish your institution as a particular type of school or college, catering to a certain student audience. For instance, you could concentrate your efforts on music or drama. You could become known as a science school or pivot towards sports. Just make sure that you focus on a particular activity so that you can appeal to a certain type of student population. 

Add Infographics To Your Website

Infographics are helpful in a variety of settings, but they are particularly valuable for educational institutions. That’s because they provide both students and parents with a lot of easy-to-digest information about what you offer. 

The higher the quality of the infographic, the better. The more impactful it is, the more shareable it will be, and people will distribute it far and wide on social media. 

Add Student-Focused Information

Students want a guiding hand when choosing a college or school. For many, it is the first major decision they make in their lives. 

Therefore, make sure to provide information on the college application process, financial aid, and what they need to do to enroll. Also, talk about the benefits of joining your organization in the future. For example, what do graduates go on to do in their careers? What do other students say about the experience at your institution?

The more helpful and relevant information you give them, the more appealing your college will become. Even if they have the option to go to a more highly-rated institution, they may still choose you because your processes appear simpler. 

Send Out Newsletters

Lastly, you’ll want to send students prospective newsletters about your educational institution containing information they can’t get anywhere else. This is important because it makes them feel more invested in the school. What’s more, your institution’s name regularly appears in their inbox, making you the familiar choice, not someone else. 

Sending out newsletters is also incredibly inexpensive. It’s the educational version of marketing emails, a tactic that has an extraordinarily high rate of return. Make sure that you make your newsletters fun and write them with a view to attracting more students to your institution.