Digital Marketing for Independent Schools

Increase your online visibility and ensure that your school becomes a ‘school of choice’.

target the right audience

google partner essex

Having a robust online marketing strategy is crucial in your efforts to attract and engage potential parents. Surprisingly, a lot of independent schools haven’t embraced digital marketing yet and are still relying very heavily on traditional marketing. It’s not enough to just have a school website, you should be able to remind your website visitors about your school afterwards via remarketing ads. Online ad campaigns can not only help your school target your audience better, but are also significantly cheaper than traditional advertising. It is also a lot easier to provide your potential and existing parents a good experience, leaving them with a positive impression.

How parents gather information in the digital age

Choosing which school to send their children to is a big investment for parents. Your current parents may talk about your school at dinner parties and golf clubs, but the prospective parents will still do their research afterwards. Let’s not forget that they are taking decisions about the most precious thing(s) in their life and also making a huge financial commitment. At the digital age, most parents are doing their research long before they come to your open events. In fact, many parents attend the open events only to validate the decision they have already made. 

The digital world has completely changed how the parents gather information. Let’s say you’re a parent moving into a new town and looking for a new independent school for your children. Where do you first look? We can tell you that 1,830,000 people worldwide and 40,500 in the UK each year search a keyword phrase beginning with ‘Best Independent School in ?’. (Stats supplied by Google Keyword Tool). How does your school rank in the search engines when you search for the best school in your area? Are you showing any ads for that keyword? Does your ad show on the first page? If not then you have some serious work to do.

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Expectations

  • Having a website and Facebook account is enough for your school’s online presence.
  • Current parents will promote the school
  • Newspaper advertising is enough to get parents to come to open days
  • Alumni will be loyal to the school and promote the school
  • The local community will recommend the school to family and friends.

Reality

  • Your website is your most important marketing channel.
  • You need to be visible on Google for your most important search terms, either organically or via paid ads
  • Your online reputation requires constant monitoring and response.
  • You need specific landing pages for different marketing campaign
  • You should also measure referral traffic and bounce rates using Google Analytics.and monitor clicks and conversions.

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE SOCIAL MEDIA PUBLISHING SCHEDULE TEMPLATE​

A strong social media presence will make you stand out from other schools when parents are sifting through the different options available to them. If it seems like a lot of work, use our handy social media publishing schedule template to help you get started.

Meet Google Ads

With Google Ads you can show your ads to parents at the very moment they are researching. Although you can find your most immediate opportunities via Google ads, it is easy to waste money if you don’t know what you’re doing. Planning a successful online ad campaign with Google requires some understanding of the platform as well as identifying how your audience interacts with them. At Digivita, we live and breathe Google Ads. We are also a certified Google partner so you can rest assured your ads are on safe hand.

The more laser-like your targeting is, the more results you will see

Let’s face it – not every parent considering an independent school is going to be interested in yours. Traditional advertising in major high circulation newspapers are expensive and often ineffective when you’re really interested in a very audience. Make sure you have the right online presence.
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Facebook & Instagram Ads

Facebook is not only a great platform for schools to create an online community for parents and students, but also a great platform for advertising to prospective students and parents. Whether you want to promote your upcoming Open Day or just raising brand awareness, Facebook advertising can be a powerful tool. Whilst your prospective parents are on Facebook, your current and future students (depending on age) are most likely to be on Instagram. Instagram ads can be particularly useful whilst targeting 6th formers, as children that age are very independent and want to choose the schools themselves. Your messaging and tone will need to be completely different when you’re communicating directly with the students.

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE SOCIAL MEDIA PUBLISHING SCHEDULE TEMPLATE​

A strong social media presence will make you stand out from other schools when parents are sifting through the different options available to them. If it seems like a lot of work, use our handy social media publishing schedule template to help you get started.

WHO WE WORK WITH

Some of our clients who have doubled their intakes since working with Digivita.

**Our minimum monthly management fee is £550 +VAT. this includes setting up and managing Google and Facebook Ads with an extensive monthly report. We can also assist with content creation and social media management for schools at an additional fee.

**We don’t ask you to commit to long-term contracts. We do however ask that you commit to a minimum 3 month period to allow us time to demonstrate the results of our work.

Get in Touch

Based in Suffolk, we work in partnerships with Independent schools, Distance Learning Providers and Universities across the UK helping them to attract more students. Our role is to support you in increasing your online visibility and ensuring that your school becomes a ‘school of choice’.
Request a callback