Content creation and traffic attraction in the education sector

The Inbound Marketing is a digital marketing methodology that relies on the concept of customer journey, a process that involves walking path a person who does not know our product or service until it becomes client. And it is divided into 3 phases: awareness, consideration and decision .

During this process, we must accompany and resolve all doubts that lead has through content. In this article I am going to focus on the first phase of the customer journey , the awareness phase and, especially, on attracting traffic in the education sector . Are you with me

Importance of traffic attraction in the education sector

The education sector shows characteristics that make it especially conducive to the use and creation of content in its marketing strategy. Of these characteristics, two stand out:

· In any area of ​​the education sector, the decision making process in the purchase process is long and, normally, the prospect wants to be informed long before deciding on the purchase. Whether a school or a university at Capital Smart City Islamabad, the institution must stand out in the market, and the contents are a very powerful tool in the online world.

· One of the best ways to demonstrate the quality of an educational center is through the creation of content and its online presentation. That is to say, an educational center that shares quality educational content in its online channels will have many more possibilities to position itself ahead of the competition and be better considered by prospects.

Types of audiences in the education sector

The education sector varies greatly depending on the type of institution. In general, we can highlight 3 different types of center:

· Schools and institutes

· Universities and business schools

· Academies

Depending on what type of educational institution you are, you will have to identify a different type of buyer person , an archetype of your model client , a way to understand and visualize your ideal client, to put yourself in their position at the time of creating the content strategy . I recommend the HubSpot tool to create your own buyer people at Blue world city . How about?

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Thus, we highlight general characteristics of the b uyer person of each type of institution:

· Schools and institutes : parents concerned about the education of their children . The main characteristic of this type of buyer person is that the life of these clients is very high, since they do not usually change schools and spend all the compulsory education in it.

· Universities and business schools: there may be different types of buyer person, depending on whether they want to study a degree or master . Generally, undergraduate students have a lo wer educational level and seek to train in a field in which they are not yet experts, while master's students have a higher educational level, already have experience or training in the field and seek to specialize. Another difference is that a potential grade client seeks to make a 4-year investment, while a master's degree seeks a higher economic investment for just one year.

· Academies : the buyer person of this type of educational institution is very wide , so we cannot generalize the characteristics of the buyer person of this type of centers.

Once we have seen the general characteristics, you will have to deepen the specific pains and drivers of your buyer person to be able to generate interesting traffic attraction according to the type of institution and thus create a quality database. Let's go there!

How to focus and create content

Once we have well identified our potential client, we can focus the content specifically towards them and the moment of the purchase cycle in which they are located.

In addition, in the education sector, decision making is especially long . For example, in universities there is an average of 6 months in the decision of a master's degree and one year in the decision of degrees.

So, knowing the buyer person and their buyer's journey stage, we must define in which channels we want to be present:

· Blog : allows to solve the doubts of millions of users who search on Google and allows the creation of community if we have a good quality and frequency of publication .

· Videos : they are fashionable content. Although its consumption increases year after year, still few companies are striving to publish quality video content.

· Podcast : like the blog, it allows to create community . His presence is on the rise and platforms like Spotify bet on him.

· Webinar : comes from "web" and "seminar". It is an online workshop or conference that works very efficiently to demonstrate the educational value of an institution.

Having identified the potential customer and defined the channels, my recommendation is to create a content map , as it will help you find the right topics for the phase of the purchase process in which each user is located.

An example to create a content map is to design a table that includes your buyer person, the purchase process phases and various content proposals for each phase. In this way, you will obtain a more schematic image of what the buyer person needs at all times and you will be able to develop your decisions in the creation of content to provide greater value. Try to make one!

What else does inbound marketing provide in the education sector?

From InboundCycle, every year we prepare an Inbound Marketing Study . And in the 2018 edition we have had the results of more than 50 real companies that have decided to bet on inbound marketing.

In this study we address the 6 assets of digital marketing:

· Record collection channel

· Database

· Scope

· Content

· Branding

· Marketing automation

One of the sectors analyzed by the Inbound Marketing Study is the education sector. From the data of 4 B2C projects in the education sector , we have been able to analyze the monthly traffic uptake during the first 20 months of the project:

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During the first 4 semesters, these projects have managed to multiply traffic by 3.06 from the first to the second semester, multiply it by 3 from the second to the third semester and multiply it by 2.3 from the third semester to the fourth. We can see it in the following graphic:

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Other graphics of the education sector that we can find in the study are the evolution of record collection and the evolution of MQL capture. Let's go now for an example that illustrates all this!

EAE Business School success story

A success story of inbound marketing and the attraction of traffic in the education sector is that of the EAE Business School, which has been collaborating with InboundCycle for several years. I recommend you download the complete success case , in which we analyze the results that EAE Business School has obtained with the inbound methodology.

As I said at the beginning, we have seen that traffic attraction and content creation are strategies that work especially well in the education sector. The different buyer person of the educational institutions tend to look for a lot of information, and the fact of showing quality and educational content is a great way to differentiate.

But it is no use creating much content if we do not understand what interests our audience. For this reason, it is very important to be clear on what channels we want to be and design a content map to create the contents that the buyer person needs at the right time and place for him. Logical, right?

Finally, this article is focused on the attraction of traffic and content creation, but we must not forget that all this traffic has no value if we do not manage to convert it into records and make it go down the funnel, with the rest of the assets that the inbound has marketing. Does your company belong to the education sector and need more recommendations? Tell me in the comments section!