5 Online Marketing/Admissions Mistakes Your School Should Avoid in 2011

1. Assuming You Don’t Need to Be Concerned With Your School’s Online Presence

I listen to school owners all the time that don’t believe they should be worried about their school’s online presence. There is also a lot of talk about how social media is just a “fad” or a “scam”. The first place student’s look for a school is online. If they can’t find you than no one else can either. And if you think that just letting your online reputation grow naturally is a safe bet, you’re wrong again. If a school doesn’t create their own presence, someone else will – good or bad. So, wake up! It’s time to build your online community.

2. Defying Integration Between Email and Social Media

An email with no share buttons is like a morning without coffee! Emails that provide users with sharing options on social media sites actually drive a significant increase in click-through rates (CTR), according to a recent study done by GetResponse, an email marketing firm. Let’s face it – the average admissions cycle is getting longer, not shorter and prospects will stop going to your website if you do not engage with them.

3. Ignoring Search Engine Optimization and Marketing

SEO is now one of the most important parts of your school’s online presence. SEO is the process of analyzing and constructing websites so that they can be discovered and then indexed by various search engines. S EO can make the content of your website more relevant, more attractive, and more easily read by search engines, thus making it painless to find by prospective students.

4. Not Being Focused on Conversation

You can “Tweet” all you want, but are you really appealing to your students’ wants and needs? The success to social media is finding someone with a need; having them get to know you and earning their trust. Marketing has changed – consumers no longer find the brand, the brand finds the consumer. Connecting with prospects on your school’s website is not enough anymore. Quick Tip: Engage your students first, followed by your graduates, and your prospects last. The viral nature of social media will allow your community to grow.

5. Keeping an Out-of-Date and/or Hard to Use Website

If your site is old, ugly, and hard to use – you lose prospects, plain and simple. Schools have various class start dates throughout the year*, so they focus on generating leads and increasing enrollments through various online tools, such as the website. The school’s website, must work to compliment the online, as well as the offline, efforts of the school in order to be successful. The website is ultimately the face of your business.

Happy New Year! -Elizabeth

*Note: For this post, I am focusing on career schools and colleges and prospective students of these schools.