Digital marketing for higher education.

As long-time higher ed employees, we knew there was a better way for vendors and colleges to partner together. So we started Little Foxes Marketing.

Digital advertising for higher education

Digital advertising is the process of serving an ad with the right message to the right person at the right moment. 

We manage digital advertising on platforms where your targeted prospective students spend the most time and where they conduct their college research. Mainly, we manage advertising in Google (search and display) and social media (Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook/Meta, TikTok, etc.) although we do have capabilities in other digital platforms like Bing, Roku, Spotify, and Hulu.

Which digital marketing channels are right for my college or university? 

We begin our work with LFM partners by designing a digital marketing strategy that determines the ideal channel mix based on the goals, targeting parameters, and audience demographics. While each strategy is unique, there are a few channels that nearly all our partners benefit from advertising in, such as Google and more recently, Bing. 

Google Ads for higher education 

Google Ads, formerly AdWords, allows you to appear in the results for enrollment-related searches—even if you don’t rank organically. It’s also the gold standard for digital advertising. Paid search, also called PPC (pay-per-click), allows you to interact with a prospective student precisely when they are searching for exactly what you offer.

How do Google Ads work for higher education?

Even if you’ve never run a paid search campaign, you’re likely familiar with how it works:

  1. A prospective student searches using keywords (“top liberal arts colleges”, “best college for biology”, “green mba”, etc)

  2. Your ad appears above the organic search results

  3. The prospect clicks and goes to your site

Search-based text ads are just the beginning of Google Ad management for higher ed. This digital marketing platform also includes tactics such as: 

  • Serving display (image-based) ads

  • Showing ads to prospects who have searched for your competitors

  • Serving ads to students who frequent your feeder schools and transfer institutions

  • Retargeting visitors to your website after they’ve left your site. This can include segmenting messaging based on website behavior. 

  • Uploading CRM data and list-purchases into Google for retargeting and increased search bidding

  • Showing ads to graduate prospects who frequent professional association websites or industry-specific media 

  • Market to prospects who search for professional testing resources. For example, LFM can show ads highlighting graduate business programs to prospects who use search terms related to the GMAT/GRE or visit GMAT/GRE testing websites

  • Serving video ads on YouTube

  • Geo-fencing feeder schools, transfer sources, prospect events, admissions travel, etc.

How Little Foxes used paid search to increase applications by 150%

Social media marketing (SMM) for higher education

Paid social media advertising for higher ed institutions provides excellent options for targeting prospective college students and their parents for two main reasons: 

  1. Prospective students spend a lot of time on social media. Too much, arguably. Because teens spend up to 9 hours a day on digital media—not including homework—platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are ripe for engaging and communicating with your target audience.

  2. Social media provides targeting capabilities and insights that search engines can’t match. 
     

How does social media advertising for higher education work?

While each social media platform features unique audience composition, targeting parameters, and advertising options, below are some of the tactics that we rely on most often.

Prospecting on social media

“We’re a really good school, but not enough people know about us!” 

This is one of the most common pain points that we hear from schools that seek our services. To increase an institution’s visibility and awareness, we take common characteristics of your ideal students and build an audience that matches the type of student that is drawn to your school. This widens the top of the funnel to provide more prospective students in your pipeline.

CRM retargeting

What do most schools do when prospective students don’t open their emails? Send them more emails! When prospects become unresponsive, social media marketing can be a helpful tool. We can take lists from your customer relationship management (CRM) system and load them into social media platforms to deliver customized messages. 

For example, if an inquiry starts an application but doesn’t finish it, we can place advertisements in their social media feed encouraging them to complete their application.

Retargeting on social media

If you’re not running website retargeting, then when a prospect leaves your site, they’re gone. Poof! Through retargeting, LFM can track prospects from your website to their preferred social media platforms. And similar to CRM targeting, we can match the user’s behavior with messaging. 

For example, if a prospect spends considerable time on your website’s financial aid pages, they will later see your Instagram Story ad highlighting your affordability and value.

A rarely-used LinkedIn feature helped reach historic app levels for a public ivy

SEO for higher education

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of refining your website and its content so that Google knows exactly who you are, what you offer, and to whom you offer it.

For example, if you work at a traditional private institution, you want Google to show your website anytime someone searches for colleges in your area or state. SEO refers to a set of tactics used to make Google more likely to include your site as one of the top results when prospective students search for colleges.

SEO is the best marketing tactic in higher ed (fire emoji) 

At first, that might seem like a bold claim. But the most affordable and highest-converting source of students originates in search engines—this truism applies to all of our clients. Why? Three reasons: Prospective students typically commence their initial search in search engines, prospective students trust Google’s results as a proxy for quality, and lastly, an institution that ranks for search terms doesn’t need to pay for subsequent traffic. The latter positions SEO as a sustainable long-term strategy.

SEO is the ideal starting point for any enrollment-driven digital marketing strategy. In fact, it is difficult to scale enrollments without SEO in an affordable way. 

How does higher ed SEO work?

  1. A prospect searches for who you are or what you offer (“top nursing school”, “best colleges for geography”, “online mba”, etc.)

  2. Google returns the top results for the keyword searched

  3. The prospect will click on the first organic result about a third of the time. Generally, the top three results account for more than half of the clicks for any search, and only 25% of people ever go past the first page of results.

We offer our SEO service in two managed-for-you formats:

SEO Project

A 4-6 month initiative designed to clean up your site from a search perspective. Includes an analysis, recommendations, and support. If you’re considering a site rebuild, we can ensure that at launch your new site retains your earned SEO value and is optimized for continued growth.

Ongoing SEO

A longer-term (6+ months) initiative designed to incrementally improve SEO. Google updates its algorithm regularly. Our monthly ongoing SEO service keeps you ahead of the constant changes - like AI - allows for long-term initiatives, and provides you with a trusted SEO partner.

Not ranking where you should?

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