What can training providers do to ensure maximum, cost-effective brand reach and drive an increase in enrolments?
We asked the experts at Candlefox to share their top tips for training providers.
But before we get onto that… who is Candlefox?
About Candlefox
Candlefox is the brand behind course marketplaces training.com.au, coursesonline.co.uk and a handful more offering thousands of courses from leading online education providers.
On top of their education marketplaces, heir bespoke solutions help education institutes supercharge their digital marketing and lead generation strategies. They’ve helped hundreds of education providers with student acquisition and enrolment so they can focus on what they do best – educating learners.
It’s fair to say the team behind Candlefox know a thing or two about marketing courses.
So here are their top three key areas to focus your marketing and sales efforts.
3x Course Marketing Tips
Build brand awareness
Building a compelling brand value proposition is essential when attracting student prospects, as it shapes how these prospects will identify with you and understand how you’re unique. It’s also just as important to communicate your brand across all of your offline and online channels with consistent branding assets and messaging.
Remember to build your brand on multiple channels and leverage these platforms to engage with and reach the entire prospective student market. Be active on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and leverage as many different platforms as you can, both online and offline, to engage with prospective students. It’s also important to have an effective SEO strategy to supercharge your website’s success.
Content marketing
An effective content marketing strategy is one of the best ways for your prospective student audience to explore your course offering through their decision making journey, and shape their perception of you as a trusted educator. An effective content marketing strategy should align with your overall digital marketing strategy.
- Create a content calendar to plan and map out your content strategy
- Have an active and up-to-date presence on your website’s blog, on your social platform and across all of your channels
- Use content to retarget prospective students who have already engaged with you, informing them with industry or career related content that is relevant to your courses or institution. Outcome based content resonates the most with student prospects.
- Social proof goes a long way: devise methods to create content with student stories, student interviews and testimonials to create content that is highly relevant.
- Consider video content. Not only does it boast >2x higher engagement rates, but it will help your search ranking and people retain more information after watching videos.
Case Study
International TEFL Academy increased revenue by +340% with Arlo.
Optimizing the sales process
Your sales process should focus on the following in order to maximize course enrolments:
1. Speed to response
The speed in responding to a prospective student’s enquiry is one of the most crucial factors in the overall success of your lead management. The faster the response, the higher the likelihood of engaging with, and enrolling the lead/student.
2. Lead nurturing
Inform your student prospects throughout their decision-making process. Not everyone will want to enrol in your courses immediately, so make sure you communicate with them through a nurture journey and warm your leads over time. Try and front-load your nurture journey the first couple of weeks following an initial course enquiry, as this is when most people are likely to enrol.
Our best practice tips:
- Build out relevant and timely information to help prospective students to progress through their decision making journey, reinforcing your brand and credibility at each of these interactions
- Use a CRM to build out effective communications and track student acquisition.
- Use market automation to effectively nurture student prospects. A marketing automation platform that sits on top of your CRM will help you inform, education and nurture your student prospects over time.
- Don’t rely on one medium, and don’t rely on just one interaction. Build out multiple touch points in your nurture strategy using varied channels – e.g. SMS AND Email AND Phone calls
- Marketing Automation software will significantly increase your success in execution and assist in your lead nurturing
- Build different pathways depending on how your student prospects engage – e.g. a different pathway for those that answer a call to those that don’t, or a stronger call- to- action strategy for those that are engaging with your content to those that are less engaged
3. Manage your pipeline effectively
A prioritized lead pipeline is essential for a team handling hundreds of student enquiries.
Best practice lead management is based on the number of call attempts (lowest to highest), and then by enquiry date and time (newest to oldest).
Dropping everything to focus on the newest leads will most likely yield better results.
Success rates tend to diminish the more times you try and get in touch.
By nailing these sales and marketing fundamentals, you’ll be able to maximize your course enrolments and set yourself up for success!
Get the full guide
Find everything you need to promote and sell your courses in this Ultimate Guide to Course Marketing for training providers.