Digital Marketing tools & activities
Digital Marketing tools & activities
i. Home Page
The home page provides information about what Institutes are and what they provide. The home page has a title/main heading that attracts students when they search towards the site. It was found that main heading of institution websites attract searching students by more than 9% (Puneet, 2017).
ii. SMS:
SMS (Short Message Service) is a text messaging service component of most telephone, World Wide Web, and mobile device systems. It uses standardized telecommunication protocols to enable mobile devices and computers to send short text messages(Wikipedia). The SMS carries information about the website link, updated information on application deadlines and any other matter than the institute/college would like to convey to the prospective candidate. The exam & interview date, venue, interview call and admit information/alert can also be passed through SMS. There are two kinds of SMS - Promotional and Transactional.
iii. Emailer:
Emails are not only electronic way of sending and receiving messages(thefreedictionary.com). It goes beyond for digital agencies. Digital agencies use emailer to send newsletter, alert students about deadlines, update about events happening in the institute/college and provide various information related to the institute to the subscribed students in their portal. These Electronic Direct Emailers(EDM) nearly reaches 1 lakh prospective students email inbox. According to MBA Universe a digital agency these mails have 35% open rate. The call for action brings traffic to the Institute portal which can be measured using google short URLs.
iv. Branding:
The Digital agency involves in creating a unique name and image for a course/institute in the stakeholder (students & Parents) mind through advertisement campaigns with a consistent theme. The campaign uses banners highlighting the unique and differentiating advantage and brings high amount of visibility about the branding institution to the targeted aspirant audience. Branding banners in the homepage and other key sections is a good way to reach the candidates.
v. Content Marketing:
A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material that does not explicitly promote an institute but is intended to stimulate interest in its training or courses(Oxforddictionary.com). The websites, native advertising, videos, blogs, and social media posts which does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest on a course or institution.
vi. Lead Generation:
A lead is differentiating from a visitor or a prospect primarily in its intent, as it is more “Qualified”, thus having a higher chances of conversion of the candidate to take part in the application process. Lead generation by definition is generating or triggering a stakeholder attention or enquiry into course, program or institute.
vii. Search Engine Marketing (SEM):
Search engine marketing (SEM) involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. They can also divert to specific pages of the website which the institute wants the prospective student to navigate and that becomes landing pages of the search advertisement.
viii. Social Media Marketing (SMM):
Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites and digital portals as a marketing tool. Also known as community-based marketing relates to concept like word of mouth, influence building among students, networking, viralty & personal communication etc. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help an institute increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach (whatis.techtarget.com).
ix. Banner:
A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by a digital agency in the portal. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertising institute(en.wikipedia.org).
x. Trending Institutes:
Trending institute is the term used by education portal to pull traffic for the institution who have sponsored for this inventory on their website. The portal will send alerts to their registered users that these are trending institution on some Category.
xi. Advertorial:
A newspaper portal, e-magazine giving information about a course/institute in the style of an editorial or objective journalistic article(en.oxforddictionaries.com).
xii. Editorial:
An editorial is an article written by the senior editorial staff or publisher of the digital agency often unsigned on a topic/subject which indirectly refers to the Institute/course(en.wikipedia.org).
xiii. Page Associate Sponsor:
An education institute that sponsors a particular page on a website in the form of banner for commercials is called Page Associate Sponsor.
xiv. Newsletter:
Digital newsletters are scheduled, recurring messages from companies to a list of subscribers that usually has a web page counterpart or archive which represents a specific type of content(www.toprankblog.com). These newsletters carry various information related to colleges, institutes/B-schools.
xv. Facebook Sponsorship page:
Boosting posts is an effective and inexpensive way to get more exposure for educational content. It's a simple and easy process – posts are boosted directly from the Facebook Page – and it can boost a post for as much or as little as they want(en-gb.facebook.com). It's a great way to get more people to see the posts, to promote special events, programs and courses, and to reach new audiences through targeting.
xvi. Admission Buddy:
Admission buddy is a tool used by few education portals. Through this page students would get counselling from digital agencies which will help them to take good decision. The admission buddy helps in understanding the criteria of Institute that they want to join and also predicts the possibility of getting admission.
Digital Marketing Type, Tools & activities
Sl. No. | Digital Marketing Type | Digital Marketing Tools & activities |
1 | Intent Based Marketing | Search Engine Marketing(SEM), Search Engine Optimisation(SEO), Admission Alert, Recommended search result, |
2 | Brand Marketing | Branding, Banners, Call Predictor, Sentiment Analysis, Display/Digital Advertising |
3 |
Content Marketing | Home page, Content, Trending Institutes, Advertorials, Page Associate Sponsor, Admission buddy, Micro site, Institution Comparison, Job portals, Native Advertising |
4 | Community based Marketing | Social Media Marketing(SMM), City Page, Whats app session, |
5 | Partner Marketing | College Admission forum, Affiliate Marketing, Sponsorships & PR |
6 | Communication Channel Marketing | SMS, Emailer, Leads Generation, Newsletter – dedicated, Q & A session, |
7 | Platform Based Marketing | Facebook Sponsorship page, Preference Building, You Tube channel, |
xvii. WhatsApp Session:
The Digital Marketing agencies use this tool to get expert opinion from existing students and clarify doubts, share experiences in live format. The WhatsApp session helps in generating prospective leads for follow-up. The WhatsApp web client uses the phone to connect and send messages – in a sense, everything is mirrored(economictimes.indiatimes.com).
xviii. Preference Building:
Marketers use this digital tool to understand the behaviors and preferences of students in order to provide them with the best possible experiences while simultaneously influencing their college enrolment plans(www.adweek.com).
xix. Institution Comparison:
Comparison tool used by the user of the website to compare one institute with one or more similar institution on various set parameters by the website in order to arrive at a college selection decision.
xx. YouTube Channel:
The You Tube plays the role of Community & Platform based marketing. The You tube plays the role of influencing a student or providing an aspirant about life at the campus with the multimedia content. Certain agencies use the institute you tube channel to telecast events discussion, branded talks, guest lectures and debates etc(money.howstuffworks.com).
xxi. Call Predictor:
Call predictor is a tool that helps students apply to the right college. The tool will help students to know their likely chance of admission in some of their preferred colleges based on the previous year cut off marks.
xxii. Question & Answer Session:
Through this medium users will post their queries on a website in order to get clarification for their doubts from an expert of the respective domain.
xxiii. Job Portal:
A job portal, also known as a career portal, is a modern name for an online job board that helps applicants find jobs and aids employers in their quest to locate ideal candidates. Career websites, such as naukri.com, Monster, etc have job portals that offer a broad range of jobs in a vast number of fields(https://careertrend.com). Digital agencies use the applicants data from these job portals to cross-sell educational institutes courses etc. These courses range from Full-Time, Part-Time to Distance Learning Programs.
xxiv. City Page:
A page that represents a city and it contains information about all educational institutes & streams available in the particular city.
xxv. Microsite:
A microsite is an individual web page or a small cluster of pages which are meant to function as a discrete entity within an existing digital marketing portal or to complement an offline activity. The microsite's main landing page can have its own domain name or subdomain
xxvi. Sentiment Analysis:
Sentiment analysis is contextual mining of text which identifies and extracts subjective information in source material, and helping an Institute to understand the social sentiment of their brand, product or service while monitoring online conversations. Sentiment analysis is used as a tool by a few digital marketing agencies to develop a competition mapping among educational institutes by understanding student perceptions. This analysis will help institutes to undertand their strong and weak areas and improve on this.
Conclusion:
Even though there was large number of literature on Digital Marketing types, tools and activities in respect to other sectors, there was not much in higher education sector. This paper has attempted to bring out the various tool, activities of digital promotion of Higher educational courses, tabulated under the different types. Though this list is limited, considering the start-ups in this space it is considered to be ever emerging, shaping up to the expectations of the customers namely students, parents and challenges that emerge in this sector.
References:
“Internet Report of India 2017” by IAMAI and Kantar IMRB
“Digital Marketing in Educational Institutions”, 2018, White paper, Saviance Technologies
https://www.statista.com/statistics/413325/tablet-users-number-india/
https://dazeinfo.com/2017/09/25/smartphone-users-india-time-online-behaviour/
https://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/in.htm
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/seats-vacancy-issue-iits-nits-959498-2017-02-07
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/home-page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/emailer
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/branding.html
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/content_marketing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_generation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/social-media-marketing-SMM
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_banner
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/advertorial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial
http://www.toprankblog.com/2013/10/digital-newsletters/
https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/a/boost-a-post
http://www.adweek.com/digital/3-strategies-to-segment-audiences-and-personalize-digital-marketing/
https://money.howstuffworks.com/youtube4.htm
https://careertrend.com/facts-6883857-definition-job-portals.html
https://www.psafe.com/en/blog/instagram-generate-recommended-searches/
http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31820&articlexml=Many-engg-colleges-but-few-takers-24022017005017
Dayton, Katherine, "The Comparison of Effectiveness between Print Media & Electronic Media in terms of Promotion and Recruitment" (2016). Honors Theses. Paper 2692.
Sundar, S., Narayan, S., Obregon, R., & Uppal, C. (1998). Does Web Advertising Work?
Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice(2016) - 6th Edition by Dave Chaffey, Fiona Ellis-Chadwick
Fundamentals of Digital Marketing(2017) By Puneet Singh Bhatia, Pearson, India
Internet Marketing Start to Finish: Drive measurable, repeatable online sales with search marketing, usability, CRM, and Analytics(2012) by Catherine Juon, Dunrie Greiling
and Catherine Buerkle, Pearson, India
This is a really great blog regarding Digital Marketing tools, thankyou for sharing this with us.
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