Video Marketing For Schools

If a picture tells a thousand words, a video is worth 1.8 million. Besides boosting engagement and information retention, being easily accessible to even the most time-poor parents, and being proven to boost website conversions (and therefore sales) by 80% or more, using a video on your website will almost always push you closer to the widely-coveted top spot of your respective Google search. Put simply, the search engines LOVE video. Not only do they increase the amount of time a visitor spends on your site – a factor with a lot of pull within Google’s ranking algorithms – but they provide a host of opportunities for SEO techniques which will look after your ranking nicely if implemented. In an industry already oversaturated with marketing materials, using video within your marketing campaign will help your institution to quickly build trust amongst your prospective enrollees and grab the attention needed to encourage community engagement, promote events, engage alumni and, most importantly, drive admissions.

How?

Despite the countless benefits video marketing can yield for the education sector, they’re sadly no skeleton key to success and increased enrolments. Considering almost 300 hours worth of video are uploaded to Youtube hourly, it comes as no shock that a school’s video marketing campaign would need a certain factor of appeal and entertainment to even establish an audience, let alone get your unique ethos across. Luckily for you, there are a number of helpful hints you can utilize when creating your school marketing video to capture the attentions of prospective students, parents, and everyone in between!

As attention spans decrease and the lines between traditionally polished video marketing and attention-grabbing memeology continue to blur, the format of school marketing videos has adapted accordingly. Gone are the days of lengthy, perfectly choreographed admission videos in favour of shorter, student-centric marketing materials. Depending on the type of video, aiming for thirty seconds to four minutes in length is a good start. Keep transitions and graphic elements fast and abundant and remember: you are appealing to both student and parent, so engage prospective students with fresh, peer-focused material.

Track for Good Measure

If, like me, your track record RE gutterstomping computer monitors is not clean, the idea of tracking and measuring video analytics may strike a special kind of fear into your heart. Fear not, brethren – video analytics are surprisingly easy to navigate and are invaluable in ensuring your school marketing video is doing what it’s meant to be doing. These handy little figures will tell you exactly who’s watching your video, how long for, how they found it, and when (or if) they lost interest. This kind of previously unattainable information will not only allow you to sharpen your message but target it more precisely well into the future.

Promote, Adapt, Survive

If a school marketing video is uploaded to the web but nobody’s around to see it, does it make a sound? While Youtube or Vimeo are great hosts for your shiny new video marketing material, it’s crucial that you consider how you’re going to get it out into the world wide web and, more importantly, in front of the eyes of prospective students and parents. Ensure your video is clearly branded to match your school’s current style guide and tone, then create a promotional plan that will see it embedded on your website, promoted across your social media, and aligned with your current marketing strategy.