Lead Nurturing For Higher Education Best Practices

Attracting and retaining students is the main aim of marketing strategies in higher education institutes. While it has taken a while, the marketing efforts of RTOs, and other educational institutes, have finally evolved and caught up to the modern marketing industry’s best practices.

Most RTOs now understand that lead nurturing is an integral part of any marketing strategy; it needs to be planned and executed in order to generate the best results.

Here are some of the best practices your RTO should follow in their lead nurturing campaigns:

Identify the best marketing tools and channels

Don’t waste precious man hours where you don’t need to. Invest in marketing automation software where possible, as it will prove more cost effective. New technologies have made it a simple process to send out thousands of personalised emails or messages at predetermined times. Look into your options and select the automation tools that fit your RTO best.

There are many different channels you can use to reach prospective students, but for your lead generation strategy’s success, you need to make sure that you identify the most relevant ones. Choose the channels that your target market is most active on, such as emails, SMS and social media platforms.

Segment audiences and content

The next step in your lead nurturing campaign is to create segmented lists for your target market. This ensures that you are sending them the most pertinent information for increased engagement.

You can track which course your prospects are looking into, and then send them content that’s relevant to what they have been researching. There is no point in sending a blog post about the benefits of your Safety in Construction program to students looking at a business development course.

Use tracking to find priority students

Not everyone who lands on your website or downloads your guide is going to turn into a full-time student. As such, it’s important to employ tracking methods through landing pages and touch points that can help you gauge how much interest and interaction any given lead has with your institution.

This allows you to find the students most likely to enroll, and prioritise them over prospects who are unlikely to move further down the sales funnel.

Test and learn

Your lead nurturing campaigns are never going to work unless you identify your strengths and weaknesses. You can do this by gathering intelligent data and metrics, and turning them into meaningful insights through analysis.

Use your campaign tracking and results to improve and evolve your marketing strategy to best reflect its strengths and to eliminate (or improve) any areas that are lacking.

Remember that Understanding your target marketing and creating personalised, relevant content for them is the best way to qualify leads.

Lupo Digital, is a lead management company that creates successful inbound marketing campaigns specifically for RTOs. If you want more information about lead nurturing and other lead generation tactics, download our executive guide to lead management for RTOs.