Why RTO Specialists Recommend An Inbound Marketing Strategy To Boost Enrolments

Prospective students are a lot like customers facing a major purchase. After all, investing time and money in a new qualification can have significant implications for their professional life. And just like those customers, students base their course decisions after a comprehensive assessment of available information.

Inbound marketing is the best strategy for RTOs

According to Statista, there will be 2.95 billion social media users worldwide by 2020, a huge proportion of which will be students. This is supported by the Content Marketing Institute, which reports that 8 out of 10 people identify themselves as blog readers and 23% of all online time is spent on social media sites.

In order to attract their attention, your inbound marketing strategy must focus on creating the type of content that engages your target audience with informative educational material. This can include blogs, articles, free online guides, videos, social media posts and informative EDM campaigns.

The benefits of an inbound marketing strategy for RTOs include:

• It’s cost-effective: writing blog posts and posting on social media are far cheaper than traditional forms of marketing, and reach your prospects in the digital space where they spend most of their time.
• It encourages engagement: If a student prospect responds to your inbound marketing content and engages with your brand, they are already a more qualified lead than a prospect who has only been exposed to outbound marketing content.
• It builds lasting relationships: Inbound marketing aims to create on-going relationships with your prospects – even after converting them from leads into registered students. By maintaining contact with them as alumni, they can act as brand ambassadors who speak highly of your RTO and recommend it to their peers.
• It positions your RTO as a thought leader: By creating authoritative content that attracts and engages prospects, your RTO positions itself as a trustworthy voice in the educational space and builds credibility in the marketplace.

To implement an effective inbound marketing strategy, you need a number of key strategic tools.

Effective inbound marketing tools:

• Keyword-optimised content: Incorporating keywords that focus on the pain points and challenges your students may face, will help your RTO rank highly on search engines. Long-tail keywords, which contain three or more words, are especially effective and will help you rank higher, quicker.

• Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising: This is a great tool for generating a high number visitors to your website in a short amount of time. Once a user clicks on your ad, they are automatically sent to your website and you pay the search engine a small fee – hence the name pay-per-click. The most popular PPC platform is Google AdWords, where users bid on keywords and pay for each click on their ads. Every time a user initiates a search, Google selects a set of winning ads to appear at the top of its search results page.

• Content marketing: Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to attract a clearly defined target audience. It includes blogs, social media and your website content, and is a core part of an inbound marketing strategy. Content marketing raises the awareness of your RTO and educates your prospects about the courses you are offering.

• EDM (Electronic Direct Mail): Is used to target a group of prospects, students or clients, and is focused on building customer relationships and generating leads. This strategy is ideal for maintaining a relationship with your alumni.

Lupo Digital is an inbound marketing agency that specialises in RTOs. We help convert leads by using personalised campaigns appropriate to every lead’s stage in the admission cycle, and have a passionate, experienced team dedicated to bringing all the benefits of inbound marketing to RTOs. For more information on how inbound marketing work for RTOs, download our lead management guide.