[TOOLS] 6 Inbound Marketing Tools You Need Now

Are you creating and promoting content to attract prospective parents to your school? It might be time to consider an inbound marketing campaign.

Inbound marketing tools like SEO, blogging, social media, website lead generation and lead nurturing are more cost-effective than traditional forms of outbound marketing. Marketers are shifting their budgets, and seeing results. A recent survey shows inbound delivers 54 percent more leads into the marketing funnel than traditional outbound leads, at a below average cost per lead.

Here are 6 inbound marketing tools to incorporate into your next campaign:

1. Landing pages
Schools that increase their landing pages from 10 to 15 see a 55 percent increase in leads. Why? Sending users to your homepage will significantly increase drop-off rates because they have no idea where to go once they arrive. A landing page solves that problem. Your landing page should be customised for the needs of every campaign you launch.

2. Calls-to-action
Once you have your landing pages built, you can further promote your campaigns, drive sales and capture visitor information. For such a proportionally small part of the total page real estate, the call-to-action (CTA) plays a critical role in converting site visitors to leads. CTAs are the triggers that allow your prospective parent to convert. By clicking through a CTA, your prospective parent is pulled further down your funnel — prospect to lead, and lead to enrolment.

3. Email
Email marketing allows you to, over time, create a true database of contacts. All the people who follow through on your CTAs, and all the people who fill out the forms on your landing pages, will be added to your contacts database. You can then target these contacts for appropriate email communication.

4. Blogging
Prospective parents go searching for the products or services you sell; you want to be the first listing in the search results. The most effective way to achieve this is by publishing a steady stream of blog posts that entertain, educate, or help prospective parents make smarter buying decisions. Build your blog readership by incorporating ebooks, whitepapers, videos and podcasts into your communication.

5. Social media
Social media provides a variety of channels to promote, educate and even create a market for your products. Blogs and videos in particular have become a great way of positioning a school as a thought-leader. That said, social media should not be viewed as a standalone channel that is separate from other marketing initiatives. Instead, view it as a ‘multiplier’ that integrates with and enhances existing marketing communication strategies.

6. Marketing analytics
The final component in your new inbound marketing strategy involves reviewing your campaigns with analytic tools. Which campaigns were the most successful? How do you prove the value of each campaign?

One advantage of inbound marketing is that every action your visitors take is tracked and stored— this represents a tectonic shift in the development of future marketing strategies. Rather than relying on your gut to decide how well your ideas are working, you can now use the data from inbound marketing to dissect campaigns and glean true insight into your return in investment (ROI).

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