Top 5 Digital Marketing Strategies for Ed-Tech Companies

With the COVID-19 pandemic creating a negative impact on all sectors, education too has been negatively impacted; schools, colleges, universities al have been shut down, thus creating a poor impact on children, worldwide. Because of the sudden emergence of the pandemic, an undeniable repercussion on children’s future had to be mitigated and thus, was realized the importance of virtual education, which till recently was a close second to traditional methods of teaching. With the re-opening of educational institutions still being debatable till the arrival of vaccine, home-grown schooling with the help of ed-tech companies is on the rise. Ed-tech education is not only time saving, convenient and tailored to suit the needs of the students but is also cost effective and impactful.

The USA in the present times has a strong higher education sector, with over 77 million students; USA prior to COVID-19 had the largest online degree business, with approximately 3M students pursuing a course totally via online modules, the total market cap of which was around $20Bn and is still expanding, despite some turbulence seen due to the pandemic.

(P.C.- Unsplash, @bramnaus)

Marketing Strategies that can be effective for the Ed-tech companies

1. E-mail based marketing – Despite the fact, it is one of the oldest forms of marketing, yet its effectiveness hasn’t diminished with time. The efficacy of this form of advertizing surpasses for the Ed-tech sector, as compared to others, provided that the mails are targeted to correct audience, focused on interests and point of concern of the people, thereby, eliciting maximum engagement rate. Before sending mails, it is important to note to avoid being marked as spam mails as well as have a low bounce rate and this can happen only if you are clearly able to understand the different decision makers you shall be targeting and how helpful will you be solving their issues, i.e. selected and optimized content for the segmented audience.
2. Video Marketing- Video marketing is an interesting way to capture the interest of your audience as well as target them effectively. Video marketing works with the help of visual imagery, which creates a deep impact on the recall memory of the potential customers. Video marketing is a fluid tool, which can be shared across different platforms and with multiple users at once, but all this happens if the video has been designed thoughtfully. Why is this an important tool of marketing, that’s because it accounts for approximately 69% of the internet traffic, thus, capturing a substantial part of viewer engagement.

 Though, one thing has to be kept in mind before promoting your videos, i.e. which platform to opt for because all have their own pros and cons, for instance promoting on open platforms like Youtube would give you a wider exposure, would be economical but has too much of ads which might disrupt the viewer experience, whereas you can use other platforms but they might not be economical nor that famous, but can give a seamless user experience, so it all depends on what your priority is.

For instance, there’s Khan Academy, which is one of the world’s most successful Ed-tech companies, having approximately a million teachers registered on their platform, the reason why they are successful is that they prioritize students learning at their own pace as well as have built a platform to facilitate learning crafted as per the users’ individual style.

1. Use of Social Media- Social media is the most convenient and effective platform to reach out to various segments of your target audience, it’s more useful because most people across the world who have internet access are somewhere present on one or multiple social media platforms, therefore, making your outreach easier. For Ed-tech companies, it’s an effective tool because not only can they post their content on various social media groups and pages, but at the same time, they are cost effective and time saving. The only thing to be kept in mind before progressing ahead is to make sure that the content posted is impactful, solves queries of the target consumer as well as at the same time, not abusing the power of free access, as that might create a negative reputation.
2. Importance of SEO – Ed-tech companies can offer customized solutions to various interested parties, i.e. be it teachers, students, parents, etc., who shall be on an active lookout for services they need. Being in the tech sector, the companies would definitely know the prowess of internet as a tool and how technology can influence the decision of the interested parties and thereby, how you can enhance your marketing techniques. Thereby, it is of utmost importance to focus on SEO, thus, your website and the subsequent content should be designed as SEO friendly, which makes your website rank higher on Google search and various other search engines for selected keywords.
3. Pay per click marketing – If your search results aren’t yielding satisfactory results organically, then the right way to go ahead is to invest wisely for PPC advertising, and we at Zivanta Analytics can help you drive up your search results organically by optimizing various parameters to enhance lead generation for your business, for instance strategically placing and designing your ads to target the specific consumer segment.

 Having seen some of the digital marketing strategies, let’s have a look whom to target with these tactics:

1. Students- Many companies design their programs to target students, by focusing on their needs and making the study plans more economical, flexible and easy to understand, as well as helping them solve their problems, for instance Chegg or Quizlet.

2. Teachers- Teachers play a pivotal role in success of any Ed-tech company, by ensuring that if they are convinced f their services and offered products, they will encourage and propagate its use, not only amongst students, but also amongst parents, higher authorities and their respective social circle, thus, involved in positive word of mouth publicity for your company. You can offer basic or premium services to the teachers based on their requirements, for instance MasteryConnect and Evernote are two such popular tools amongst teachers, to help them track students performance and other parameters.

3. Parents- This is an example of direct-to-consumer business approach, which involves directly targeting customers like parents, who act as the end consumer. Offering a service or a product that intends to cater to students and teachers can be a great opportunity to attract parents as customers.

4. Schools/ Educational Institutes – Although, it involves a steady and a tough approach since a major part of getting schools and other such institutions on-board is the fact, that if they are convinced of the products and services offered by the Ed-tech companies based on the feedback of educators and students, then only they shall go ahead and invest their resources in such a product. One such successful business model was adopted by TeachBoost, they directly approached the school principals’ who were played a pivotal part in such decision making.

5. Partnering with other Ed-tech companies- one major way to grow your business model is by partnering with similar Ed-tech companies and work in collaboration with them, or sell your products to those companies, one such company which successfully achieved its target is Clever, who as per their claim say that 89 out of the top 100 school districts use it.

 Finally, it is very important to assess your buying cycle for your sector, thus, prior to moving ahead, you should take into consideration the buyer needs, their journey and how you can use that information to strategize further, which though, might be time taking, but once properly thought of and implemented, it can help you fix future flaws easily and give you a ready framework in place for a long time.

Source: KISSmetrics

With the pandemic changing the normal way of life lived earlier, Ed-tech companies have a long way to prosper ahead, but along-with growth come challenges and resistance. Having said that, it can all be worked out conveniently if all the interested parties are brought on-board and at the same time, your marketing strategy is effective and is in place. It should be noted that it won’t be a bed of roses, but with the undeniable impact of education on everybody’s life, adopting the right approach can help you get a buy-in from the target audience and the right time.