Need branding for your language school? Then this goal can be easily achieved using today’s technological marvels to reach your goal. Have you often wondered why there are language courses that flourish while others flop? Or why there are courses that command large sales for a short period but then suddenly their sales flatten out?
The answer is how and where you promote your online language learning opportunities! If you’re craving the “how-to” or “where-to” points for advertising your language school, then this article will take you through it.
The education industry transitioned into a dynamic force from its typical conventional image. When it comes to advertising a school and applying marketing tactics to achieve its goals, schools now level-up with the other industries. With the onset of wide-ranging choices, the market itself pushed towards this transition.
How do some schools address the growing demands of consumers and competitors? It’s no surprise that there are newbie and veteran language schools out there that are using smarter techniques to advertise its language school and thrive in this increasingly competitive market. But research shows that there are also several schools that continue to lag for failing to adopt the trend and implement strong marketing tactics.
You don’t make the industry wait for you. Your language school needs that visibility right now.
But don’t worry. You don’t need to be an online advertising guru to promote your school! Before hitting the extremes of online advertising, work on these basic assignments:
a. Who is your target audience?
b. What are the needs of your target audience from a language school?
c. How can the presence of your language school attract your demographic?
Typically, parents and expatriates are the largest target audience and prospects of language schools. If branding is your primary goal, then this article will raise awareness of the capabilities of online platforms.
They say social media marketing is still the best online tool to advertise a business. That again depends on the “how” strategy. Most of the pointers in these articles center on the more popular yet underrated online platforms that every business could leverage, while the rest of the items describe how language schools should maximize the features of social media platforms.
So, let’s look at the platforms most available to advertise your language school. You will be mesmerized with the countless benefits it can give you.
1. PR-NEWS.io
PRNEWS.IO is a one-stop tool that can draw audiences worldwide in the right way and at the right time. It’s a user-friendly PR platform for crafting and sharing advertisements quickly and smoothly based on your terms. If you wish to monitor your online presence and capture seamless milestones, publishing advertorials, sponsored posts, and news releases about your language school, then PRNews.io is your source, and it’s also where you can have your custom online pressroom.
2. Use the Eurolingua portal
The Eurolingua online portal is a major provider of individual homestay language tuition through its vast international network of One-to-One Homestay Tutors as well as Language Course Groups from its language schools in over 40 countries worldwide including Europe, North America, Latin America, Caribbean, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
It is a portal that has become the regular “go-to” meeting place for language schools, TEFL /TESOL schools, language students, teachers, study abroad agents and many others involved in language education, abroad learning and travel.
This portal generates repeat visitors who are looking for language courses such as Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Arabic, German, Italian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish and Spanish which can all be found at this location. These visitors are classified into a vast audience of international students, institutions, schools, teachers, study abroad agents, counselors, and advisors.
So why not hitch onto the power of Eurolingua’s brand identity and proven technology to promote your language school and courses? This tool doesn’t even require software installation.
3. Create an affiliate marketing program
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Sounds familiar, right? Because affiliate marketing has been dominating the online scene for many years. It is a promotional model that links businesses and independent marketers who are looking to invest time and money to sell a product or service.
Like other forms of performance marketing, your language school will only pay when affiliates deliver a specific customer action. In this instance, you typically call it a “purchase” in the e-commerce context. This action is what makes affiliate marketing very cost effective.
Is it easy to build an affiliate program? Well, it’s a bit of work, but it can be very beneficial for your language school. There are providers you can tap onto as an associate; however, it involves you being proactive to protect your business interests.
An affiliate marketing program will be a reliable tool. You will be more productive and successful with the following procedures in place:
1) As long as you have well-defined campaigns,
2) set-up a payment or commission per action,
3) know how to monitor if affiliates are promoting your business,
4) can measure campaign effectiveness, and
5) can optimize conversions, sales, and profits.
4. Exchange links
Why should you do exchange links with other websites? Link exchange is considered a very laid back yet robust marketing strategy to exchange your site’s links and banners with others having similar contents. They become your link partners.
There are many acceptable reasons why exchanging links can be very helpful for your language school. For one, the materials you have displayed on your site determine the search engines results meaning your site will be found more often. Plus, there are other determining factors such as the number of other sites linked to your website. The more links you have pointing to your site from relevant websites, the higher ranking your site will receive.
Exchanging links also drives useful and targeted traffic to your website every time visitors follow a link from your link partners. Because of the relevant information provided on your website, it becomes a valuable resource for your visitors. You opened the avenue for your visitors to keep returning to your site to find more information.
But how do you go about requesting links for your site? First, look for websites that complement your offerings and add their sites to your links/resource page. Instead of just placing the URL, why not include the business name, brief description, and logo, if permitted.
When the link is on your website, then is the time to contact the company and ask for a reciprocal link. For instance, if you are an interior designer, approach companies that sell furniture, paintings, textiles, etc. Reciprocal links are two-way links between two websites. Aside from driving traffic to your website, it also helps with search engine rankings.
Why is it important to exchange links with websites that have a high Page Rank? Because Google assigned Page Ranks to webpages based on the importance of the page, i.e., how many times it is searched and linked as a source gives it value. This ranking is determined by the number of incoming links to that web page. Do you want to see your website’s Page Rank on the Google Toolbar? It can be downloaded from https://toolbar.google.com
Other than the reciprocal link, you can also try the one-way links. These are links that direct to your site, coming from the other site, but are not linked to your website. Google, like many other search engines, includes link popularity to evaluate and rank websites. Links provide a positive gauge on the quality of the website. So, the more links from other relevant websites pointing to yours, the better your ranking.
Again, the best way to get great links to your website is by submitting articles and PR releases to other websites, news directories, or through Social Bookmarking and Social Networking websites.
If you think link exchanges are only limited to reciprocal or one-way, the triangular or three-way links may work best for you. Three-way links are circumferential wherein website one links to website two which links to website 3 and back and so on.
The primary motive of the three-way link is to boost search engine rankings with more than two linkages. You see, link exchanges are very important for driving quality traffic to your website and increasing the rank of your website to the top of the search engines. If you are not blessed with an overflowing of available time, you can engage the services of a link exchange company. Just search for “link exchanging” in search engines. Is it time-consuming? Yes, but it is very powerful.
5. Publish a book on Amazon
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Have you considered translating your course contents into a book? When you turn your course into a book, it gives students an additional resource to access the same concepts just in another format. In this case, create it into an official publication. You can self-publish your text in the Amazon digital format using the Amazon Kindle. Use CreateSpace to publish your book in a paperback format.
Do you want an additional revenue stream to your language school? Then publishing a book is the first most feasible option because your book can help attract more students for your language courses. Just remember to indicate your classes in your published book and encourage your readers to visit your website or direct them to your course sales page to learn more about it.
6. Answer relevant questions in Quora
Do you need more information related to your language course topics? Then go and search for it in Quora? Quora is a platform where one can exchange knowledge. It is also the best place to connect with people who can contribute rational, unique, and quality information.
Why not register as an active user of Quora to maximize the benefits of this tool in favor of your language school? Do note that the mantra of giving and taking is ideal for a business. So, try to add value to the discussion forum in Quora by sharing your useful and relevant insights. But don’t try to sell your courses in your posts. Instead, include a link to your website or course sales page in your Quora profile.
Therefore, it is helpful if you can contribute quality information in the discussion forum as it gives value and credibility to the language school you are representing. Indeed, many people won’t hesitate to visit your website, and they can become your potential students.
7. Publish a shorter course in an online course marketplace
Have you ever heard of an online course marketplace? Well, it is a platform for education online connecting teachers with learners to provide current and new courses. There are presently over ten online courses marketplaces trusted by many users. On this platform, you might discover new things to aid in your pursuit of marketing your online course.
Start publishing a course in an online course marketplace and make this one of your priorities in promoting your language school. It can be beneficial simply because of the exposure to thousands of potential customers who already purchase courses from the marketplaces of their choice.
The only downside is that most online course marketplaces constrain you from promoting your courses outside of their platform. But the good thing is that they allow you to include a link to your main website. Why not grab the opportunity to publish a shorter version of your main course in a marketplace? It’s a superb way to increase your exposure and points your visitors to your website to find out more about your main course.
Also, check out Udemy and SimpliLearn as the top ranking online marketplaces where you can publish your mini-main course.
8. Buy banner ads
Reach out to websites and blogs that also serve your target audience. Propose to pay them a fee to add a banner advertisement for your language courses on their website. But before you reach an agreement with the website owner, especially if it’s going to be for an extended period, don’t be reluctant to request a trial of your ad for one month to see how their website visitors react to your ad.
Fiverr is a highly recommended designer platform to create banner ads for you. For each website you wish to place your banners on, you must create a unique link or coupon code so that it is easier for you to track how many sales come from each website.
9. Register as an active member on LinkedIn and grow your network
Millions of people across the globe, rely on the power and high credibility of the LinkedIn platform. Even if it mainly serves the job-seeking professionals, users of LinkedIn have built an image that is exceedingly dependable, so that they can also attract trustworthy patrons and followers, especially for those with enterprises.
It is an incredible tool to advertise your language school. One astounding feature of LinkedIn is that you can join as a member of various specific discussion groups that are relevant to your language school. There are different LinkedIn groups for those in the Education sector. Some top examples are Educational Leadership, EduBloggers, Teacher’s Lounge, and Innovative Learning & Education Innovators. As a member, you can attach to these groups and advertise your language school and get students.
10. Advertise on YouTube
How else can you communicate the value of your language courses more effectively? YouTube it is!
YouTube ads are among the most influential platforms that can link your language school with an audience of millions who are potential students because it positions your video format to a useful latitude. Are you convinced that creating a YouTube channel for your video ads is very useful? Definitely. Because it has extensive demographics.
Just take note, you must define campaigns that make sense to YouTube. How do you do this? Identify your target audience when you create your video ad and proceed to run your campaign. Like other performance marketing, you have to monitor your campaign and optimize it for conversions.
11. Utilize Facebook Ads
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Currently, many schools are already using Facebook to engage with students and parents. In addition to the influx of information about your language school on the Facebook page newsfeed, you may also want to explore Facebook’s “paid” portion to extend your reach to a much broader audience.
Serious about getting plenty of students, increase your enrollment base, and generate more revenue? Then, Facebook Advertising is another tactic you should consider getting your school’s messages in front of them. Facebook ads can optimize the schools’ enrollment phase.
Engage new prospects, get patronage, and tell the stories of your school – all in a social media setting where the advertisement is precise and measured. If other schools continue to use conventional marketing tactics like outdoor advertising to attract students, why not use the contemporary setting of Facebook advertising?
They say Facebook is still the mother of all social media. It is one of the largest social media sites having 1.49 billion user accounts. Facebook recently generated over 1 billion daily visitors. One user spends about 18 minutes on Facebook per visit on the average. This goes to show that Facebook advertising is now more effective than broadcast advertising in most sectors because of the increasing mobility of many people and the rapid shift in demographics.
Placing ads on Facebook is the most targeted method to reach out to your language school’s audience because it amplifies any school message. You can also reach your parent base easily and attract new students — what a great way to meet your enrollment goals by using Facebook Ads.
12. Contribute to other blogs and publications
Are you a passionate writer, too? Then you can write articles related to your course topics and submit it to other blogs and publications online which have your target audience. Keep it unique for each website because bloggers and publishers do not want articles that are also published on other sites.
How do you make sure you are submitting articles that are a good fit for their audience? You must spend time looking for popular websites that are relevant to your course topics. It’s a necessity to include a link to your website or course sale page in your author profile at the end of your article.
13. Put your language school on Google Maps
It’s a good idea to tie your school’s name to a location on Google Maps. Why? Because it puts your program in both global and local perspectives. What’s even more pleasing is that being visible in online directories helps increase your SEO ranking.
Google is the livewire of search engine optimization. Because of its dynamic features, Google is more powerful than Yahoo, Yellow Pages, and Bing combined. Yes, social media is now the most important avenue for getting traffic into your website. However, any online marketing plan for language schools is always based on featuring a strategy for Google.
14. Build a “Google My Business” listing
If you haven’t already built a listing for your business in Google, then there is no excuse for not doing it. If someone types in your school’s name, then a fascinating page comes up to the right to show your language school’s profile. If the keyword is right, for example, “Language School Madrid,” then Google will show all those schools that have got their Places for Business Accounts. It’s something like a Yellow Pages. It will show a map and next to the name of your school is a letter.
Want to do it now? You should. Include photos, hours of operations/when you offer lessons, and a description. Do this and Google will love you more. That’s important. It helps with your organic SEO. It’s also good to know that people can leave reviews about your school. Why not encourage your students to do this? If they do, they can grade their course from 1 to 5 using a star system. The average of those grades is shown when your school comes up in Google Search.
Why is this necessary? Because there is a vast difference between people, who click sites with reviews and those without reviews. You need to tell your students at the end of their course about the reviews. Even if you don’t get a high volume of new students, one enrollment per week to your course is an excellent start to building your business.
15. Put your language school on Google Ads
Are you now planning to build or enhance the image of your language school? It is worthwhile to consider banner campaigns on local portals. However, display advertising is not a solution that works for each sector. If you want to generate reasonable sales for your language school, try Google Ads because it allows for an accurate reach to your target groups.
There are several clear-cut systems you should keep in mind. First, make sure that your text advertisement is simple because it is displayed next to Google search results. Second, it should provide precision and exact adjustment to the needs of internet users.
For instance, someone types the phrase “Russian classes in China” on the Google search. If you purchased an ad for that given phrase, your ad would be displayed as: “Russian language school in China.” Remember, the demographic profile, location, and age of the internet users don’t matter in this case.
The only thing that matters is that anytime they use the Google search engine to look for the course you offer, your ad will inevitably appear, and it can appear in a desirable location. Google AdWords has a shallow entry barrier, and it doesn’t cost you that much to run an effective advertising campaign.
The only drawback of Google Ads is its complicated system for ads valuation. This is particularly obvious in the case of more prominent campaigns that contain many phrases. But it shouldn’t be an issue as you can always get the help of their experts.
Now, which type of platform do you think works best for your language school?
It still depends. There is no limit to the success stories of schools and to the platforms they used to accomplish their goals. Many top educational institutions use the hybrid approach – that is starting with the online course marketplace before transitioning into a self-hosted platform as they prosper so that they have more control and can charge competitive fees as they want.
Are you just starting a language school? Then advertising your language school in an online course marketplace is guaranteed the fastest way to get your first leads and substantiate the demand for your course topics.
But are you the one who wants to build a more sustainable source of income and sell premium language courses? Then you need more control of your school’s operation. Here, branding would be very vital for you, so self-hosting is the way to go.
Language school advertising and marketing do not need to give up traditional ways or trade education for a more commercialized setting. The changing market in this digital era is merely pushing the industry to a new direction so that education is more accessible. It is also changing the way schools get students in very engaging platforms to increase their enrollment base.
Notice that innovation now pushes our schools forward, and we don’t want you to miss out this breakthrough.
Have you already used any of these advertising platforms? If so, what difficulties have you encountered so far? Were you satisfied with its highly efficient and useful features?
Here is our bonus tip. Try remarketing. What is this? You can offer to display your ads to people who have already visited your website but did not sign up. With the full range of offers available in the marketplace, very seldom that an online user visits a website and makes an immediate purchase. Typically, they need to become familiar first with the website’s contents and go on learning about the offers. But sometimes, they suddenly became interested in something else.
Do you have control over this? You do if you want to nail it. To give you an example – What happens if one user viewed your offer of a Greek language course but did not sign up for enrollment? Capture the user by sending an attractive, honest, and feasible proposal. Try this one: “Still can’t decide if you should sign up to our Greek course? Avail of our promo code 123 now and get 10% off. Don’t lose it. Sign up now!” This one should work. You can create as many credible offers as you wish and put it into a very profound advertising pitch.
Giving out this kind of offer enables a dynamic remarketing that helps to integrate your ads in the language courses that users viewed on your website. But isn’t it complicated to configure such a campaign? Yes. But it’s proven to be exceedingly effective. You can use remarketing in your targeted platforms. It works best on AdWords, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn.