If you’ve ever tried marketing a language school, you know that it can be hard to find success doing so. There are tons of language schools online, and getting your school seen is a real struggle.
Luckily for you, we’ve put together this post all about how to market a language school online the smart way!
We’ll assume that you have a language school already (If you don’t, check out our post on how to start a language school). If you do, you’re in the right place! We’ll show you how to make your name known in both traditional and online marketing.
Marketing a language school successfully means that you want to get traffic to the courses page of your website. We call this “conversion” traffic because if you can get people to come to your website, you’ll be able to help them as they learn the language.
Guest Blogging
Let’s take a look at the basics of guest blogging. Basically, guest blogging is when you (the author) write content for another website that also has an article on the same topic. In the process, you get to promote your own language school as well as get a link back to your site. You can either create a blog post yourself and be the one to link back or hire a writer to put together an article for you.
Google loves to see that people are linking to multiple sources, so when you have your own site linked back from another website, it shows them that there is high-quality content (i.e.: good website). As a result of this, Google will give your link a higher rank. This means more traffic and exposure for you! Easy natural links for SEO – Guest blogging gives you the opportunity to get backlinks from other sites. This is great because links work better than anything else when it comes to ranking well for SEO. Since you’re getting sites that are about education or travel, it’s less risky and easier than buying links. There’s nothing stopping you from setting up a blog with your own domain that simply has the link for your language school at the bottom of your article. This is an instant way to get SEO without any risk, which is always a good thing!
You get to promote your school in the best way possible – because you wrote about it! With guest blogging, you don’t have to spend money on advertising or other marketing tools. It’s all free and puts you in a position to lead the conversation about your language school. Guest blogging is an easy way to get relevant backlinks – When you guest blog, you can have your site linked to from the website you wrote on. This is great because Google loves it when there are multiple sources for information about the same topic, so having your site linked while also creating original content is perfect for building good backlinks.
A word of caution about Guest Blogging :
Your school has to be relevant – In order to get links from other sites, you’ll want to have a valuable and useful article. If your article is uninteresting, people won’t want to link back to it or share it. And because you’re getting them from another website, you can’t pick the winner. There is no control over what kind of audience will see your guest post, so if you don’t think that your site is relevant for that particular audience, you might not get as many click-throughs or conversions.
Create Personal List (Email/Social Media)
Creating your own list is another easy way to market a language school online. Basically, you give people information for free in exchange for their email addresses. Then, after they sign up, you send out information about your language school through email or social media.
You get direct access to interested customers – It’s pretty difficult to find people who want to learn the language of your country without knowing how many people are interested in it. People who are interested in what you have to offer can subscribe and receive newsletters from you directly. This means that you’ll know exactly how many people would be interested in your language school before you actually start offering it!
Automation is another good way to promote a language school online. In this case, we are talking about using marketing automation software. However, automation doesn’t mean that you will have to work less. I’ll show you how to use marketing automation software and increase your revenue by 50% using free resources.
Let’s say that your language school is called, “The Language School of X”. It would be a lot easier for you to create a marketing email than it would be for you to open the post office every day and send out emails every month. So, what are some tools that can help you automate the process?
ActiveCampaign – I would recommend this for you if you want to create a lot of emails with a great-looking design.
MailerLite – This one is good if you want a lot of features and flexibility with your automation. It’s also the perfect choice for people who don’t have much email traffic at all.
GetResponse – gives you the power of automation with an intuitive drag and drop editor – It\’s easy for anyone to use these tools to create great-looking campaigns in just a few steps. GetResponse also makes it easy for website owners to add contact forms, blog posts, products, or services and then connect them seamlessly with their marketing campaigns. When you use Getresponse this workflow will save you tons of time!
Paid Advertising
The vast majority of language institutions still employ paid advertising. This can be both Google AdWords and Bing Ads. You can also use Facebook ads, which are very handy for promoting your school. You should choose a method for paid advertising that fits your school’s budget. The average cost for one Google AdWords campaign is around $500, though you can get a cheaper rate if you want to have just one or two. With Bing Ads, expect to pay $250-300+.
Google AdWords allows for text ads, banner ads, and video ads. The best way to use this type of advertising is to put your ad in the Google search engine for terms they think people will be searching. I’ve found that this is a very quick way for anyone to get started with their school. You can use Google AdWords to drive people to your website and landing pages. This is especially useful for schools that are still building their SEO.
Facebook Ads is another way to advertise your business. Facebook offers a really easy interface for you to create advertisements that will show up on the side of their website and in their app, depending on the kind of ad you are running. Facebook also lets you pay per click with these ads, which is an awesome feature if you want to start small and see what happens before investing more money into it.
If your school has an account with Facebook, you’ll be able to create a business page. From there, you can start creating ads for your language school. You can also use Facebook ads to drive people to your website and landing pages.
Facebook Ads is another way to advertise your business. Facebook offers a really easy interface for you to create advertisements that will show up on the side of their website and in their app, depending on the kind of ad you are running. Facebook also lets you pay per click with these ads, which is an awesome feature if you want to start small and see what happens before investing more money into it.
Instagram Ads is another good choice for paid advertising. You can target the people who are following certain accounts and create a highly specific campaign that will show up in their feed. This is great for language schools because you can target users who have shown interest in your school before.
Build a Local Community
If your language school is in a city or region that’s really popular for tourists, it could be a good idea to build up a local community. This means that you create a local Facebook group where people in the area can ask questions about your school and come up with local meet-ups.
You can promote your school directly to people within the area – You’ll get a much higher conversion rate if someone is in the same city as you. This means that when you have an event, they are more likely to come, especially if they know other people who would be interested in it. People will find out about your classes through word of mouth – There’s something special about meeting people for an event and making new friends. If you create a Facebook group, the entire community is going to want an overview of your language school. This means that you’ll get people to join your group and become your customers.
Create a YouTube Channel
Alright, so YouTube advertising might not be as popular as it used to be. It’s still a good way for you to promote your language school online, though! You can hire someone to create and edit videos for you, which will cost money but will also increase your conversion rate. There are also plenty of free tools that you can use to add an overlay on top of the video before you upload it to YouTube. With this overlay, people will see a message about your language school before they even click play!
Create a Blog
A blog is your chance to get more exposure to your prospective students, and it also provides a great platform for you to show the world what you can offer in your language school. “For instance, you could create a blog about common questions that people have about learning the language of your country.”
A blog is a great way to get more leads for your language school. There are tons of topics that can be discussed in a blog. You can also provide links to resources that will help people with their studies. A blog is also a great way to share your passion for your language. If you really care about what you do, then that will shine through in your postings and attract clients to your school.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the best tool for online marketing if you really want to get your school noticed. SEO takes time and requires a lot of work. However, the results are well worth the effort. SEO will build your reputation in the minds of potential students who are looking for a language school. The best part about SEO is that it works even when you’re asleep! You can stay online and take advantage of SEO 24/7!
You’ll need to do research on the keywords people are searching for and find out where they’re searching for them. This means that you should know what keywords and phrases your potential customers are using when they search for language schools, and then use those words in your blog posts, website content, site map, meta descriptions, etc.
Social Media
Last, but not least, is social media! You can promote your language school on Facebook, Twitter, and any other platform that you feel comfortable using. The good thing about social media promotion is that it’s easy to do and free. Just make sure that you are posting content daily to get the most out of it!
You reach a wide audience for free – Social media is a great way to get people interested in your language school because they are going to be checking their feeds several times a day. If you post something interesting or offer a discount, you get hits. This means that you can get hundreds or even thousands of likes on your page.
Social media is a great way to get people interested in your language school because they are going to be checking their feeds several times a day. If you post something interesting or offer a discount, you get hits. This means that you can get hundreds or even thousands of likes on your page.
Conclusion
Now that you have some ideas and strategies for promoting your language school, it’s time to put them into action! You can either do all of these things in one day, or you can spread them out over several days. I recommend spreading each strategy out over a week because it’s going to take some time to see results. The best thing is that if you do this successfully, then you will get good results after just a few weeks!