5 Ways to Nurture Admissions Leads With Content Marketing
By \ January 10, 2017
Content marketing doesn’t just help you collect leads, it allows you to nurture them too.
Once a lead has requested more information, purchased a product or downloaded material, you can follow up with additional content that provides more information about their interest.
Content doesn’t have the same “salesy” feel as other emails in a communications flow. It’s the softer touch that keeps prospects engaged but doesn’t feel too aggressive. If the email is the Open House, the content is the reading material they leave with.
Nurture Admissions Leads With Content Marketing
While follow-up content can be used to nurture leads in many industries, such as healthcare or not-for-profit, we’re going to focus on higher education. Here are five types of content that universities have used to engage leads after they’ve requested information via email.
Class descriptions
Give a prospective student a glance inside the classroom with content that describes one particularly interesting class within their major of interest. Describe the learning material and the class structure, but also dig to find the class’s most unique feature. Is it relevant to recent news? Is the material applicable to a variety of majors or personal experiences? Is it the class that students like the most? Describe these classes in a way that represents the program, and the school brand, at large.
Industry news
Send students a news story that inspires them to learn more about a particular subject area and industry. You could even supplement your own content with articles or videos from trusted news sources, a tactic used by many brands outside of higher education.
Student stories
Tell the mini-stories of current students, describing their field of study, how they got into it, what they plan to do with their degree and, most importantly, emphasize what they think is unique about the school.
Alumni stories
Alumni profiles make for great content for interested students. Tell the stories of alumni working in their industry, focusing on what they studied and how their education is giving them an edge. These alumni serve as motivation for students to work towards a similar career, which starts at your university.
Professor profiles
Professors have a far stronger impact on the student experience than universities mention. Use your top faculty members to your advantage by creating content that mentions how their impressive credentials, familiarity with the subject and related industry, and personal traits heighten the classroom experience and are representative of the school’s brand.
The Impact of Content in Lead Generation
What makes content marketing so effective is that it can influence prospects at any point in their decisions making process.
The same article or video could be used to attract a lead, nurture them, and even help convert them.
Consider the various selling points of your institution and turn them into content for each stage of the lead generation process. Use this content year after year.
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