There will be many small posts about search engine marketing for education on this site. For now, I’ll just postulate that search engine marketing (SEM) really is the foundation and backbone of any well planned school marketing campaign. If you’re not convinced, then just look at the ever-growing Apollo Group. The information “leak” regarding the top SEM spenders on Google in June 2010, the Apollo Group were listed as spending 6.6 million dollars in ONE MONTH on search marketing. One Month.
That’s an awful large investment, and it’s fairly safe to assume given their massive growth and savvy in the education industry that there are very good reasons behind that sort of budgeting.
But why is SEM so important for education marketing?
Mainly because people who search are already looking for your programs (or at least your TYPE of programs, but not your exact school name yet).
People using search are not random web surfers who click on any ad that catches their eye. They’re not glazing over an ad in a magazine, or speeding past a billboard on the side of the road. These are people who intentionally sit at their laptop or desktop or whatever they use, and type in a phrase like “school for _____” which means they truly WANT TO FIND a school for ____. That means your school (assuming you teach ____) 😉
If you don’t employ search marketing as part of your marketing mix, it’s like meeting someone in the grocery store who walks ups and asks you for information about your school and you don’t even acknowledge that they exist.
Marketing your school? Wand to grow your school? You need search engine marketing.
