Facebook, with its diverse demographic representation and vast user base, provides an exceptional opportunity for your school to showcase its unique offerings, build meaningful relationships with stakeholders, and share their stories. In today’s digital age, leveraging the influence and reach of platforms like Facebook is critical for educational institutions to thrive in a competitive landscape.
The Significance of Facebook Ads for School Promotion
Facebook Ads for Schools holds a pivotal role in today’s digital space. It offers a broad user base, allowing schools to precisely target their desired audience, increase visibility, build brand reputation, generate leads, and foster community building. Facebook’s sophisticated analytics also enable schools to measure their marketing efforts, gain valuable feedback, and make data-driven decisions.
Pros and Cons of Facebook Advertising
While Facebook Advertising offers several advantages such as brand awareness, event promotion, and display of the school’s main selling points, it also has some drawbacks. Most Facebook users visit the platform for entertainment so the ad recipient probably isn’t searching social media for a new school, and direct-to-offer ads are less likely to work for high-involvement services.
“Families might check out a school’s social media presence but are unlikely to start their search for a school there.”
Luckily, the Facebook ad platform has a few tricks up its sleeve, such as in-market audiences, to help you find those families that are currently looking for a new school. And, being a platform designed to connect people, Facebook ads excel at promoting and filling admissions events, such as open days, information evenings, etc.
Types of Facebook Ads Suitable for Schools
Facebook offers several ad types that schools can utilise to promote their institution, engage with their audience, and achieve their marketing goals. These include:
- Brand Awareness Ads: These help introduce schools to a broader audience, build recognition, and create a positive perception of the institution.
- Image Ads: These versatile ads can showcase various aspects of a school, such as campus, facilities, students, faculty, etc.
- Video Ads: Engaging and effective, video ads can highlight campus life, student achievements, testimonials, virtual tours, or educational programmes.
- Carousel Ads: These allow schools to showcase multiple images or videos in a single ad unit, each with its own headline, description, and call-to-action button.
- Lead Generation Ads: Designed to capture leads and gather information from interested individuals, these ads can collect contact details from prospective students or parents who want to learn more about the institution.
How to Set Up Facebook Ads for Schools
Setting up Facebook Ads for Schools involves several steps, such as defining your campaign objective, accessing Facebook Ads Manager, creating a campaign, defining your target audience, setting your ad budget and schedule, choosing ad placements, creating compelling ad creative, setting up ad tracking and conversion, reviewing and launching, and monitoring and optimising.
Define Your Audience
One of the greatest advantages that Facebook ads have over organic Facebook posts is the ability to define who sees your school’s ad. Facebook has some powerful targeting options that work well for schools.
Detailed Demographics
Using information gleaned from other sources, such as previous conversion data in Google Analytics, and admissions CRM’s like OpenApply, you should be able to build a detailed demographic profile of your existing customers and apply that to your ad campaigns.
Lookalike Audiences
A Facebook Lookalike Audience allows advertisers to reach new people who are likely to be interested in their products or services because they’re similar to an existing audience they already have.
- Source Audience: Start by providing Facebook with a source audience, such as a list of existing parents.
- Data Analysis: Facebook analyses the characteristics and behaviours of the people in the source audience.
- Matching Algorithm: Facebook then identifies common traits, interests, demographics, and behaviours shared by the individuals in the source audience.
- Lookalike Audience Creation: Using its algorithm, Facebook creates a new audience segment that shares similarities with the source audience. This new audience is referred to as the “Lookalike Audience.”
- Targeting: Schools can then target their ads to this Lookalike Audience, increasing the likelihood of reaching people who are more likely to be interested in their services based on the characteristics of the source audience.
In-Market Audiences
Earlier I mentioned that Facebook users are likely not primarily searching on Facebook for a new school. That doesn’t mean Facebook doesn’t know which users are likely searching for a new school.
If a Facebook user is regularly checking out several school pages (and school websites), Facebook will determine that they are likely “in-the-market“ for a new school and place them in a relevant In-Market audience. Selecting education related In-Market audiences can greatly increase the effectiveness of your school’s ad campaigns.
Writing Effective Facebook Ad Copy
Crafting ad copy for Facebook Ads promoting schools is vital. It’s essential to convey the school’s unique value proposition, capture attention, and compel the target audience to take action. Understanding your audience, grabbing attention with a strong headline, highlighting key benefits and differentiators, showcasing social proof, using emotional appeal, being clear and concise, creating a sense of urgency, including a strong call-to-action, testing and iterating, and tailoring copy to ad format are all crucial aspects of writing effective ad copy.
Understanding the Cost Structure of Facebook Ads
The cost of Facebook Ads for Schools can vary widely, depending on several factors including your targeting parameters, ad objectives, competition, ad quality, and the size of your target audience. Ad budgets, bidding systems, ad relevance and quality, targeting parameters, and ad format and placement all play a crucial role in determining the cost of your ads.
Determining the Monthly Facebook Marketing Budget for Schools
The monthly budget that a school should allocate for Facebook marketing depends on several factors, including the school’s marketing goals, target audience, geographic location, competition, and available resources. Schools should align their marketing budget with their objectives and financial capabilities.
For most private and international schools, there is a clearly defined admissions season. With many parents opting to switch schools in between terms or at the end of one academic year in time for the next. Campaign budgets should be planned with this seasonality in mind.
Future Trends in Facebook Advertising for Schools
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, so do the trends in Facebook Advertising for schools. Stay updated with the latest trends, such as increased use of video content, mobile-first advertising, personalised ad experiences, and advanced targeting options, to stay ahead of the curve and maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Conclusion
Facebook Ads for Schools offer an effective way for educational institutions to connect with their target audience, increase visibility, engage with stakeholders, generate leads, and foster community building. With the right strategies, schools can leverage Facebook Advertising to achieve their marketing objectives.