The Basics of Content Marketing for Schools Today

According to a survey done across Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, 8,000 consumers and 800 marketers agreed that 74% say their digital experience with brands has changed since the start of COVID-19.

The question is, how can the education industry monetise this tool effectively in schools today?

LittleLives's first webinar in 2021 highlights effective and efficient methods for schools to get started on their marketing plans today.

Country Head of LittleLives Malaysia, Patricia Albert was the host of the webinar and the speakers were Elwyn Loh and Bryan Koh, both from the Branding and Communications team at LittleLives.

What is Content Marketing and SEO?

After an introduction of LittleLives to our participants, Elwyn kickstarted the webinar by defining content marketing. He highlighted the main difference between content marketing today versus traditional marketing efforts. An example of content marketing is educational articles, and sales collaterals fall into traditional marketing efforts.

"Reputation – to be come a credible, authoritative resource on topics that matter to potential customers." – Elwyn Loh, Head of Branding & Communications

He then explained the importance of prioritising SEO and how to utilise it by using resources available on the internet. He reminded the participants that word of mouth today is not enough to promote your brand and that being unique is just the starting point for ranking top in Google.

One way schools can take charge of their content marketing is to identify trends in their respective community. These trends can help schools identify the needs of potential customers because they know what customers are searching for online.

How to Start Content Marketing?

Bryan then taught the participants how to start content marketing in schools if they have yet to start, or if they already have, how to improve it.

It is crucial to plan for content marketing as it keeps your content organised, aligned and consistent. One big difference with content marketing today is educational and informative content carries more value than direct selling. Creating the right content will eventually lead the audience to become leads.

The first step to creating content is to have a theme. A theme will allow you to share relatable and up-to-date content throughout the year. Planning sub-themes that complement your overall theme is key to successful content marketing.

Following that is to create a social media calendar. Using available resources or a simple Google Excel spreadsheet, schools can visualise and plan out content for the entire year without repeating any content. It gives the team plenty of time to craft and curate content accordingly.

We recommend 2 to 3 posts a week (depending on the target audience), 80% of the content focusing on an educational or informative subject and the remaining 20% on selling your brand.

As a bonus tip, we highly advise schools to start their blogs. Writing a blog is easy when schools know when and how to start. We share five tips to make your article marketable and engaging.

For reference, visit LittleVoices for articles that can help you start your blog journey. There are plenty of articles for both schools and parents that you can reference to.

#ICMYI we released the webinar on our Facebook page where you can pick up some useful tips to help you start your content marketing adventure.

Stay tuned for our upcoming webinars!