Did you know that there is almost a total of 6,000 colleges in the United States alone? Colleges and trade schools are obviously a very important part of the country’s education, but the problem with these schools is that they tend to have problems promoting themselves. They might try to use certain paid ads to promote themselves but still end up failing and losing tons of money. 

If you are worried about your school falling into obscurity due to failed advertising campaigns, you might be wondering what to do. The first thing is to stop choosing ad campaigns that are doomed to fail. Instead, take a more modern approach and choose types of marketing and ads that are known to be great successes.

Keep reading and learn more about how you can use different forms of paid ads to bring more awareness to your school.

Why Do School Marketing Campaigns Fail?

Before we dive into the details of different ad campaigns, it is first important to understand why some campaigns are destined to succeed while others are designed to fail. Many schools around the country spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars on advertisements in an attempt to bring more attention to themselves. However, more often than not, those advertisements don’t do much except waste a whole lot of money. 

When a school loses a bunch of money without bringing in anyone who might be interested in the school’s services, that school will obviously have a hard time paying for any more ads. This would leave the school in a rut and it would be very difficult to do anything to promote the school again. This is why it is important to avoid mediocre ads in the first place. 

For example, some schools choose to use cheap and old-fashioned ads to save money, but this usually isn’t effective. Ads that look old and outdated as well as ads that aren’t very engaging certainly aren’t going to be attractive to most people. As a result, even if those ads were relatively cheap, the result would still be lost money and a serious lack of success.

The Details

This is especially true if the school doesn’t do any research beforehand to see what kind of advertising methods are currently most effective. This is why it is important to work with a professional advertising agency. When working with a professional, it will be virtually impossible to fail. 

After all, professionals know all the latest occurrences in the advertising world. That way, you won’t fall into the trap of using outdated or uninteresting ads. Plus, when you hire a team of professionals to help you, you’ll hardly need to lift a finger. 

Instead, the professionals will do all the heavy lifting. However, it is still important to understand the different types of ads that a school can use. Some may be more effective than others. 

It all depends on what kind of school is involved and the target audience. Once you narrow that down, you can better decide which type of advertising might be best. 

Advertising and Search Engine Optimization

What you might not know is that advertising has a lot to do with search engine optimization, also known as SEO. If you don’t know what SEO is, it’s time to start. SEO is arguably one of the most important things you can focus on to promote your school.

This is because SEO has everything to do with how search engines and real people can find your school’s content. If your school’s website isn’t using any sort of SEO, then it will be very difficult (and sometimes even impossible) for search engines like Google to find and rank your site. Where your school’s website ranks on the internet is very important. 

If your SEO score is very low, you will rank quite low. This means that when someone searches for your school, it may be hard to find because your website will rank on the 10th page of Google or something similar. Of course, when your website ranks so low on the internet, it will be very unlikely for people to find it. 

This is because few people ever dare to venture beyond the first or even second page of Google. On the other hand, if your website ranks well on Google, it might rank on the first page. Of course, if you manage to get on the first page, it will be very easy for people to find your content because it will be in plain sight. 

The only way for this to be possible is if you update your SEO and involve advertising in your campaign. For example, with a bit of keyword research, your SEO will immediately start to get better.

What You Need to Know

Using the right keywords for your school’s website will make it easier for search engines to find your content. 

Besides that, it will also make it easier for search engines to rank your content higher for certain search results. But where does advertising come into play in all this? Once your website has a sturdy foundation of SEO to help it along, advertising will act as an extra boost. 

The problem that many schools have is that they have virtually no SEO for their website before they start using paid ad campaigns. Even with those ads, it would still be difficult for people to find your website because search engines weren’t able to rank it properly and if they did, they ranked it very low. In some cases of websites with bad SEO, it is hard to find the website even when you type in its exact name. 

For that reason, you’ll want to make sure that your school’s website is up to date with SEO before you start paying for any sort of ads. If you don’t know where to get started with SEO, you can always hire a professional to help you. That way, you won’t have to worry about the technical aspects of SEO and you can instead focus on other matters. 

Once the SEO issue is taken care of, it will be time to consider all the different types of ads you can use to bring more attention to your school.  

Types of Paid Ads You Should Consider

One of the first types of paid ads you should consider is video ads. Video marketing is more popular than it ever has been before, and for several good reasons. Video ads are known for being very engaging and for that reason, they tend to have a very high rate of success. 

This is true not only for businesses in all sorts of niches but also for struggling schools. But what is so great about video marketing, you might ask? First of all, video marketing is extremely versatile and it can appear in many different forms. 

You likely see video ads all the time every time you watch a video on YouTube. Video ads can take the form of charming animations or they may involve paid actors to promote a certain message. Some video ads involve business owners promoting their own products while others have a narrator talking about what the viewer could gain or discover just from clicking on the ad. 

A paid video ad can be pretty much whatever you want. Because video ads are so engaging, they are also quite hard to ignore. This is especially true when compared to ads that are relatively static and more old-fashioned like banner ads. While these ads can be effective to a certain extent, most people are more likely to close them rather than click on them. 

This, of course, wouldn’t be too great for the school that you’re trying to promote. When you run a video ad, on the other hand, viewers are more likely to watch the ad for at least a few seconds. Even if the viewers skip the ad or close it, they still will at least be aware of what the ad is trying to market. 

What to Know

For example, when you pay for a video ad to promote your school and thousands of people see it, or even part of it, those thousands of people will now know that your school exists. While that may not sound like a very impressive feat, as long as people know that your school exists, there is a chance that they will look up your school at a later time, especially if they are in need of the education that your school offers. 

In contrast, if hardly anyone knows that your school exists, it will be impossible for anyone to look it up. Besides video ads, you can consider Facebook ads as well. Almost 2 billion people use Facebook on a regular basis. 

Needless to say, there are quite a few eyes on Facebook, and not advertising on that platform would be a mistake. Even if you only put out a few ads on Facebook, those ads will likely get viewed thousands or even millions of times. Even if people don’t click on your ads, they will still at least be aware that your school exists. 

As long as the ads you use are engaging and interesting, more people than usual should click on those ads. Of course, once people click on the ads, they will have the opportunity to learn much more about your school and what it has to offer. If your school happens to align with the interests of the ad viewers, then you may even get some people to enroll which, of course, is a very important goal. 

Local SEO Advertising

We have already discussed SEO before, and local SEO is exactly what it sounds like: SEO that is targeted at a single location. You might be wondering what the point of local SEO is. Wouldn’t it be better to have a wider reach?

Not necessarily. Suppose that your school is located in Miami. There would not be a point in advertising your school to people across the country since many people would not be willing to go all the way to a different location to go to school.

However, if you target people who are already in your general area, those people would be far more likely to attend your school since it would already be nearby. This is the primary benefit of local SEO and it can also be very useful for advertising. 

While you can do local SEO without paying a dime, some advertising thrown in can do your school a world of good. Advertising in your local area will get people in your area far more familiar with your school and what it has to offer.

Even if the people who see your ads aren’t interested in going to your school at the moment, they may be interested in going at a later time or they may tell their friends or family about it. 

Whatever the case, local advertising and SEO are both great ways to get the name of your school out there where more people can see it. 

All About Paid Ads and School Promotion

Promoting your school can be a pain and can sometimes cost your school a lot of money without any results. However, when you use paid ads such as video ads or local ads, and when you use the power of SEO, you will find that you will have far better results. 

To learn more about how it works, contact us here.