Marketing in the education sector is vital. From primary schools to universities, every educational institution needs to consider how they are going to market themselves, and what tools they have at their disposal. Using paper is a tangible cut through in a sector that has been driven online over the last decade. Sometimes, given the choice, you would rather receive a letter from your university, than an email.
Why direct mail?
There are many forms of marketing to choose from to inform students, parents, and peers about opportunities, details, and events for educational marketing. Here are some of the reasons why direct mail is ideal to get your information to the people that need to see it most:
Drives recipients online – Direct mail works best in a multichannel marketing approach. In the digital age, driving consumers to your online presence is an essential practice. Physical marketing efforts work well to help achieve this – an example being QR codes. If recipients receive mail containing a QR code, within seconds they can view your college’s social media presence or a social event page for a charity event at the student union. This traffic has been proven to be highly responsive.
Trustworthy – This is increasingly important in recent years. Currently, there is a rise in ‘phishing’ and email fraud, where criminals imitate organisations in an attempt to steal data and login credentials of unsuspecting people. Physical mail keeps recipients’ personal information safe and improves your brand’s image as a reliable organisation.
Believable content – Following on from the previous point, 87% of people consider direct mail to more believable medium than emails.
Easy to read – Physical mail is ideal for showing people more insight and services because people open, sit down, and read mail. 63% of people prefer viewing printed media to browsing online or in a store. This is ideal for prospectuses & invitations.
Source: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2013/05/28/magazines-people-still-prefer-print
Increases awareness – Mail is a tangible acquisition medium that gets your brand into people’s hands. Physical mail has 30% more dwell time than social media posts, so you can be sure that students, parents, and peers will spend more time viewing physical marketing efforts over digital alternatives.
How to best use direct mail in the education sector
Use creative & colourful brochures – Specialist print.mail.post providers can produce brochures to match every need of any educational organisation. Quite often this is prospectuses & invitations but there are many more options. We offer a full range of direct mail brochure printing & mailing services. While A4 and A5 are the most common sizes for brochure printing, bakergoodchild’s print and finishing choices allow us to create any custom size. Depending on the size and format of your brochure, we can also offer a variety of folding and binding solutions.
Get personal – Creating personalised mail is all about treating prospective students and parents as the unique individual they are, and it is one of the reasons why targeted direct mail has resurfaced in popularity in recent years. bakergoodchild create highly personalised campaigns that increase ‘customer’ engagement, brand awareness, and better ROI through higher engagement rates.
Put print in their hands – It takes a lot more than handing out business cards and having flawlessly designed letterheads to effectively communicate your brand. There are many ways to brand your educational institution, so how about producing a welcome pack for incoming students? This could include:
- Letterheads
- Envelopes
- Office & writing materials
- Mailer Envelopes
- Mailer box
- Presentation Folders
- Sticky Notes
- Notepads
- Calendars & Annual Planners
- Notebooks
- Ring Binders
- Loose leaf documents
- Desk pads
One of our key educational clients use direct mail to sell in their MIS platform to Schools and Academies. They have really diversified what they send, from brochures to pretend credit cards and even chocolate bars. Their activity has increased, as it is working very effectively for them.
See what our educational clients have to say about us on our Google reviews. If you would like to find out how your educational establishment could benefit from our sector experience, please contact our educational sector specialist Connor Sadik on 0800 612 1972 or email [email protected]
