As the 2022-2023 school year begins, it is a great time to review the six phases of the digital marketing funnel to help you successfully reach the perfect education prospects and convert them into customers this school year.
- Discovery: At the top of the funnel this is where your targeted audience finds out about your company and its offerings and how they might fit their needs. This stage is all about awareness, not sales. At this point, your tactics should include social media campaigns, digital media and web advertising — efforts that ensure that when educators search online for what you offer, you are top in their results. Your KPIs for this phase include new unique visitors to your web site, search rankings, and ad clicks.
- Interest: You’ve garnered educators’ attention in the “Discovery” phase, now it is time to turn that awareness into actual interest in your products. Here is where content is the magnet that can help turn potential customers who are aware of your offerings into leads or prospects. Targeted blog posts, landing pages, and contributed content to sites, such as MDR’s WeAreTeachers, will extend their awareness and build interest in how you can help them achieve their goals this school year. Measure your success by the growth of your opt-in email lists, web site and landing page views, and the amount of time those visitors – your potential education customers – spend on your site.
- Appraisal: While you are building awareness and interest, you also want to know about what your competitors are doing in this phase in the digital marketing funnel. Identify your key competitors and conduct research into how and where they are marketing their products online. Ensure that your marketing plans are designed to reach the same potential audiences and your message is clearly differentiated and highlights your competitive edge.
- Consideration: Through targeted email marketing campaigns and digital gated content, you can continue to convert leads into prospects. At this point in the digital marketing funnel, you may want to offer educators resources that help them meet their goals, case studies that demonstrate how other schools or districts use your products, or white papers providing information about a current topic of interest that will help them promote your product with their school or district leadership.
- Conversion: This all-important phase is where you convert those targeted, nurtured leads into customers. It’s time to develop custom campaigns with links to specific landing pages offering free trials and or information about how to directly connect with a salesperson so they can delve more deeply into your products’ advantages and benefits.
- Retention: The final phase will help you keep customers who will continue to purchase your products, renew their subscriptions, and provide you with a loyal customer base that will spread the word to others in the education community. Key strategies include continued resources to help them achieve their goals, customer-focused events at conferences, webinars and other professional development resources, and offers to expand or enhance their use of your products or services.
MDR is here to help you develop a 2022-2023 education marketing program that will take educators through each phase of the digital marketing funnel and allow you to convert them into long-term, loyal customers. Reach out to use today at mdrinfo@dnb.com.
