3 Ways to Harness the Power of Digital and Marketing Technology in the Education Industry
“It's not a faith in technology. It's faith in people.” (Steve Jobs)
EdTech unicorns have been among the hottest players of the start-up scene lately but if we look at the rest of the education industry, it almost feels like the usage of technology sits, on average, at the other extreme of the adoption cycle. So, we cannot help but wonder…
Why hasn’t digital & marketing technology been properly enrolled and onboarded in schools?
We include here mostly the primary and secondary schools, all the way to high school and graduate programs. Generally higher education providers are further ahead on their digitalization journey. Through our experience in the education sector we heard so far several reasons why technology hasn’t been embraced on a greater scale or at a faster pace. Here are just a few of the most prevalent ones.
1) Focus on school operations, marketing not top of mind
An up-to-date website, some social media presence, a beautifully designed brochure and participation in a few key fairs a year - this is generally the marketing to do list. Understandably, priority is given to the day by day school operations, to the faculty selection and the organization of the key events of the academic year. New prospects recruitment becomes top of mind generally only during a certain period of the year and this coincides with the seasonal attention towards marketing initiatives.
2) Shortage of staff
From not enough hands to go around in general, to an already overwhelmed all-in-one team of admissions, marketing & enrollment and lastly to the scarcity of people with experience in the digital landscape - all of these circumstances present themselves quite synchronically within the school teams.
3) Fear of losing the personal and human touch
Personalization and human contact are of course essential in the communication with parents. Emotions, expectations and worries all run high - for parents of K-12 kids choosing a private school in the same city and even more so for those sending their kids to a boarding school or high school abroad. We have seen a lot of fear around adopting and employing technology (automation more specifically in this case) in the relationship between schools and parents. More specifically, school management fears losing the one thing that will make the difference between their school and another: the real people one will engage with throughout the admissions process.
Now, read again these 3 reasons why technology hasn't been adopted more.
Don’t you agree that they are among the best reasons to start harnessing the power of digital and marketing technology, in the first place?
The first reason (1) requires no additional explanation - during the pandemic the education industry has seen one of its biggest disruptions to date and the importance of digitalization in schools no longer needs to be proved: it has proved itself quite clearly during the past few years. To be clear, the idea is not to shift completely to digital operations but to allow a parallel and harmonious run of the processes, leaning into the benefits brought by a well honed tech stack.
Let’s look at one concrete example:
a well defined digital presence and strategy will allow schools to be findable online and to communicate with parents - even with families who don’t attend school fairs or school open days, and even when schools themselves can’t participate at such education trade fairs.
digital and marketing technology enables and empowers a smooth communication from the first contact with the school (via a fine lead generation campaign), through the prospect nurturing flow (leaning into a smart marketing automation tech stack) and all the way to the enrollment process (facilitated by an online application solution) and the ongoing communication with enrolled families (via an easy to use parent portal).
Moving on to the shortage of staff (2)- the team is small and overwhelmed by an abundance of repetitive tasks: is there really a better case for marketing automation to begin with?! Following up with school materials (the same attachments over and over again), prioritizing which families to contact or answer to first, sending application forms or invoices, managing the list of attendees for the school’s next open day and sending out all the relevant reminders? Fully or partially automatized processes can easily take over these tasks and free time for the team to focus on other tasks where manual or personal intervention is more valuable. Being equipped with a well integrated CRM solution surely comes in handy.
The fear of de-humanizing the contact and the communication (3) throughout the admissions journey by employing technology is a personal favorite and here’s why: a salient implementation of technology allows for far more personalization then any human could ever deliver - especially when volume is involved. Not to mention that fine tuned tech tends to make less errors and probably forgets less than a stressed out admissions consultant during peak recruitment season.
When technology takes over the time consuming bulk activities, the team has actually more time to invest in meaningful conversations with the parents and the students. Indeed, personal contact makes quite THE difference but surely not all conversations and exchanges throughout the journey are equally important.
When the tech takes care of the tried-and-true tasks, the school staff can focus its limited resources on having those pivotal conversations tête-à-tête with the families.
It may seem like we are singing an ode to digital marketing and technology and this is true only half-way. Better put, we chant the benefits of a well honed digital marketing and tech stack because indeed - technology on its own can’t achieve anything. It needs the input and the design of the people who are currently doing the tasks and it needs a strong implementation team in order to work at its best. Lastly, like us all - it needs maintenance.
Clearly the process of identifying best use cases for technology, selecting the best solution among all those available, taking time away from colleagues to involve them in the design and roll out of the tech solution and finding an implementation partner, is easier said than done. All of this requires time, money, skills and effort. However, after the initial exertion it claims is behind you, and the primary disruption it causes is digested - a solid and well-fitted tech stack will start paying back.
Through our previous roles and projects, we have been part of this process and have seen first hand and end to end - should you not know where to start or require specific input, contact us to discuss your needs.
As a final thought, we leave you with a quote from Steve Jobs “It's not a faith in technology. It's faith in people.”
Image credits: Alex Knight via Unsplash
About Journee - Digital at Ease
Founded by two digital marketing professionals with extensive international experience, Journee GmbH is a female owned digital marketing and technology boutique consultancy.
Education is a darling among all industries in which the founders have worked and accumulated vast international experience across all facets of digital marketing and digital technology.