You can design the most creative pieces and even allocate a generous amount for marketing, but all this effort does not always translate into results. When dealing with Facebook ads, the error usually falls on targeting an audience. Having defined audiences is essential when it comes to Facebook Ads.
There are so many filter options that it is easy to get lost in the middle of the process. Then, the content ends up being shown to the wrong people, yielding low conversion.
Facebook Ads for schools: a step by step
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How to solve the problem? If your goal is to get more enrollments for school, there are tactics to find the desired audiences. Below, we list some suggestions.
Have a defined persona
The number one rule of marketing is: know your target audience. And every schoolchild has an average student profile. Do families have high or low purchasing power? Do students live in the neighborhood of the school, or the neighboring cities?
It is important to know these characteristics to define the persona, that is, the character that synthesizes your ideal audience.
Try to go beyond demographics, too. Check out what their hobbies are, what sites they like to visit, and what devices they use to access the web.
In the case of Elementary Education, it is also worth knowing the profile of parents. After all, they have great decision-making power when choosing a school, so Facebook ads should target adults.
Filter categories
The basic parameters for targeting an ad on Facebook Ads are age, gender, and audience language. Is this information uncertain? Then go back to step 1.
Then, it’s time to refine the tactic to reach a more specific group of potential customers. The educational level and the line of business can be a good start.
For example: do you want to sell a professional course? Target the ad to teenagers in high school, or even those already working in local businesses.
As for parents, is it possible to restrict the audience to ?? adults with children between 3 and 5 years old ?? (preschool age), ?? adults with preteen children ?? (first stage of Elementary School), and so on. This is one of the most important phases to ensure the success of your marketing strategy.
Find the right location
Facebook Ads engines are based on geolocation. They allow you to cover both large areas (cities and entire states) and specific addresses (street X, zip code Y). You can also target the content to those who live there, have lived there in the past, or have been visiting the area recently.
So many options make it difficult to create school ads on Facebook. The risk lies in determining a location so vast that it generates low qualified leads (or so limited that it yields no results).
In general, the more specific rule, the better. Direct the material to neighborhoods or cities that concentrate the largest number of interested audiences. Again, it is essential to have a well-defined persona to understand where the audiences you want to reach are.
Know the public’s interests
A student interested in learning English will not necessarily like a page about teaching the language. However, the user’s browsing history usually offers good clues about their habits.
Imagine a teenager who enjoys foreign bands and follows travel blogs. He will probably need English if only to better understand the lyrics of his favorite songs. There: we already have elements to work with. The announcement of your language course can be targeted at this guy.
Filtering advertising based on the interests of the public is a great option. Social networks determine what those interests are based on the applications used by the person and their interactions with other pages.
Determine where the ad will appear
The placement can be one of the most strategic targeting parameters for your ads. You must understand whether the audience uses a cell phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, or even the four devices.
Also, remember that Facebook’s advertising network has expanded to other company platforms, such as Instagram. If your audience is active on that social network, consider using it in the campaign.
At this point, it is worth understanding the correct format for each situation. A Facebook banner may look like “part of the landscape”, but a sponsored Instagram post may hinder the flow of navigation. Videos in Stories can work with younger users, while adults still have a hard time experimenting with this app’s functionality.
Of course, the information in the paragraph above is a guess. You should research your audience’s habits to see what are the most effective approaches.
Use personalized audiences
A very effective tactic for schools is to invest in remarketing. These campaigns seek out subjects who have shown an interest in education, although they have not yet enrolled. Go after those who have already liked a post, made a comment, or sent a message.
Facebook’s custom audiences tool handles exactly that group. You can even go beyond the social network and target the audience that generated traffic to your site.
If you have a more robust lead database in your CRM system, there is an alternative to creating personalized audiences from lists. Simply upload a CSV file containing people’s e-mail address, full name, and birth date. Facebook will try to associate the information with the correct profile.
Conclusion: Know your target audience
Conversion strategies from Facebook ads work very well for schools, as long as you regulate the mechanisms in the right way. We even have another article on Facebook Lead Ads giving more tips on the subject. Follow the link and check it out!
In the end, what matters is to choose criteria to determine a specific audience, without this restricting the field of action too much. There will be a reasonable amount of trial and error, and it is very likely that you will not have a clear sense of your success before running the first ads.
However, you will soon know how to get the best out of the platform. Just keep a close eye on the results, adjust the target audience when necessary, and manage your campaigns continuously.
