The importance of producing great school marketing content is nothing new. However, there’s been a shift.
Audiences expect content that provides genuine value and creates a feeling of connection. We all have endless information available to us at any moment in time, via computer, smartphone, or tablet — and this access to infinite information raises expectations about when and how brands communicate to their audiences. And, yes — your school counts as a brand.
Whether you’re tentatively clinging to traditional marketing and looking for more certain reasons to make the shift, hoping to convince school leadership about the importance of content and storytelling in school marketing, or just want to understand the current state of content, these stats will show just why a content-rich and storytelling-focused approach should matter to your school.
Companies that blog have, on average, 55% more site visitors, 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages (Source).
70% of consumers say they feel closer to a company thanks to content marketing. (Source)
Content marketing has saved marketing budgets: it’s shown to cost 62% less than traditional marketing. Plus, content marketing generates three times more leads for each dollar spent. (Source)
Around 200 million people use ad-blocking software (Source), and 70% of people say they would rather learn about a company via articles than advertisements (Source).
Neural activity in the human brain ramps up—as much as five times more than usual—when we hear a story. (Source)
People are 22 times more likely to remember something told to us in story form, rather than straight fact. (Source)
For every dollar spent, email marketing has an ROI of $38. (Source)
Half of teens use five or more social media platforms in the college research process (Source) and the majority of students are more likely to consider institutions that use email, text, and social media to communicate, over traditional forms of communication like brochures and phone calls. (Source)
The data can’t tell you exactly what’s right for your school, but it can point you in the right direction. Your audience wants to hear from your school. Are you responding?
Need more making the case for content to school leadership? Read this.