How To Promote a University or College

Are you looking for ways to promote your university or college online? Have you invested your hard-earned money in pay-per-click and Facebook ads with no results? We understand your frustration.

To make your life easier, we’ve put together this guide to help you promote your university or college. With the right strategies, you can get your institution the exposure it deserves. Over time, with a bigger reach, you will also enjoy more enrolments.

How to promote a university or college

1) Host events

Hosting events might be the easiest way to capture attention among your target audience – potential students. Whether you’re hosting these events on campus or off campus, they present a wonderful opportunity to connect with students and advertise your courses. You can host an open house where students can come with their parents for more information. Alternatively, you can host charity events like runs, sports tournaments, debates, and more.

Ultimately, events like these will widen your reach and keep you top of mind among your target audience. When it’s finally time to choose a university or college, these people are more likely to come to you if they’ve already been to one or more of your events.

2) Invest in your extracurriculars

Most universities and colleges make the mistake of only investing in the quality of education that they offer. Keep in mind that most people are looking for more than a good education when they’re looking for a university or college. Many of these people also want to explore new activities, hone a talent, and discover a new hobby. Most students also want to have a healthy social life.

For these reasons, it makes a lot of sense to invest as much in your extracurricular activities as you do in your educational programs. If your students are particularly good at a specific extracurricular activity, your institution might even make a name for itself in this realm. For example, many higher learning institutions attract new students because they have an exceptional football team or drama club.

3) Learn to write an educational center press release

You can never undermine the power of a well-crafted release. A well-written press release is a powerful tool that will give you optimum publicity in the digital space. It’s even more resourceful in this digital era when almost everyone lives online. It’s true – the press release tool has been around for ages. Even so, the traditional press release has evolved to meet different needs over time, so the modern press release is perfectly suited for the digital age. What’s more, it’s even more powerful than before.

A good press release should break down the basics of your education center – including the courses you are promoting –  into digestible content. What’s more, a press release gives you the opportunity to present this content in a newsworthy format that readers find interesting.

To appreciate these benefits, you should try using a press release template. It will help you create a release that can win you coverage on respected news outlets. With an effective press release, you can promote a university or college online at a minimal cost. In fact, your educational institution will have better chances of ranking high on Google during an organic search.

How to promote your university or college with a press release 

You are probably a pro at developing a good curriculum, hiring the best faculty, and putting systems in place to support students. However, promoting a university or college requires a different skill set. If you want to avoid wasting money on unrewarding strategies, it’s important to take time to learn how to do it right instead of making assumptions. This is even more important if you are tapping into a new market.

A press release can highlight the exceptional aspects of your business in a unique way. It will help you get in touch with potential students and convert them into actual students. A press release is also a good idea to put your institution in the spotlight for the events and extracurriculars we discussed above.

Given that there is intense competition for students, a perfectly written release can help you outrank your competitors. An effective press release will earn you a competitive rank in online directories and Google search results, among other relevant platforms. With the online visibility that comes with a successful press release, your institution will have a better future to look forward to.

What to include in your press release

• A captivating headline
• Educational center details like special offers, credentials, and services
• Quote from a student, course leader, or principal
• Dateline: Indicate the purpose of the launch and when it will happen
• Educational Centre URL link
• Relevant image: institution logo, graduate portraits, interior/exterior pictures of the institution
• Boilerplate: covers the details about the institution and provides relevant contact details and addresses

Do you know the secret behind a great release lies in its headline? It’s true – you need to craft a captivating headline because it’s the first part of your press release that readers will focus on. In order to write an effective headline, you need to customise it to fit your target audience. In this case, if you are targeting students, you should ensure that it’s specific to them. Other elements to factor in during customisation include the location and demographics of your target audience as well as your current students.

When you’re developing the press release body, ensure you include some information about the services that your institution offers. This should include the courses you teach, the faculty on hand and the extracurriculars you offer. It’s also important to talk about the systems that are in place to support students.

Writing a press release for the first time can be overwhelming. However, if you refer to the template we’ve developed below, you’ll find that it’s easier than you might’ve thought:

An educational center press release template

Writing a press release isn’t difficult as long as you’ve mastered the correct format. We’ve developed this press release template to help you with that. Simply customise it to fit your press release announcement and you’ll be good to go. With a robust release, you can capture potential students online before your competitors reel them in.

[Press Release Headline]

[City] State; Date of Release (You must indicate whether the release is for immediate publication or should be published on a specific date in the future).

[Provide a Summary] Describe your announcement in a nutshell.

[Add a quote] This quote can be from top officials, members, or clients. Keep in mind that the quote must be relevant to the announcement.

[Additional paragraph] You can add another paragraph that sheds more light on the launch or announcement. This is also the part where you answer the five W questions. They include who, where, what, when, and why.

[Add another quote] Here you can write a quote that provides more insight into the educational institution. Alternatively, this can be another paragraph talking more about your services.

[Add CTA] Provide a call to action that leads to further information for your readers. You can also add a URL link that serves the same purpose.

[Boilerplate] A boilerplate highlights your university or college’s mission as well as any relevant achievements to date. At the end of your boilerplate, you should add the following details:

• Contact info
• Address info
• Contact person
• Email address
• Phone number

How to promote a university or college: Final thoughts

This template will help you keep things clear and concise so that you can retain the attention of your target audience with a unique press release. Using this template to write an educational centre press release will help you create content that the media view as newsworthy. As a result, this press release will get your university or college in the spotlight and help you capture attention among potential students. Over time, an effective press release will help you boost your enrolments and grow your student community.