How To Choose The Right Advertising Channel For Your Language School
If you’re like most of the language schools, then you’re always looking for a better way to advertise your courses. But sometimes it might seem like you’re pouring in barrels of money without seeing many new students enrolling.
Good news: in this article we will explain to you how to choose the advertising platforms wisely, considering your goals, your audience, and your budget.
Get access to our library of free marketing guides, trackers, and templates for expat language schools:
Choosing the Right Advertising Channel from a Marketing Standpoint
As a language school, while creating your marketing strategy it is important to decide what are your main priorities. And we know that those usually are:
getting ahead of your competition and
selling more courses.
In order to succeed in those goals, you will need to advertise your school, and for that, you should always remember that each advertising channel has its own strengths and weaknesses. Before you commit to a specific one, it is important to evaluate which channels are best for your business. And then, use them in the right combination to maximize your marketing reach and ROI (Return On Investment).
To achieve that, you should analyze the target audience of your campaign. If you know who you’re marketing to, then it may be easier to choose the most successful channel.
Here are some advertising options for language schools:
OFFLINE ADVERTISING:
Leaflets
Posters/ billboards
Newspapers
TV/ Radio*
*Please note – most expats DO NOT watch the local news or listen to the local radio, especially when they just arrive and really need to start learning the language. We’re mentioning it because you might have a radio station (maybe a TV station? Who knows?) founded specifically for an ethnic group that you want to target in your city – it’s worth researching!
Ambassador programs
Loyalty programs
Live demonstrations/ open door events
Hosting community-building events
Taking part in events targeted at your students (maybe even trade shows?)
Guerilla marketing
Merchandise
Sending out seasonal cards
Cross-promotion (partnerships with other businesses)
ONLINE ADVERTISING:
Ads on online platforms (magazines, blogs)
Paid articles on platforms targeted towards your students
Podcasts (sponsoring)
Influencers
Google ads
Social media ads (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube)
Self-publishing on Amazon
As you can see – there is far more to advertising than Facebook ads, and actually thinking through your goals and knowing as much as you can about your target audience are key to finding the best advertising channel for your school.
That – and a lot of testing once you’ll make your initial decisions… Because everything in marketing is about testing, tweaking, improving, and testing again. 😉
Save up to 4 hours a week on content creation and increase student enrollments!
We’ve created a powerful system for helping language school owners, marketers, and language tutors rapidly speed up their social media content creation process without:
creating a full, professional content strategy
facing creative blocks
feeling the need to copy their competitors
So if you want a crystal clear and predictable roadmap to help you get more students, look no further!
Choosing the Right Advertising Channel from a Financial Standpoint
When thinking about where to advertise your school, as mentioned above, you should take into consideration factors such as the specific goals of the campaign and the target audience. But let’s be honest, the chosen option has to fit within your budget.
Just be careful, that math doesn’t include one factor only. It is not as simple equation as “advertisement price = money spent”. Far from that! When you choose the advertising method you should also think about what type of advertisement it will be.
It’s far easier not to forget that part of the equation when you’re considering an offline marketing channel – if you’ll need to print the leaflets you’ll have to have them designed, printed, distributed. An ad in a newspaper? Similarly – designed and handed over to the publisher.
But somehow when we move not digital advertising the costs are getting blurry.
Facebook ads cost 5 €/day? Cool!
Hold your horses! What about the actual ad itself? Or, what is called in the marketing world, an ad creative?
Is it a flat non-moving graphic? A GIF? Or a video? Should this video be recorded in a studio? What kind of equipment is needed for that? Do I need to hire people to do it? Actors, a director, someone to film it, someone to edit it? Or are my own skills enough to produce that ad?
In the vast majority of cases, the video will be the most expensive option, because it's time-consuming and it requires the biggest amount of knowledge and effort to make it. But again, depending on your target audience, the return you can get with a video can be so much higher than costs that it can pay off in the end.
Here is an example: if you notice that your audience usually searches for language tips and lessons on YouTube, it might be a good idea to produce a commercial and broadcast it before the videos of the online teachers (that way you’re leveraging their audience and the content they’re producing!) *
*Just don’t forget to highlight in the ad why they should choose your school over free learning materials available online!
For you the perfect advertising platform might not be YouTube, it can be Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook, or any other social media platform. You need to get to know where your audience is in order to make smart decisions with your advertising money! *
*You can play Sherlock, but we can also help you to solve the mystery of your best platform faster: read this article: “Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Your School” in which we dissect the topic for you.
Here’s an equation to come up with the final price of your advertising:
price proposed by the advertiser
(be it Facebook, newspaper publisher or leaflet distribution cost)
+
cost of creating the ad
+
cost of administrative time
=
the global cost of an ad
But please note, that more often than not this will be just the estimated price. Give yourself some peace of mind and add an additional 10% on top of the number you just came up with.
Also – as mentioned above – advertising is about experimenting. So you might need to run a few tests before you’ll find that one advertising channel or format that actually clicks 🤷♀️
And – you might also need to adjust other parts of your marketing if you want to ensure the success of your campaign, especially if you’re investing in online advertising (read this article to learn more).
Social Media Advertising Costs
We’d like you to think outside the pandemic box and reconsider the amazing choices of offline marketing you have.
However – we are aware that online advertising (if done properly) can be very successful. It is very popular, and it was most probably the reason you started reading this article in the first place (we bet you didn’t expect anyone asking you to consider billboards today, huh? 😉).
So – here we go:
The advertisement prices differ in each social media, and they also depend on the bidding option chosen. The most common ones are accordingly to the number of interactions (likes, views, clicks) that you want the ad to get, but there are quite a lot of types of bids, for example:
CPL: cost-per-like;
CPV: cost-per-view;
CPC: cost-per-click;
CPM: cost-per-thousand-impressions (which means 1000 views);
CPA: cost-per-action (you only pay for your ad when someone converts it in buying your product/service);
CPS: cost-per-send (you pay every time you send a sponsored email to a user);
CPO: cost-per open (you pay every time someone opens your sponsored email);
CPF: cost-per-follow;
CPD: cost-per-download;
CPE: cost-per-engagement (you pay when someone interacts with your post).
Here we made a table summarizing the most used social media advertisers and some prices for those bidding options in 2021. It was based on this article: How Much Does Social Media Advertising Cost, made by WebFX, where you can find more in-depth knowledge about it if you are interested.
[Click on the picture to expand]
We‘ve created advertising to-do list with actionable steps for you to follow in the upcoming two weeks. Created specifically for language schools!
You can access the to-do list library by leaving your email address below:
3 Vital Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Spend Anything On Online Advertising
Here they are:
1. Where do your students already spend their time online & offline?
Remember all the things that we have already said about getting to know your audience? Well, they all apply here as well. (If you need a refresher, go back to this paragraph; for more in-depth knowledge check out our article on creating a client avatar).
Before you decide which type of advertising is the right one for you, it is important to know what kind of student you are trying to target.
As soon as you decide which customer you are targeting with your ads, then it will be much easier for you to choose the right advertising channel which will help grow your business quickly and effectively.
I't’s worth noting here, that sometimes your ideal client walking into a bar with a tote bag with your logo on it might be a better ad than any Facebook campaign. It’s all about being in the right place at the right time!
2. What is your budget for advertising?
After answering the first question, you should determine the budget for your campaign.
But first, let’s clarify the difference between budget and bids, since you might still be confused about the online advertising.
A budget is all the money you’re willing to spend each month on your ads. (Even though in some cases, you may not use your entire monthly budget, due to a good campaign performance).
A bid is what you’re willing to pay for each potential person who will see your ad, click on it, complete an action on your page, follow your account, or view your video.
You will never pay more than your full bid amount, but depending on the quality of your ad, it can generate more than expected numbers of views, clicks, followers, etc.
In plain English – that means that not every person who will click on your ad will become a paying student. It’s actually quite difficult to determine how many students you will get from each campaign* – as some people might need to see a few different ads from you to finally pull the trigger and enroll (this is a far more complicated topic and it has to do with retargeting your ads – we’ll have a closer look at it one day in the future).
*(Unless, possibly, you are an advertising expert knowing all the ins-and-outs of that one specific platform. In which case – why on earth would you reading this article? 😉)
3. How much money are you able to spend on advertising before you’ll start seeing the profits?
In your plan, you will need to consider your initial investment. That is the amount of money that you are able to invest before you will get any return from those bids.
You need to take under consideration that in expat language learning the time between someone seeing your ad for the first time and them actually inquiring about the lessons might take up to months!
You’re not selling shoes or diet supplements - usually people cannot simply click to buy!
You’re selling a lifestyle choice, that more often than not involves your potential students scheduling an intake call (painfully reminding an exam, a topic for another time), choosing the times and dates of the proper course that fits their own calendar, and FINALLY giving you the money.
Hope this example shows you clearly how much more time it might take for you to get your ad money worth and why it is far more important for you to choose your advertising platform carefully rather than jumping on trends.
TIP: A very good tactic to reduce online advertising costs in the beginning and to gain more visibility is to become friends (with benefits 😏 – for both sides) with those YouTubers and influencers who are producing expat-related content. So, you can pay them to create posts for and about your school and/or promote your content on their social media channels, blogs, and websites (this is called guest posting 😉).
In many cases, this tactic turns out to be not only cheaper but also far more effective than conventional online ads.
Conclusion: Make Sure You're Using All of This Information to Decide Where to Advertise Language School!
Now, with all the information given:
compare the prices of the different types of media,
get to know where your students are
and estimate the benefits.
Don’t follow trends just because you saw someone else doing it!
Yes - even if it’s your competitor!
They also might not know what they're doing and put up the façade of having everything under control! 😉
Do the research and choose the advertising platforms wisely – it will save you time, money and bring you more students. If you need any help with that, you can call us Watson! 😉
The Hassle-Free Content Templates For Expat Language Schools
Instead of spending days, weeks, months, or even YEARS searching, clicking, and scrambling to put together all the pieces required for your social media success, you can follow a proven system, roadmap, or path from Point A to Point B.
This is what our Hassle-Free Content Templates For Expat Language Schools provide: the exact formula you need to get where you want to go with little to no overwhelm or information overload.
The information contained on this Website and the resources available for download through this website is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, financial advice. The professional at the Company are not finance professionals and while the information provided on this Website relates to financial issues, the information contained on this Website is not a substitute for financial advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
We have done our best to ensure that the information provided on this Website and the resources available for download are accurate and provide valuable information. Regardless of anything to the contrary, nothing available on or through this Website should be understood as a recommendation that you should not consult with a financial professional to address your particular information. The Company expressly recommends that you seek advice from a professional.
Neither the Company nor any of its employees or owners shall be held liable or responsible for any errors or omissions on this website or for any damage you may suffer as a result of failing to seek competent financial advice from a professional who is familiar with your situation.
