EdTech Marketing for K-12 and Higher Education: The differences, similarities, and how to do it

There are differences in marketing to HEd vs K-12

Here are the details:

🎯 ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)

K-12: school, school district, supporting center, and state DoE

HEd: university (a single institution)

In K-12, depending on the solution, schools don’t have the authority or the budget to make the decision. However, principals have direct access to influence school district directors.

🎯 Personas’ Key Interests

K-12: Schools and districts seek student performance to reflect on institutional outcomes. The performance comes from removing or organizing the teachers’ workload.

HEd: Student performance is only one of the factors. Market readiness is the ultimate goal. Therefore, all systems must converge to that institutional outcome.

Both, however, need an organized workload. From curriculum, to support and partnerships are key to student success.

🎯 Need for the Solution

K-12: Raising the need can happen both ways: from schools influencing top levels or top levels catering to schools’ needs. The buying group is multi-institutional.

HEd: Especially for institution-wide solutions, the decision is often top-down, particularly demanded by the academic senate.

💥 CONTENT HAS A SPECIAL PLACE IN EDTECH MKTG

🎯 Top of Funnel Content

K-12: Problem-related or Sympathy-related.

HEd: Outcomes-related and Inspiring.

This is the Demand Generation top-of-funnel, where you confirm people’s biases with problems or aspirations they have.

Done right, you get people to self-qualify in your marketing funnel - allowing you to explore themes that lead people down the funnel.

🎯 Middle of Funnel Content

K-12: Provide checklists and guides that help decision-makers evaluate their current situations while providing teachers and principals with assets that allow them to organize their day-to-day, making their workload smarter.

HEd: In this investigation period, people are uncertain and insecure about their job in the project. Provide them with this security by giving them case studies from multiple clients, their previous situation, their aspirations, and their outcomes. The key is to map which of your clients are references in a region, in size, or recognition.

The lead generation starts with the middle of the funnel. Nurture them and follow up both with email nurture and helpful calls from your sales team.

💡 Research shows that people - initially - prefer to do research themselves, but are appreciative of guidance once complexity sets in.

🎯 Bottom of Funnel Content

K-12: Help them take the leap with free trials or eligibility assessments, in the case of government-funded programs.

HEd: Trials and demos are key. However, the buyer’s guide is the ultimate documentation that flags buying interest.

Keep a close relationship between your sales team and the opportunities.

Continue giving them the security and mental ease they need during this procuring period.

🎯 Social Channels

K-12: They “live” on Facebook and Instagram. Your top-of-funnel action has to start there.

HEd: Linkedin is key. Administrators, project managers, and senior management are there for professional reasons.

Don’t just target the “Industry”. There are over 300 decision-making job roles easily targetable on Linkedin for whichever solution you provide - especially if you deal with buying committees.

🎯 Cold Emailing

K-12: It can be effective if you’re targeting specific roles with specific helpful messages. Don’t be salesy. Don’t be generic.

HEd: Only effective if you’re dealing with single decision-makers - no/limited buying groups. Instill curiosity while showcasing an institution of reference to them. Otherwise, don’t do it.

🎯 Warm Emailing

Warm means you know they have interacted with your content: be it downloaded a PDF, watched a webinar, or you identified them on your website.

Get your sales team to reach out by being helpful, offering other assets they might have an interest in.

🎯 Cold Calling

K-12: Contrary to cold emailing - which is used as mass outreach - calling is a 1:1 time-consuming action. Don’t.

HEd: Only do it if you’re not dealing with buying committees. Be helpful, while exploring further a problem they might have.

🎯 Warm Calling

That’s the goal of Inbound-Led Outbound.

Once you get people to interact with your content, call them. If you did Top and Middle of Funnel right, you will give them the security necessary BEFORE THEY CALL YOUR COMPETITOR.

Gain their trust. Trust sells.

🎯 INBOUND-LED OUTBOUND

All the points above led to this.

It’s the concept where you create demand, educate and help them, create trust, and then, get your sales team working the account early on. Again, before your competitors.

It works - especially if your sales cycle is long and involves buying groups.

🏆 This is what we do at SaaSsy. We get your marketing, sales, and automation teams working together toward creating a healthy, predictable pipeline.

🎯 Webinars

Do them, please.

Plan topics for all levels of the funnel, but always be salesy at the end of them, and get your sales team following up right after the webinar. There’s always that person who’s closer to the conversion.

🎯 Pre-Webinar Ads

Webinars have a 50% average attendance. Start your advertising early (6-4 weeks) to make the most of it.

The frequency will depend on the size of your client base or addressable market.

🎯 Webinar Repurposing

Turn your webinar into an on-demand lead-generation asset on your website (and advertise it).

Turn them into blog posts, social posts, and PDFs.

🎯 Pre-Conference Ads

Going to that conference next month? Advertise it and get people to book time with your team.

Start ads 2 weeks prior to the event.

🎯 Features vs Outcomes

Laying down a bunch of features is ineffective.

Saying “student success” is meaningless.

Give meaning to the features: how do they help achieve key outcomes? Connect the dots.

🎯 Brand Awareness

Sure it won’t show direct ROI. Brand Awareness is difficult to measure indeed.

However, who will download a PDF from someone they’ve never heard before?

Introduce yourself, your brand, your clients, your solution.

Run ads that take people to an outcomes page or a clients page, but don’t expect the click. Showing your message, at this stage, is much more important.

Trust is everything in EdTech.

🎯 Thought-Leadership

Showcase your knowledge on the subject.

From case studies to guides, or industry insights, use all you can to feed people’s trust in your solution.

🎯 Visitor Identification

Did you know it’s possible to identify a percentage of people visiting your website?

Although only legal in non-GDPR (and similar laws) regions, you can - in real time - know who’s visiting your website, on which pages, their social profiles, work and mobile phones, and professional emails.

🎯 Company Identification

You can identify companies as well - and it’s legal even in GDPR regions.

You not only get to know which institutions are warm, but you can easily find the key people in the roles of your interest.

This means you can warm-email and warm-call them.

🎯 ABM Retargeting

ABM Retargeting, contrary to traditional ABM, deals directly with warm accounts.

You know they’ve been on your website - and you can guarantee that you’re targeting them only when they cross a threshold of interest.

This way you get to market your solution to buying groups with specific messages to special interest some of the roles in the committee have.

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Hi, I'm Rod👋 

I share marketing content for #EdTech marketers and leaders.

I help EdTech companies build resilient pipelines.

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