Top business analysts predict that education will be one of the top-trending industries, with lots of space to grow and develop, in the near future. For those who already offer foreign language courses, this means it should become easier than ever to attract new students, as long as you know how to market language classes.
And, it’s not enough to just know how to market language classes. You need to know how to do it effectively and how to create interest that results in new students. Market your classes with the three ideas below to not only bring in new potential students but also create lasting connections with people you’re trying to reach with your courses.
In this article, we’ll go through how to bring in those potential students by getting creative on social media, using event marketing, and getting hands-on with email marketing. You’ll even learn about other companies’ experiences implementing marketing strategies and adopting new ideas to reach larger audiences.
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1. Widen your social marketing net
There is an infinite number of ways to get creative with your marketing on social media, to reach potential clients. This can either be an exciting fact or an overwhelming one, but let’s take it as the former.
Consider how much of your brand you can transmit online by involving creative strategies and finding your potential students where they like to spend time. Connecting with them on social media can create a relationship that moves beyond asking for their time and money and becomes a type of content friendship.
Not sure what that looks like? Consider the example of Dunkin’ Donuts. The company recently implemented a new strategy in which they encourage their employees to post about their work on their personal TikTok accounts. While their team would previously invest in content only for it to appear on company accounts, they realized that they’d have a much larger reach on TikTok if their employees shared the content individually, like influencers.
Suddenly, feeds were full of creative short-form content featuring all of their signature drinks. This gave them a ton of exposure, all for the same hourly wage they already paid their workers. In addition, it gave TikTok users a reason to visit Dunkin’ Donuts and see what all the fuss was about. Genius!
Additionally, Dunkin’ Donuts can now take all of that content and use it to market on other social media platforms, whether with hashtags or paid promotions to get others to join the bandwagon.
This way, they leverage Tiktok as a growing platform to introduce content to those on other social media networks. It’s a multi-level strategy with great vision and excellent execution. So, what does this mean for you?
While you don’t have to be the Dunkin’ Donuts of language courses, you can certainly take a pointer from them. If you work with other people, encourage them to post about the work on social media as well. Or, if you’re offering classes on your own, encourage current or former students to post about you on their pages.
If anyone knows how to talk about what’s exciting about learning a language, it’s the people who are teaching it and the people who are enjoying learning it. Even on your own page, share fun facts about the language you teach, funny translations, and more. All of this can be done while pointing viewers back to your course, and possibly convincing them to consider taking classes.
2. Event marketing
Before the pandemic, the best event-marketing examples could often be reduced to things like galas, extravagant performances in city squares, and other large-scale gatherings. Now that the world has moved online for over a year, the possibilities are endless. Again, a reason to be excited, not shy, about your options. There’s so much you can do with what you have at your disposal.
So, how can you use events to market language classes? Event marketing automatically sets you up to be an expert in your field. Why else would you be hosting an event about it, right? Whether it’s virtual or in-person, there are plenty of ways to approach hosting events that bring in new leads, or in your case, potential students. So let’s take a look at a few that could work for you.
Get cultural
No language comes without its own culture. Many even come with a variety of them. Bring in a language instructor with some musical skills to teach a foreign song. Try teaching a recipe from a new country, and include all the vocabulary people will need need to make it. With the right logistics, either of these can be done in person or online.
All you have to remember is to get your attendants’ contact information and follow up about whether they’d like to learn more about the language of the class.
Teach a free one-time group class
You can offer a live free group class or webinar to people who aren’t sure yet if they want to take a class. This will give them an idea of how you will be as a teacher, so if you do it, make sure you’re well prepared for the session.
If it goes well, they’ll be motivated to continue learning and primed for an offer. Market language classes to the students who attend and even to those who sign up and don’t make it. If you have online classes, you can even offer them a special discount code and track how many people use the code to see how effective the class was at bringing in students.
Pop up at a new location
If you’re trying to reach people who already love to learn, find them where they spend time. Whether it’s a community center, a library, or a bookstore, you can market language classes to potential students by hosting events like language exchanges where your clients are already comfortable.
With a pop-up, it becomes a lot easier for those attending to make the mental connection from seeing you at the event to visiting you at your location or taking your online class.
3. Market language classes with email
What is email marketing? It sounds incredibly time-consuming and hard to execute, but you can use it to market language classes more easily than you imagine. All you have to do is identify the type of content your ideal user wants to see.
Perhaps it’s statistics about the growing use of French in certain industries, or maybe it’s trending topics in Arabic-speaking countries. Separate your email list by interest (like the language they want to learn if you offer multiple) and send tailored content that makes them excited to open their email and learn something, no matter how small.
If you’re worried about this taking up a lot of your time, remember that you can set up email automation for each language and measure your results with easy-to-read metrics to analyze what’s working.
Takeaways
Now that you’ve gotten a kickstart on some great ideas to market your language classes, spend some time putting together a strategy that works for you. Assess what resources you have and put your marketing plan to action.
Before you know it, you’ll have a long list of fresh new students ready to start learning a new language. Then, all you have to do is be ready to greet them!
