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Return to Bulletin Home - October 2009 |
Five Ways to Tap Into the Power Vancouver's spectacular scenery ... France's romantic charm ... Italy's rich cultural heritage ... Australia's endless beaches ... New York's boundless energy ... Think of a global destination, and an image or association will often appear. This is a crucial point for educational marketers: students do not make their study abroad choices on the basis of educational factors alone—they want a rich and positive experience in a different culture as they take courses. They see this as part of their learning—and a good part of why they are making the extra effort to travel abroad for education. In fact, international education research specialist i-graduate's 2009 International Student Barometer study shows that fully 85% of surveyed students said that the country in which an education institution resides was important to their decision-making regarding study abroad.
For education institutions, destination marketing is a way to promote their entire base of assets—not just the programmes they offer. It involves looking at study abroad the way students do and organising marketing materials accordingly. Promoting only a school's attributes ignores powerful motivators for students choosing where to study. Location matters hugely, and it only makes sense for educational marketers to see themselves also as destination marketers. So where do you start with a destination marketing strategy? Following are five best practices to guide your institution's thinking about this important marketing idea. 1. Establish the destination brand Establishing your brand can be started with a question: "What does my target audience think of my destination now and how can I either leverage this or alter their perception?" Ask your students and alumni what they thought before they came to you about your destination; search your region and city on tourism sites on the Web; and perhaps pick up a travel guide (e.g., Lonely Planet or Fodor's) for your research. With research completed, the next step is to isolate and pump up the positive about your destination—and to seek out strategic partnerships. See what private and/or government tourism associations are operating and if you can become a member and access resources and connections. Then consider which businesses and attractions could increase students' interest in coming to study with you. A ski resort? A fabulous restaurant/bar scene? World-renowned museums and art galleries? Amazing hiking and biking routes and scenery? Easy transportation access to other cities and tourism hotspots?
The South Africa Tourism website puts South Africa's best qualities on full display, anticipates all its audiences, is user-friendly, and serves the interests of a diverse group of South African stakeholders and sectors. Once you have made your list of complementary businesses and organisations, approach them and explain that your school is interested in pooling resources and energy to boost the profile of your destination for the benefit of all involved. As the Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance (DEMA) says on their website, "The world's cities have decisive roles to play in the global battle for talent, tourism and trade. To stand out ... cities must capture attention, inspire, and forge positive reputations through compelling messages and stories." The same can be said for regions. 2. Cooperate to create high-value content Communicating the strengths of your destination requires creating and assembling rich, attractive content—including high-quality photography, video, writing, and translation. Such elements can be expensive. Once you have a group of like-minded businesses and organisations committed to destination marketing, and you've assessed the opportunities for leveraging content that you each already have, it only makes sense to avoid duplication of effort and share costs for creating any additional content resources you require. Decide together which aspects of your destination's attributes are important to all of you (e.g., cityscapes, tourist testimonials, locals talking about what they love about their home, footage of sports or theatre events, etc.), make a content creation plan, and then execute it. A good idea is to set up a secure website devoted to your destination brand—like the Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance (has—with all your content and media. Your school and partners can use this website to access creative elements for separate and/or coordinated marketing platforms and communications. 3. Launch a destination website If your destination doesn't have a compelling public-facing website that represents you well, you could create one (ideally with your partners). Such a website should be highly visual, well designed and written, easily navigable, and interactive. Here are just a few ideas for elements you could include:
The official New York City visitor website makes a very compelling case for visiting New York. One of the best things you can do for your destination website is to invest in SEO (search engine optimisation). At the very least, conduct an exercise to come up with all the possible combinations of phrases people might use to search for you and your partners on Google so you can incorporate keywords into your copy. For example, "study abroad + Europe + beaches + culture" or "best places to study abroad" or "most beautiful regions in the world." Even better would be to employ an SEO expert to come up with a search optimisation plan. Given how much we all now depend on the web for marketing, SEO is a crucial investment. 4. Cross-promote to make your destination irresistible Consumers are always looking for travel and tourism deals, and the past year's worldwide recession has only made this more acute. Discuss with your destination partners how you can offer deals to the others' core audiences. For example, you might offer a 10% discount on a programme in return for free passes to a local ski hill. Such promotions invite the use of additional search keywords (i.e., your prospects may find you through searching keywords related to your partners). They also connect your school to attractive local/regional highlights, helping in the creation or building of a positive and powerful brand image. 5. Make destination marketing an ongoing passion To continue to fuel your destination marketing strategy, keep building your resources and refreshing your marketing communications. Collect testimonials from students; get Google alerts for third-party articles/accolades about your destination; create contests for locals to send in photos representing your destination; blog; create and ask alumni to contribute to a destination profile on social networking groups like Facebook, etc. The nice thing about destination marketing is you can start fairly small and keep building over time until you have a robust platform. In the highly competitive landscape of international education, it only makes sense to use every asset you can. Destination marketing can broaden and intensify your school's brand reach and generate prospects it might never have had otherwise. |
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