Running an online school is no easy task. Between managing courses, serving students, and staying ahead of competitors, it’s easy for marketing efforts to fall into common traps.
Yet, avoiding these pitfalls can be the difference between steady enrollments and stagnant growth. Let’s dive into some of the most common marketing mistakes online school owners make—and how to fix them.
1. Amplify What Matters
After years of working with marketing tools, it’s easy to lose sight of what they’re truly about. Marketing isn’t just about running ads or writing blogs; it’s an amplification tool.
Imagine stepping outside your office to talk about your school. On a good day, you might reach 10 or 20 people.
Now, multiply that by a city, a state, or even a country. That’s what platforms like Google Ads, Meta, and Microsoft Ads enable you to do—amplify your voice, reach the people who matter, and communicate your value proposition at scale.
But here’s the catch: amplification only works if you’re amplifying the right message.
Too often, online schools focus on features like “24/7 access” or “interactive platforms,” when what prospective students care about are the outcomes—career advancement, certifications, or guaranteed job placement.
Would you enroll in a course because it has a mobile app, or because it can help you land your dream job in 90 days? Outcomes matter more than features.
What to Amplify:
Your marketing should highlight what makes your school unique and valuable to your students. Ask yourself:
- Are you emphasizing the real benefits of your courses, like career outcomes or life-changing skills?
- Is your message clear, direct, and easy to understand?
- Are you aligning your ads, website, and email campaigns with what your students care about most
2. Track the Conversations That Drive Decisions
In the education space, decisions aren’t made overnight.
Most students need multiple touchpoints before they’re ready to enroll—reviewing your website, reading testimonials, or talking to your sales team. This means your sales team often plays a critical role in reiterating your value proposition and addressing concerns at the very last step before students pay for enrollment.
But here’s the challenge: how do you know if your sales process is working as effectively as it could be?
Without tracking sales calls, you miss out on crucial insights:
- Are your sales representatives sticking to your script?
- What common questions or objections are students raising?
- Are there missed opportunities to reinforce your unique value proposition?
Why This Matters:
When you track sales calls, you unlock powerful data that can help you optimize not just your sales process but also your marketing. Tools like CallRail allow you to:
- Monitor your sales team’s performance to ensure consistency.
- Identify recurring objections and address them in your ads, FAQ pages, or blog posts.
- Track leads from ads to calls to enrollments, giving you a complete picture of your sales funnel.
Amplify the Right Conversations:
Your sales calls are extensions of your marketing efforts. By tracking and analyzing them, you can ensure your messaging stays consistent across every touchpoint, helping potential students feel confident in their decision to enroll.
3. Protect Your Most Valuable Traffic: Branded Searches
As your school’s reputation grows, your brand becomes one of your most valuable assets. When prospective students know your name, they’re already pre-sold—they trust your school and are looking to learn more or take the next step.
But here’s the mistake many online schools make: they fail to secure their branded traffic.
Competitors often bid on your brand name in search ads, hoping to redirect students searching for your school to their own programs. And it works—many users click the first link they see, assuming it’s the official result.
Why This Matters:
Branded traffic is your lowest-cost, highest-converting traffic. Students searching for your name are already interested and likely further down the enrollment funnel. If you don’t secure this traffic, you’re leaving your warmest leads vulnerable to competitors who often piggyback on that opportunity.
How to Fix It:
Run branded campaigns on Google and Microsoft Ads to ensure your school appears at the top of search results. These campaigns:
- Keep competitors from hijacking your traffic.
- Reinforce your brand authority.
- Typically your money-makers with the highest CR and ROAS.
Own Your Flow:
Think of branded campaigns as owning the flow of your traffic. Don’t rely on students to figure out which link is yours—guide them to the right place and ensure their journey leads to your school, not a competitor’s.
The Bottom Line
Marketing is your most powerful amplification tool, but it only works when you focus on what truly matters to your audience.
Highlight outcomes, not just features.
Track the critical conversations your sales team is having to refine your messaging and process.
And finally, protect your branded traffic—your warmest leads deserve a clear path to your school, not your competitors.
By avoiding these common mistakes, you’ll transform your marketing into a system that consistently drives enrollments, reinforces your brand, and grows your online school.
