How to Target Gen-Zs for Your Educational Institute?

“Gen-Z” has recently become one of the most used buzzwords. Everyone seems to be working on targeting Gen-Zs. But what people primarily miss out on is that targeting Gen-Zs isn’t just a matter of calling them out. It’s a different level of effort. There are a lot of constants you need to keep in mind. Targeting Gen-Zs is exponentially of greater importance for educational institutions like yours since they are the people you’ll be catering to at the end of the services you provide. It would help to have a complete roadmap to start your journey targeting Generation Z.

The Underline

Gen Z has lived online more than any generation. They are true digital natives and are influenced like no other. Their value systems are different, such as they are very woke in topics related to public communication. You must target them differently: hitting them with their values on their platforms at their time in their way. This requires you to research extensively about them, especially those present in your audience.

What’s Your Story?

Gen-Zs love to know the story of every new person they interact with. You are the same for them. They want to see the story behind your institute, you as the founder, and the people associated with it. But just telling your story isn’t the only thing you need to do. Choosing the right platforms is also your task. Gen-Zs are scrolling through short-form video content; ideally, you want your communication to go through Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. The content should be very visual and engaging, and the word that they love the most, “authentic.” Let your current students take over your videos, which will help potential students connect with you.

They Don’t Want To Read Text

Gen-Zs don’t prefer theory. There are two reasons for that. First, they have very short attention spans and can’t focus on one subject/topic for a long time. Another reason is that they know theory doesn’t work. In actuality, the theory is of no use in the industry. What this means is that when putting effort into marketing, you should be offering and marketing practical learning. In simple terms, assure them that what they are learning is industry-aligned. Alongside this, you also need to publicize the career opportunities that you provide to your students. The reason is simple: money gathers attention and they know what RoI means. Again, make it authentic, and let students market you.

Let Influencers Influence

Here’s a funny thought: gen-Zs listen to online influencers more than their parents. It’s a satire, of course. But if you think about it rationally, influencers have a significant impact. You can do two things: build influencers or hire micro-influencers. You can make students the face of your institute’s brand. On a small scale, it creates student ambassadors as influencers. To sustain them, you can incentivize them in some form. Or hire local micro-influencers to do the job for you. It’s an excellent strategy to kickstart influencer marketing.

Give Them The Authenticity Pill

The article already remarked on how much Gen Zs love the word “authenticity.” It would then be self-explanatory, but still, let’s dedicate a section just covering the authenticity aspect. Create a personality. It would sometimes feel that creating an institution’s personality is useless and intangible. However, studies have shown that content with personality is more engaging and impacts the viewer’s mind more. Accordingly, showcase your core values to your potential students. You may publish content that consists of community service and social responsibility if that is true to your brand.

Use Tech to Your Advantage

Use tech to the fullest in your marketing efforts. Gen-Zs love fancy tech play-throughs. For a simple start, you can live-stream on Instagram and YouTube, interact with the students directly, and engage them in a Q&A session. You can also integrate chatbots on your website to solve every student's query instantly. And if you have a deep love for technology, you can go as far as to integrate an AR campus tour on the website, giving students the power to know how it is to be on the campus beforehand. All this aims to achieve the gamification of the web journey that the visitor goes through.

What’s Your Campus Like?

You can disagree as much as you want, but it’s a fact that Gen-Zs are more interested in the events of an institute than the quality of education in the institute. On your social media platforms, showcase the events you have in your institute. If it is feasible, try to organize virtual events where any student who’s interested in your institute can experience your campus traditions and conclusively enroll in your institute.

Make Sure You Are Accessible

Your published information is useless if “Gen-Zs” can’t access it. To ensure accessibility, optimize everything for smartphones or mobile devices. This is so important because these people access the whole web through mobile devices, so they must see the information consistently on their preferred devices. This solves the accessibility problem. However, accessible content does not engage. You need to personalize your content and targeting, too. Use data-driven marketing tools to personalize the Gen-Z targeting.

Conclusion

The whole article speaks for your target audience. You can not target the new target audience—the Gen-Zs—the same way you targeted the old audience of millennials, per se. These small intricacies in the way you target your audience and the audience you target makes the whole difference in your digital marketing efforts. This is also why educational institutions choose a specialized digital marketing agency like Mediagarh for their digital efforts. It helps you leverage their expertise and grow immensely in a very short span of time. To conclude in one line: target Gen-Zs with authentic and personalized content.