International students are a key part of any educational institution’s lifeblood, bringing fresh ideas, drive, ambition and cultural diversity.
They can also help to fill course places and often pay higher fees than home students, giving vital funding to the educational institutions they attend.
One major group of international students are those from India.
This blog post will provide three tips for educational institutions wanting to attract Indian students to enrol with them.
1. Focus on return-on-investment and job prospects
Offering an excellent return-on-investment and post-study job prospects is key to attracting Indian students. In a recent survey of almost 13,000 Indian international students, whether a course leads to their chosen career was the single most important factor that students said influenced them when choosing a course, with 57% choosing this option.
Therefore, you should make sure to highlight graduate outcomes in your marketing messaging and provide clear, prominent and easy-to-access information about your educational institution’s provision of career support, post-study employment networks and the availability of internships. You may also want to create some inspirational content highlighting career success stories that your Indian international alumni have achieved.
2. Address financial concerns with honesty and openness
Indian international students are quite price-sensitive and therefore financial concerns and budgeting will likely be at the forefront of their minds.
Be honest and clear about your tuition fees and the typical cost of living in your country. You may want to have a section on your website where you offer a detailed breakdown of average day-to-day living expenses, so that prospective students can budget properly and know exactly what to expect. You should also make it clear on your website if you offer any scholarships or financial support.
If your costs are quite high, make sure to highlight what kind of benefits students can expect in return: world-class standards of education, higher standards of living, and excellent career prospects and salaries post-graduation, for example. High costs will not necessarily dissuade talented prospective students from applying, if they understand the value they get in return.
3. Create a strong digital marketing strategy
Make sure that you have a strong digital marketing strategy specifically for attracting Indian students. This should include your website strategy (make sure your website includes a dedicated section for students from India, so that they can access all the information they need in one place), content marketing strategy (video should be a key content type when it comes to attracting Indian students, whether organically or through paid media) and social media strategy (Facebook should take priority, but YouTube is a very close second).
I hope this blog post has given you a useful introduction on how to attract Indian students to your educational institution. For more in-depth information and advice, read the full-length guide here. The guide covers:
- what the typical Indian international student is like
- how Indian students choose which educational institution to study at
- actionable advice on how to attract Indian students
Elin Box
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