Content Marketing Plan For Scheller College of Business
Personas
Personas represent potential MBA students (target audience segments). They are created to help you understand who you are designing and writing for and their needs, goals, and pain points. Personas also allow us to develop empathy by communicating and resonating with our target audience segments. By empathizing with our potential MBA students, we’ll be able to build trust and position our MBA programs as the solution to their pain points.
Examples of Personas
Executive Elena | Corporate ladder Carl | New career Nick | Entrepreneur Eddy |
Elena is a thirty-five-year-old female executive working at Accenture in Atlanta, GA. She wants to be promoted and earn a higher salary. Elena also wants to become a better leader to motivate and empower her team. | Carl is a forty-year-old male working at Atlanta Seaquarium. He has held the position of New Business Development Manager for the past seven years and wants to position himself to qualify for the Director of New Business Development position. Carl’s employer offers tuition reimbursement and supports his MBA decision. | Nick is a twenty-five-year-old male working as a territory manager for a local plumbing supply company in Atlanta, GA. He has a B.A. in Education and very little knowledge of business subjects. Nick is bored, does not enjoy his current job, and thinks he may feel more satisfied in a business role. | Entrepreneur Eddy is 40 years old and has been running a local French Bistro for the past five years. His business is doing well, and it is time for him to expand and open new locations. However, Eddy is not confident with his current skillset and thinks an MBA may position him better for expansion. |
Benefits of Personas
- Department-wide understanding of who our potential MBA students are
- Deep understanding of their behavior and needs
- Prevent everyone from discussing themselves, friends, and family as potential MBA students. We create content for personas, and although we may like something, we must make sure that the personas will resonate with our content.
- More practical, focused planning of paid ad campaigns and content creation
- Develop greater empathy with potential MBA students
The relationship between personas and content
According to a survey of 3,600 grads conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), 87% of business school alums have experienced a positive return on investment on their graduate business school degree. Potential and current MBA students have different reasons why they want to pursue an MBA degree. And when we know the reasons, we can create content that will resonate with each of our personas. Below is an infographic of the top seven reasons for pursuing graduate business school.
Content recommendations for each stage of the funnel
| Persona #1 | Awareness | Consideration | Conversion |
| Executive Elena | Elena has realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem or opportunity. | Elena has clearly defined and given a name to her problem or opportunity. | Elena has defined her solution, strategy, method, or approach. |
| Elena is a thirty-five-year-old female executive working at Accenture in Atlanta, GA. She wants to be promoted and earn a higher salary. Elena also wants to become a better leader to motivate and empower her team. | Top of the funnel content Blog Posts: How to fast-track up the corporate ladder | Middle of the funnel content Blog Posts: The richest women in the world with an MBA. Which MBA is right for me? An interactive quiz of some sort (e.g., Do you want to keep working Y/N – Y goes to Evening or EMBA, and N goes to FT) Infographics MBA to Entrepreneur | Bottom of the funnel content Content: A day in the life of an Executive MBA student (male and female) |
| Persona #2 | Awareness | Consideration | Conversion |
| New Career Nick | Nick has realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem or opportunity. | Nick has clearly defined and given a name to their problem or opportunity. | Nick has defined his solution, strategy, method, or approach. |
| Nick is a twenty-five-year-old male working as a territory manager for a local plumbing supply company located in Atlanta GA. Nick is bored and does not enjoy his current job and thinks that he may feel more satisfied in a business role. He has a B.A. in Education and very little knowledge of business subjects. | Top of the funnel content Blog Posts: The top five highest paying business careers Interactive Quiz Which profession/industry am I most compatible with? | Middle of the funnel content Blog Posts: The pros and cons of an MBA Interactive Quiz Which MBA is right for me? An interactive quiz of some sort (e.g., Do you want to keep working Y/N – Y goes to Evening or EMBA, and N goes to FT) | Bottom of the funnel content Content: A day in the life of an MBA student who switched careers. (Male and female) |
| Persona #3 | Awareness | Consideration | Conversion |
| Entrepreneur Eddy | Eddy has realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem or opportunity. | Eddy has clearly defined and given a name to their problem or opportunity. | Eddy has defined his solution, strategy, method, or approach. |
| Entrepreneur Eddy is 40 years old and has been running a local French Bistro for the past five years. His business is doing well and it is time for him to expand and open new locations. | Top of the funnel content Blog Posts: How to fast-track the corporate ladder Interactive Quiz What kind of entrepreneur am I? | Middle of the funnel content Blog Posts: MBA to Entrepreneur Interactive Quiz Which MBA is right for me? An interactive quiz of some sort (e.g., Do you want to keep working Y/N – Y goes to Evening or EMBA, and N goes to FT) | Bottom of the funnel content Content: A day in the life of an MBA student (Entrepreneur, male and female) |
Personas | The reasons why they want to pursue an MBA | Content that resonates with personas in the awareness stage |
Executive Elena | To earn more money To become a better leader for her team |
|
Corporate ladder Carl | To be promoted at work or open up new job opportunities |
|
New career Nick | To switch careers |
keywords: career change preparation, develop skills for a new job, gain experience in a different field) |
Entrepreneur Eddy | To start or grow a business |
keywords: mba skills, entrepreneurial skills, management skills, strategic planning)
keywords: full-time mba programs, part-time mba programs, online mba programs)
keywords: how to use mba for starting a business, how to use mba for growing a business, strategic planning with an mba) |
The relationship between content and SEO
What is SEO and why should we invest in it?
SEO is a marketing strategy that optimizes a website to ensure that internet search engines easily find it. We are optimizing Scheller’s website so that we can appear on the first page of organic results.
It is essential to recognize the importance of content and understand how it can be used to achieve our goals. For content creators to create successful content, they need to know what the audience wants and wants when they visit a site or search engine result page. The keywords they type into the search bar indicate their desire.
Why SEO?
The higher education sector has been one of the fastest-growing industries on the internet over the past few years, and competition in this industry is getting more fierce by the day. Scheller should invest heavily in content marketing and SEO to stand out from its competitors.
We are currently spending $ on Google ads with an average cost per form completion and cost per enrollment of $2000.What if we could create an evergreen funnel of leads with content and SEO?
When planning to develop new content, ask yourself these questions:
- Who is the target audience segment?
- Which pain points are you addressing?
- What are long tail keywords to incorporate into your content?
- What action would you like them to take?
- How can I structure my content in a Problem-Agitate-Solution format?
Content and Interlinking
- It provides a better user experience, and Google is all about user experience.
- When search engines crawl our pages, the interlinks to other pages help them to understand our content more clearly. When search engines understand what we are about and what we are offering, we’ll appear on the first or second page of results for specific keyword searches.
It’s important to note that interlinking has to be natural and cannot appear as if we are only doing it for SEO.
Content Mapping to the Conversion Funnel
When creating content, you should first determine the objective of the content. Are you creating awareness? Are you moving leads from awareness to interest or from interest to the conversion stage? The illustration below shows the different stages and content recommendations for each stage of the student’s journey.
Content Syndication ( Backlinking Strategy)
Content syndication is an effective strategy for increasing the number of backlinks and getting more exposure for our content.The process involves using RSS feeds, which are used to publish content automatically on other sites.When it comes to content syndication, the goal is to have your content distributed on as many sites as possible. This way, you can get your content in front of more potential students and increase your backlink count.
Any kind of digital content can be syndicated, including blog posts, articles, infographics, videos and more
Content syndication can be a great way to reach new audiences and promote your content. But, like all marketing activities, it’s important to have a solid strategy in place.
Here are some tips for creating a successful content syndication strategy:
- Start with great content. This is the foundation of your entire strategy.
- Define your business goals. What do you hope to achieve with content syndication?
- Identify suitable syndication partners. Who will be interested in sharing your content?
- Create winning pitches. Why should potential partners want to work with you?
- Map out your short- and long-term plans. What’s your timeline for syndicating content?
- Find relevant partners. If you’re going to re-publish your content, make sure it will be featured on popular, high-ranking websites that reach your target audience. Research potential syndication partners and reach out to them. Potential partners include Business Week, Harvard Business Review, Time Magazine, Forte Foundation’s Blog,
- Make sure your content is a good match for the website you’re approaching. If it is, they are likely to be interested in featuring it.
- Keep your syndicated content updated and current. This will ensure that readers will continue to visit the site where your content is featured, and help you build a relationship with the site’s editors or owners.
