Education PR

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We handle this across the full education spectrum.

School businesses use us to resolve pain points, getting the right messages to their audiences - generating leads and positive media profiles.

We keep universities and schools ahead of the pack with new digital marketing techniques – helping them influence their student, parent, business and investor stakeholders.

Our entire education PR team is spearheaded by expert strategists and specialists who are well-versed in brand positioning, design, tone of voice development, and creative communications strategies.

We’re here to offer support and guidance, no matter where you may be in the world. Prohibition’s press office is an extension of your marketing team, we’re your PR Director, providing ‘always-on’ PR support and solutions.

 If a brand is to reach its target audience, the message needs to hit the right education publications. An education PR agency can open these doors – identifying stories and creating the best content to change the behaviour of target customers and stakeholders.

Our team is made up of ex-journalists, copywriters and education PR experts – people that can turn a story into something the media wants to feature. Our experience of this sector is huge and varied. We’ve supported trade bodies in the promotion of school uniform benefits. We’ve helped a start-up launch a tool to help pupils to pass exams. We’ve even successfully launched the ambitious rebrand of a foundation of independent schools, steeped in heritage. 

 The education sector is challenging, with hundreds of brands and institutions vying for editorial space. Good content equals media coverage, which in-turn drives web traffic, sign-ups and sales.

We work alongside existing teams to identify target audiences and create content that will put our clients in front of them. Using our clients’ stories, we draft content such as press releases, features and case studies to promote their products and services, and we can support their events.

We don’t blast out emails to place content with everyman and his paper. We research target media, think what they might actually want from our clients, and then sell the idea to them – by speaking to them about our clients. 

Struggling to rank higher on SERPs? It’s highly likely that a younger audience will be wanting to find out more information about your academic institution through online, visual or audio search.

Digital PR plays an important role in this. Digital PR involves creating proactive, planned, and reactive campaigns in order to achieve backlinks from strong online reputable sources.

Our carefully considered PR strategy will secure backlinks that indicate to Google that your content is trustworthy in the higher education sector – improving your site’s organic rankings.

Our ‘always-on’ approach makes sure we’re utilising every media opportunity to build an authoritative and reputable presence in this busy sector.

When it comes to outreach, we only target the publications that truly matter to the higher education sector.

Over the ten years we’ve been operating as a public relations agency, our team has developed strong relationships with key education journalists and this has resulted in a specialist understanding of the news agenda.

Whether it’s highlighting your expertise in a certain field, university research, or abroad placement opportunities; our education PR expertise will use media relations to put your brand at the forefront of news outlets and drive consumer interest.

Social media offers a personal way of reaching several audiences through content marketing, whilst also allowing you to respond in real time.

Through a legion of communications, our team can develop an image of your brand and provide helpful information that audiences are wanting from educational institutions. For universities and colleges, this could consist of information on partnered industry bodies, research facilities, campus amenities, funding opportunities, or general student life.

In addition to this, we can also assist your social media campaigns with videography content such as testimonials from current or graduated students to make your brand messages succinct and easily digestible.

Another way to amplify your organic efforts is through paid social advertising.

Paid advertising enables us to touchpoint users through behaviours such as location, demographic, and timings.

This allows our team to subject your content to a certain age group, for instance, targeting the 18-22 age bracket – which will be a large majority of the student population. This could even be broadened to later generations, such as post-graduates or even parents so they can recommend your higher education facility to their children.

To drive recruitment further, we can re-target people who have already interacted with your page and prompt them to re-engage through personalised content.

Looking to shift your target audience? Wanting to target academics from a competitor’s campus? Influencer marketing should be a key part of your strategy.

Influencers have an active listening audience that respects and values their opinions. In the higher education sector, this could be figureheads from your alumni, celebrity endorsements, or popular student newspapers that can share your brand message.

From sourcing to vetting, our team will match an influencer to your business goals and needs – that will drive brand advocacy from not just students, but parents, teachers, and firms across the UK and beyond.

Digital marketing is evolving every day, especially when it comes to SEO. Not only can methods such as digital PR improve organic performance, but social media marketing is now powering search.

Communication comes as second nature to us. By aligning your communications across your channels, you’re able to present more direct and authentic messages to your target audience – supporting overall employer branding.

Digital may be growing, but offline marketing and PR techniques should not be ignored. Raising awareness through events, billboard advertising, and newspaper coverage will create word-of-mouth and prompt users to visit your site organically.

We’re a full-service PR and marketing agency, which means we can achieve comprehensive media coverage online and offline. Not every student is online, especially students that are older and are registering to follow their passion, so by reaching them through traditional methods we’re not leaving anyone behind.

This proves beneficial for education facilities as our media relations services can generate interest from local press offices, as well as national media – meaning we’re able to drive referrals from a number of sources.

In a world where face-to-face interactions are limited, events bring genuine interactions that lead to a higher quality of lead – kicking them further down the sales cycle.

Higher education students are going to be spending several years of their life at an institution,’ so they need to feel confident they’re making the right choice. 

This is not only a sales tool to entice students but for schools, government departments, stakeholders, as well as large and small businesses, to highlight the benefits your education facility brings by partnering with them.

Events can take a long time to plan but don’t worry we’re event specialists. For Northumbria University, we developed a university-wide social media strategy to deliver a series of workshops and face-to-face training sessions with key stakeholders. 

We’re here to take this pressure off your hands, as well as deliver a fantastic job.

Tuition costs don’t come cheap, so prospective students will want to make sure it warrants the investment.

Content marketing sells your experience and career opportunities, through captivating imagery and video content. Our creative team can provide a multitude of video services; co-operate, thought leadership content, TV adverts, or social media content.

Online video content consumption is only growing, with dedicated video platforms such as TikTok and Instagram enabling new ways to reach audiences.

Reputation is everything in the education sector, prospective academics want to know they’re going to a reputable higher education facility that’s going to look amazing on their CV. And with the jobs market more competitive than ever, holding your business to the highest amount of integrity is where institutions can shine.

For stakeholders, it’s this reputation that will make them choose you over competitors. At the end of the day, a partnership needs to show the stakeholder’s business in the best possible light too.

It doesn’t matter what level your higher education facility is, we know the strategies to stand you out against your other counterparts through reputation management.

Is a story having a detrimental effect on your brand? We’re crisis management specialists, we’re here to make a bad story go away or prevent one from happening.

We provide professional consultancy services in crisis management and expert handling of complex media enquiries, so we can look after your best interests and business interests at all times and in all circumstances.

Being able to communicate effectively and get your key brand messages across to the media is absolutely essential in order to build or maintain a reputable brand.

We run comprehensive courses on all aspects of media training, helping you make the most out of the media and make your team communications experts. Or even better, let us handle your comms.