As Chinese families choose a school, they make use of many different online channels for research.
Reaching these potential students can be daunting due to cultural differences and the complexities of the Chinese digital landscape. We simplify this process for you.
With over 15 years of experience, we offer comprehensive marketing services to help private schools build trust and drive growth in China.
Your One-Stop Solution for Private School Marketing and Sales in China
With us as your strategic partner, you instantly gain access to an all-inclusive Chinese marketing and sales team that will seamlessly integrate with your global marketing and admissions team, handling high-level communications and hands-on marketing efforts.
In short, this means you’ll have a higher chance of succeeding and the ability to grow faster.
But what does this mean for your school in practical terms? Let’s break it down.
Reach an Optimal Strategy Faster
Our approach involves taking your existing strategy, refining it to align with Chinese market dynamics, and implementing it effectively.
Using a lean process, we will work together with you to continuously improve your strategy based on real market feedback.
Drive Attention With Targeted Advertising
Using highly targeted ads on major Chinese platforms such as Baidu, WeChat, and Xiaohongshu, you’ll attract students and parents early on in their decision process.
This will help you build a well-targeted following of potential students eager to absorb more information about your school.
Launch a Chinese Website That Works
One problem with many schools’ websites is that they don’t load quickly in China. The “Great Firewall of China” throttles incoming and outgoing Internet traffic.
We’ll create a Chinese website that looks similar to its English counterpart. Check out this example of Saint Mary’s School, a Chinese sister site to their original website.
Earn The Trust of Your Future Students
Choosing a school to attend is one of the most major decisions in life. Students and their parents begin the decision process years ahead of time, and you need to be there for them throughout the entire process.
We’ll “transcreate” your English source content into articles, images and videos, then publish on your Chinese website, the super-app WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili and Zhihu.
We create entertaining and insightful content that receives 3X the engagement rate of other schools.
“Nanjing Marketing Group’s service is 5/5 stars.
We appreciate their professional content planning, online event organization, and social marketing for us.”
– Ryan Du, China Program Officer, Conestoga International Education
NMG helped Conestoga attract as many Chinese international student recruitments as they wanted.
Convert Inquiries to Enrollments
Our teams include not online marketers, but full-time education agents.
But, while agents will try to sell students on four schools, we will sell them on only your school.
The result is a higher conversion rate.
Enjoy Crystal-Clear Communication
You’ll get:
- Visual reports with data from all platforms and your website.
- Weekly video meeting availability.
- Efficient planning on ClickUp (project management tool).
- Slack or WeChat group chats.
“It is exciting to see the number of followers has increased after each posting on WeChat.”
– Becky Xu, International Manager, Cambrian College
We helped increase Cambrian College’s enrollments of Chinese international students by 600% from 2019–2021, DURING A PANDEMIC.
Chinese Private School Marketing FAQ
Most of the education industry is not heavily restricted in China. However, K12 promotions (referring to kindergarten through 12th grade) are strictly prohibited. Additionally, your promotional materials cannot feature minors as spokespersons, nor can they include claims of guaranteed academic advancement or promised results. You also need to ensure that your landing page does not feature children.
Firstly, K12 advertising is explicitly prohibited and can only be promoted through organic marketing.
For other educational sectors, if you want to advertise on Baidu, you must provide a digital version of your business license (certificate of incorporation) and a screenshot of your bank statement (transaction amounts can be obscured using mosaic). For advertising on Xiaohongshu, only a business license is required.
You also need to ensure that your landing page does not feature children.
It’s unlikely you need to be concerned about your website being blocked. Even If you use Google Analytics on your website, it also will not have a problem.
There is a chance your website loads slowly in China. We will help you check. If that is the case, we will recommend one of several options such as modifying your website, creating a new Chinese website, or using a landing page hosted by Baidu.
If your guidebooks/videos are on a major Western platform such as YouTube, they certainly will not load in China.
From the decision to start to the start of promotion, it can take as little as two weeks, but more commonly takes a month. The first step is to reach out to us and have a meeting. After that, we normally respond with a quote in two work days.
In 99.9% of cases, you need a Chinese website. Even if your target audience speaks English, a Chinese website (Google Translate does not count) will enhance their experience. Additionally, the Chinese content used on the website might also be repurposed for use on WeChat, Xiaohongshu, or other platforms. Furthermore, since you are in the education industry, your website cannot feature photos of children.
Around 80% of our clients have this problem, and hiring a Chinese admissions officer right from the start is not cost-effective. Our bilingual team members will learn about your business, communicate with your clients in Chinese, and provide real-time feedback in English. When your business grows to the point where it’s time to hire a full-time Chinese admissions officer, we will help train this employee to prepare them for the role.
You provide us with the English content in any format, and we will adapt it for use in China. For private schools, whitepapers and videos are essential, as is the basic information about the institutions.
If you don’t yet have it on your English site, it’s also great to gather information about the neighborhood. Chinese students care about the school environment, surrounding transportation, extracurricular activities, and social opportunities, while their parents care about the quality of education, school safety, teacher qualifications, and the institution’s overall reputation. We will ask you for this information. If you provide it, you’ll find you get more inquiries from potential students.
We will share a visual report of the previous month’s promotional results with you every month and set the promotion plan for the following month together. Quarterly, we will review and brainstorm ideas for where to concentrate our efforts. Of course, in the early stages of your project, communication will be more frequent, with weekly meetings or daily messages via WeChat, Slack, and email.
We have significantly boosted enrollments for Saint Mary’s School by implementing a comprehensive marketing strategy, particularly focusing on Xiaohongshu. Before our collaboration in January 2023, Saint Mary’s School faced fierce competition, no brand recognition or Chinese digital presence. Within four months, we grew Xiaohongshu followers to 639, received 185 inquiries, and helped generate 19 applications from Chinese students.
First, contact us to have a meeting with a strategy consultant. We will learn more about your current situation and goals. We can usually provide guidance to you in that meeting. Then, if you want a proposal, we can create one in two work days on average (slower during busy periods). Once everything is ready, you can start your China market promotion.
More often than not, our clients in the industry have us handle everything from project initiation to implementation and strategy. If you want to be more involved or need to control accounts, we also welcome it.
We also offer services as simple as account setup and one-time consulting.
Contact Us for a Free Consultation
Whether it’s through email, chat, or a scheduled video meeting, we’re here to help.
We’ll identify the potential obstacles hindering your expansion in China, and we’ll recommend the best course of action based on your individual needs.
If you think we’re a good fit, you’ll receive a proposal within a week.