StudyQA — Reaching potential students in Russia: marketing tips for universities

Student mobility trends are changing:  countries that once were origin of only insignificant amount of students are now emerging as big players on the international education market. According to OECD research, Russia is one of them. Already in 2011 it was sending 70,000 students abroad, being the third in Europe in this domain.

Now the question for the universities is how to attract the potential students from Russian. Here one can employ the number of marketing tools, the choice of which depends on the university target audience.

Attracting specific groups of students

If the university wants to attract graduates from specific groups, like youth from certain schools or cities, then the personal meetings are the most effective. The classical tools are:

1. Personal visits to schools for student presentations. This creates a situation when more than several classmates and friends can become interested in studying at the same university. Research has shown that 20% of the students were ready to move from home to the university if friends were going with them. This means that involving not just one potential student, but a potential student with friends will increase the chances for enrollment.
2. Presentations to parents. Education investment became the favorite type of investment for Russian parents. They have an immediate influence on potential students’ decision on studying abroad and on the initial stages can also sponsor these studies. So presenting them the university is an important step in attracting students.
3. Education fairs. Russia is holding every year education fairs, such as International Education Fair which takes place in autumn in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Smaller events are held around the country through the whole year. Among the cities involved are Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Samara, and Tyumen. The complete list of fairs is available here. This is a chance to meet personally potential students from certain geographical locations and present the advantages of the university to them.

Attracting wide range of students

In Russia, 71.3 % of the population use the Internet, which makes it a powerful marketing tool. Private companies are already using it and are practicing omni-channel approach, multiple touch-point interactions. They are present on multiple channels and approaching potential customers from multiple sides – through different social networks, technologies and ad placements. The omni-channel approach makes particular sense in Russia, as Internet audience in the last years grows only insignificantly. It only grew from 101,928,190 in 2015 to 102,258,256 in 2016, so now this is the time to work on the intensity of the connection with potential customers and not just their quantity. This approach is valid also for the universities.

Reaching through Google Adwords

It is traditionally considered that Russians prefer local search engine Yandex over Google, but now the situation has changed: Google is now slightly ahead with 20,5 million using its desktop version at least once a month, while Yandex is used only by 20,4 million. This puts Google AdWords in focus for ad placement efforts. In case of doubts which search engine suits particular advertising needs better, our article “Google AdWords or Yandex Direct” can be used as a point of reference.

The main trick with Google AdWords advertising is including both Google Search and Display Ads. Here are two main reasons why:

1. With growing interest in studying abroad, Russians go online to search for people who have done similar experience – bloggers. With Display Ads, one can handpick blogs of these students studying abroad and place your advertisement there to reach the big percentage of the target audience.
2. With Display Ad, one gets a possibility to include an ad on Youtube, which gives access to big Russian audience – in 2016 47,4 millions of Russians were using Youtube. What is more, Russians more than anyone are eager to watch Youtube ads, especially on mobile. So make sure to adjust targeting accordingly!

Reaching through messengers

Chatbots used in messengers are slowly climbing the peak of fashion in Russia. Not many use them yet, but many talk about them. So if well done, a chatbot answering questions about enrollment could really help to reach prospective students.

A chatbot can provide information on deadlines, visa and entry exams on the initial stage of introduction of the university to the prospective student. This will make the enrollment preparation procedure easier and smother. Right now there are three main messengers where the chatbot technology can be employed:

1. Telegram. Telegram active user base had a threefold increase since last year and now equals to 6 million. The main age group is young people in the age range of 18 to 24, which makes Telegram a perfect channel for targeting potential students.
2. The chatbot technology in Telegram is also enfolding quickly – Yandex has recently bought a 21% share of the American company 200 Labs (Chatfuel), who is working mostly on chatbots for this messenger. In Telegram, there are already 100,000 active chatbots.
3. VKontakte. VKontake is the main Russian social network with 25,7 million active users. The two main age groups are people of 25 to 34 (37%) and of 18 to 24 (25,7%). VKontake employs its own chatbot technology, with information for developers available here. The interface is different from other chatbot platforms: there are no message templates, buttons, menus, and extensions.
4. Facebook. Facebook is of less interest for recruiting universities, as the Russian audience there is older than on VKontakte. The main age groups are the following: 37% are people between 25 and 34 and 30,6% - between 35 and 44. However, the chatbot technology of Facebook Messenger is the most developed among the messengers, so in case if your target audience in Russia is potential PhD students, Facebook is definitely an option to consider.