Launch and Manage Your Successful Homeschool Marketing Campaign
Launching a successful homeschool marketing campaign requires careful planning, strategic execution, and ongoing optimization. Master the practical aspects of implementing your campaign, from choosing the right content type to measuring success and maximizing long-term value with this guide.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Evergreen Post Versus Product Review
- Side by Side Examples of Reviews Versus Evergreen Posts
- How to Choose Keywords for Your Review Campaign
- Measuring ROI of Influencer Campaigns
- Defining Your Target Audience within the Homeschool Market
- Setting Realistic Goals and Objectives for Homeschool Marketing with Influencers
- Budget Considerations for Your Campaign
- What to Do with Product Reviews or Other Influencer Content Once the Campaign Is Over
OPTIMIZING YOUR INFLUENCER COLLABORATION
Once you’ve decided to work with homeschool influencers, you have some important choices to make:
- What kinds of content would you like them to create?
- What keywords should they target?
- How much budget will you dedicate?
- How will you measure the success of the campaign?
- What will you do at the conclusion of the campaign to optimize the ongoing value of your investment?
Evergreen Post Versus Product Review
iHomeschool Network can provide either product reviews or sponsored evergreen posts. Depending on your product or service, your budget, and your schedule, one may suit your campaign better than the other. Here is a general outline of the differences.
1. Product Reviews
If you’re new to working with homeschool bloggers and can only afford the minimum, choose a product review campaign.
In a review, the blogger uses the product over the course of several weeks. In her post, she gives a detailed and personalized review of it. Her post includes original photos of the product (or service as best as possible).
- Product reviews put your product in the limelight. Everything in the post is focused on your product.
- Potential customers search for product reviews to verify your product as a worthwhile purchase.
- Product reviews take longer to create due to the personalized nature of the blogger’s post.
- Product reviews work best for tangible/digital products, but we can review a service as well.
Example Reviews
- Music Appreciation: A Family Study – Product Review
- Homeschool Records – Product Review
- Avid Headsets – Product Review
- A Crafts Book – Product Review
- Spanish Curriculum — Product Review
2. Evergreen Posts
If you’ve already got high quality product reviews online, then you can consider adding evergreen content to supplement the reviews. Or if your budget is large enough, go for a mixed campaign that combines both types. Sponsored posts often work better for service oriented businesses (such as online speech therapy or virtual coaching) where giving access to an entire team is prohibitive.
In an evergreen post, the blogger writes an article with valuable content that refers to the product in a more subtle and organic way. The content could stand alone without the reference to the brand whereas the review could not. Sponsored posts are typically informational, how to, or list posts.
Looking for unique slants for your campaign? Here are ideas that clients have used over the years:
1. Gift Guides
Whether for Christmas or year-round gift giving, gift guides are a great way to highlight a collection of your products, centered on a single theme.
2. Unit Studies
Similar to gift guides but with a more educational slant, a unit study post features multiple products and explains how to integrate them into a mini-course of a few days or weeks. Many bloggers create themed printables to accompany these kinds of posts. Printables drive traffic so that more homeschool moms see your product offerings.
3. Comparison/Contrast
You probably don’t feel comfortable talking about the differences between your program and that of your competitors. But we can do it for you! Tell us which programs you’d like to be compared to, and I will find bloggers who have the experience to write that post.
4. Tutorials
Is your product somewhat confusing or does it require special set up or explanation? While blogger tutorials can never replace your own customer service, they can provide a natural complement to what you offer on your own site. What questions do customers often have? Your blogger team can answer those in their posts.
Example Sponsored Posts
Side by Side Examples of Reviews Versus Evergreen Posts
Take a look at various posts from the same campaign to see how the bloggers took unique approaches to the same product.
Product: Beyond Personal Finance Curriculum
Product: Avid Headsets
Other Elements to Include
While the type of content is crucial, supplementary elements can enhance your campaign’s effectiveness. We can customize any blog post campaign for your marketing goals. We simply need to know early in the process (before your team is recruited) what features you’d like to include. Below are some of the most common extras that clients add to campaigns:
Affiliate Programs
Yes, you can invite your team to join your affiliate program and use their links in their posts. This is a super strategy to get your affiliate program off to a strong start. You can guarantee that other homeschool bloggers will see those affiliate links and jump on board, too.
Opt-in Offers
If you have an amazing opt-in offer, we can help you promote it. Maybe you give it to your bloggers and ask them to photograph it in use and link back to your sign up page. Maybe they simply embed graphics you provide and send visitors to your landing page.
Video
If you have your own YouTube or Vimeo video, we are happy to embed that in your blog posts. Just send us the link! We’ll even add a bit of special code that removes the related videos from showing at the end.
Facebook Group
If you have a Facebook group you’re seeking to grow, we can extend an invitation to join that.
Facebook Sharing Requests
Some clients love using the branded content tool to boost bloggers’ shares on Facebook. If you have special requests about how your team shares, just let us know! We will accommodate you!
The bottom line is twofold: creativity and conversation. Think outside of the product review box to capitalize on authentic and unique promotion ideas. And tell us early in the planning stages any ideas you have so that the team we recruit is specially chosen to meet your needs. iHomeschool Network bloggers go crazy for unique campaigns! So don’t be afraid to approach us with a fresh approach!
How to Choose Keywords for Your Review Campaign
Most visitors to a site come via search engines and not from social media. For example, 2024 data from Spark Toro shows that Google sent 63% of all web traffic. Social media sources barely even show up on the pie chart. See it here. While social media platforms (with the exception of Bluesky) are designed to keep people engaging on-site and discourage them from leaving, Google searchers are explicitly looking for answers, information, or products and tend to move on to further website destinations.
This fact about traffic confirms the need to boost your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) and although that task is ever changing according to the whims of Google, keywords are always an important part of an SEO strategy.
Why Do We Ask for Keywords?
In a review campaign with iHomeschool Network, we ask what keywords you are targeting so we can naturally incorporate those into pivotal places in the reviews. Don’t worry. There’s no keyword stuffing. Our bloggers’ use of keywords is organic but deliberate. We want to use the vocabulary that you have chosen to use for your own products.
When choosing keywords (or very concise keyword phrases), think about what a potential buyer would put into a search engine or as in a Facebook group to find your product.
Examples of Keyword Lists
Here is a list of keywords for a science curriculum.
- science
- elementary
- grade 1 (2, 3, etc. to 8)
- digital
- faith-based
- inquiry-based
- textbook
- Christian
- homeschool
- curriculum
Here is a list for an online language school.
- homeschool
- language learning
- Spanish, Chinese, French, etc.
- tutor
- teacher
- online
When choosing keywords, to take the perspective of a homeschool parent who is looking for what you have to offer. What words would she use? She probably won’t use fancy educational jargon or long sales descriptions. She isn’t going to care about being aligned with Common Core or state standards.
Tools to Find Keywords
What do the bloggers do with your keywords? They select a few to focus on and weave them naturally throughout their text and in the places where search engines especially look to determine the content of a webpage.
how to Measure the ROI of Influencer Campaigns
Once you’ve optimized your content with strategic keywords, it’s essential to track the impact of your efforts. As part of your iHN project, you’ll be given a campaign tracker spreadsheet which will give you some handles for recording and analyzing your campaign.
The most important aspect is designing a way to track results (ROI = return on investment) before the campaign goes live. The best way is to assign tracking parameters that the bloggers append to all links back to your site. Then inside your own analytics tool, you can see which bloggers sent traffic and which converted to sales.
Some clients give the entire team a single tracking parameter while others create unique codes for each site. The choice is yours!
Another way to track sales (but not traffic) is to provide a special coupon code for the bloggers to promote. Again, in some cases clients will assign a unique code for each blogger while others use a blanket code for the entire team.
Other metrics may be related to other actions you want readers to take:
- social media follows
- joining a Facebook group
- email signups
- free trial signups
- video views
The key is to first have a plan for capturing those metrics. This does fall under your responsibility as the bloggers have no way to measure actions that are taken on your site.
Defining Your Target Audience within the Homeschool Market
t’s rare that a client comes to iHN trying to reach the entire homeschool market. Generally their product will refine the audience by age/grade, by point of view (for example a faith-based program), by homeschool style (for example a textbook based curriculum versus a living books approach, or even by special need (for example ADHD, giftedness, or dyslexia).
Knowing your perfect audience will help iHN recruit the right team and help the team craft the content in ways that will resonate with that audience.
Of course, if your product is relatively new and you are unsure, your iHN campaign may help you refine exactly who your target market is and what kind of messaging works best.
Setting Realistic Goals and Objectives for Homeschool Marketing with Influencers
Blog post campaigns are a slow-burn marketing tactic. They provide backlinks and a steady stream of traffic, not an immediate burst of sales.
If you’re looking for a very immediate reaction, opt for an email campaign as those are the most direct path to homeschool decision makers and are highly time sensitive. But for playing the long game, you want to opt for YouTube videos and blog posts.
Budget Considerations for Your Campaign
Of course, your marketing funds are limited, so you want to optimize and stretch them as far as possible. If you can’t yet meet the minimum thresholds required at iHN, do your own one-on-one outreach and partner with one or two influencers as a lower cost start. This experience will also teach you some dos and don’ts that you can incorporate into future collaborations.
Once you can afford an iHN campaign, choose the right content for your objectives.
- Product reviews are an important first step if you don’t have them or if they are not up to date.
- Video content, especially on YouTube, is especially valuable for search.
- If you’re trying to grow your own Instagram presence, choosing reels and stories there will be pivotal.
If you’re not sure what’s the optimal step, reach out for a free 20-minute exploratory call with Jimmie where she’ll make recommendations.
And keep in mind that you may want to reserve funds for boosting the Instagram and Facebook shares through Meta’s ads platform. This is an incredibly powerful way to use recommendations from homeschool moms to drive traffic to your site, generate interest, and potential to make sales.
What to Do with Product Reviews or Other Influencer Content Once the Campaign Is Over
After establishing your goals and implementing your campaign, the next crucial phase is maximizing the long-term value of your content. When all the posts are published, the Facebook shares are made, and the pins are live on Pinterest, there’s more you can do to capitalize on the campaign and get the most from your investment.
1. Use Them as Organic Social Media Shares
- Share the posts on Facebook or other social platforms where you are active.
- Remember that people like pictures, so share photos from the reviews as well as links.
- Share quotes from the reviews.
- Whenever you share the posts or images, do your best to mention or tag the blogger so she gets credit. Plus the blogger might reshare your share!
- Create a Pinterest board just for reviews.
- Pin the reviews across the relevant Pinterest boards on your company account.
2. Use Them on Your Site
- Pull quotes from the reviews and include them as testimonials on your site. (Link back to the original post, of course.)
- List the reviews on a separate page on your site or alongside product descriptions. Remember the power of images, and include a thumbnail or full-size image taken from the post. (Check with the blogger first; most will be happy to allow you to use their image.)
3. Use Them in Emails
- Feature a review email marketing. Use an image from the post, and share a teaser excerpt that leads the reader back to the bloggers’ post. (Remember to ask permission of the blogger if you use her image.)
- Interview a blogger who reviewed your product and link to her review.
4. Connect With the Bloggers
- Reach out to the bloggers and thank them for their outstanding review or any traffic they send your way.
- Offer them preview copies of new releases of other products (no strings attached).
- Build a relationship with the bloggers in your review team. Find ones that can serve as long-term brand ambassadors.
- Ask for feedback about your product.
5. Use Them Long-term
You can share a review more than once! Cycle them through your social media content, sharing them periodically. You are constantly getting new followers. Showcase your reviews to them.
6. Use Meta Branded Content Shares as Paid Ads
Using the branded content tool on Facebook and Instagram (Meta) is one of the most powerful ways you can optimize your iHN campaign. When the bloggers use branded content, you get the ability to turn those shares into paid ads!
I find it works best to go into your ads manager and select the post from the existing post area if you want to create an ad from a branded content post. You have full control over budget, audiences, objectives, etc. But you don’t have to design creative or write copy because the blogger has already done that for you.
The boosted post will show in the newsfeed as coming from the original author not from you (although you are tagged in it as per the branded content tool). This kind of ad has strong appeal with most homeschool audiences as it’s less direct and comes from a user instead of directly from you. Try it!
Conclusion
Success in homeschool marketing campaigns isn’t just about initial implementation — it’s about ongoing optimization and relationship building. By carefully selecting your content type, tracking the right metrics, and maximizing the value of your influencer collaborations, you can create lasting impact in the homeschool market. Remember that each campaign is an opportunity to learn, refine your approach, and build stronger connections with your target audience. With the right strategy and consistent effort, your homeschool marketing campaigns can deliver sustainable results that grow over time.