8 Hacks to Increase Student Enrollment & Retention

Hack #3

Know Your Audience (Part 2 -Internal Promotion)

Internal Promotion

Our third hack involves extending the reach of your messages by using your current community of families as a vehicle to spread your message.

​​​​​To grow your enrollment, you must increase the number of applications to your school.  Increasing the number of applications requires people on-site to experience all your school has to offer.  We recently covered areas of focus for online presence, which is crucial to projecting credibility and confidence in your school however, website visits and social media follows on their own do not result in visits to your school or applications.  

The concept of internal promotion focuses primarily on leveraging the existing networks within your school community. While school communities consist of a variety of clubs and groups that extend beyond the school setting, the most powerful group at your disposal are your current students and families.  There are no better advocates for your school than those who are currently enrolled and are empowered by the mission.

The effort begins by simply encouraging and incentivizing current families to invite their friends, family, and extended networks to participate in school related activities.  This strategy is illustrated in full in the video below.

Events such as theater, music productions or fun family nights like a fall hoe-down, winter or spring festival, BBQ, movie night etc. allow opportunities for current families to invite other prospective families in a “no pressure” situation. Prospective families can mingle with other families, get a taste of the culture of the school and speak to teachers and school leadership in a casual setting.  This may also be an opportunity for prospective students to actually experience the classroom and school in an informal way. Some schools have even awarded current and prospective families with a referral fee credit when new families join the school.

8 Hacks to Increase Student Enrollment & Retention

Hack #2

Know Your Audience (Part 1)

Can Your Audience Find You?

In this second edition of “8 Hacks to Increase Enrollment”, we will examine the wealth of digital resources available that are built to assist in drawing attention and interest to your school.  Diving right in, the “hack” to quickly identifying and reaching the right people involves asking 3 key questions.

1. Is my school easy to find online?

2. Once located, is my school positioned in the best possible light?

3. How can I expand my reach?

For additional perspective, imagine you are a parent seeking the best school for your child.  You likely fall into one of the following categories:

• Your child is now school age
• You are new to the area
• You are dissatisfied with the quality you are receiving from your child's current school

Regardless of the reason, the first thing you are likely to do is grab your phone or computer and search for schools in your area.  First impressions are important. It’s important to understand who your prospective parents are so that you can effectively market to them.  Let’s face it, you would not market a product to your grandparents the same way you would to your child.  Effective marketing is knowing what triggers your audience’s emotions and interests.  Knowing this allows you to “speak their language” and helps you to market to them better.  Reviewing some school websites, we see sites with obsolete information, broken page links, an outdated look and feel and irrelevant information that will fall on deaf ears.  

Your prospective parents are Generation Xers (Born 1965­-1979) and Generation Yers or Millenials (Born 1980­-1994).  According to “Marketing to the Generations”, your target market can be characterized as having short attention spans, ecology minded, tech-savvy, pro-community, pro-multiculturalism and seeks instant gratification.  With this in mind, are your marketing efforts appealing to these traits?    Is your website accurate, credible and user-friendly to the point it conveys that you are a tech-savvy school and appeases their need for instant gratification?  Does your media clearly state your school’s mission? Do your media images convey that you are multicultural and diverse?  Do you have online application and registration processes that satisfies their tech-savvy, ecology minded and instant gratification nature?

Now switch roles. You are now a school leader, responsible for healthy enrollment at your school.

• How well is your school represented in the search results?
• Are you showcasing your best assets?
• Is your school projecting value and credibility to potential families that are relevant to them?

Many school leaders quickly recognize the need for improvement in this area but struggle with how to achieve the desired outcome.  It’s actually not as elusive as it might appear.  By focusing on two key areas, school leaders can ensure a professional and accurate online presence that will serve as an important first step towards earning the interest of prospective families.

• Google Business Listing – According to searchengingwatch.com Google currently accounts for 72.48% of the world’s market share of search.  Google has a “My Business” service that allows leaders to create, customize and edit the listings for their respective organization to ensure optimal online presence.  Click here for a quick tutorial on Google Business Listings. 
• School Rating Services – There are a number of rating services and while it may be a challenge to be represented in all of them, it is manageable to identify your personal top 3-5 and ensure your school is represented well.  It’s important to note that some of these platforms allow you to create a listing so that you can customize the information in the same way Google “My Business” allows.

With regards to ratings, the most effective action is to encourage families and your community to visit the respective sites and provide an accurate, favorable rating.  A targeted communication either via email or social media with direct links to your school’s profile will ensure easy action on the part of the recipient and a higher likelihood that they will help in providing a rating.  You may ask your Parent Organizations to assist in these efforts.  Below are some of the primary rating vehicles:

1. Google – as a part of your Google Business Listing

2. Facebook – exists as a function of your current facebook page

3. Great Schools

4. School Digger

5. Niche

6. Yelp

With these (FREE!) services, your institution is well positioned to catch the eye of prospective parents and further develop their interest in all you have to offer.

Finding New Audiences

With a solid digital presence in place, you are well positioned to promote the offerings of your school to an external audience.  External audiences will certainly vary based on a variety of factors but often include:

The types of audiences you are targeting will dictate the manner in which you reach out and invite them to your school.  Some audiences are best served by a direct personal approach via an onsite meeting, while others can be effectively reached via advertising and social media efforts.  To determine the best approach, it is important to understand the needs of each audience and how they are most comfortable interacting.  With Child Care Centers, a more direct approach is best as you are essentially seeking a trusted partnership whereby you will refer families with infants and young children to them while they advocate for you as children in their programs grow and become school age.  The arrangement can be informal and genuine and simply approached as nice people and trusted organizations working together.  Alternatively, you may be a part of or come across online social media groups the would be well served by your school.  Respectfully extending a genuine invitation to group members directly can go a long way.  Finally, paid advertising, specifically display advertising efforts can be employed to get your message in front of a focused target of people in your same geography as well as those that share similar interests. More on advertising below.

Implementing a paid advertising strategy can be a great way to generate awareness and grow interest in your school.  Caution!.  It can also be a quick way to burn through money with little results.

Before implementing an advertising strategy, you will want to ensure that you have utilized all the available free resources at your disposal.  These strategies would include people finding your school and social media tactics.  It’s important to consider that if you have been unable to realize results in your free efforts, you are less likely to see return for the money you invest in paid efforts.

There are two primary methods for utilizing paid ads online; Paid Search and Display Ads:

Paid Search – As previously mentioned in our posting on people finding your school, the primary method for anyone looking to learn about your school or even better, any schools in your area is to utilize a search engine, Google being the most widely used.  There are a number of things you can do to your primary website so that it appears as relevant as possible in respective search results. However, there are limits to how easily people will come across your school.  Not everyone searches for things in the same way or uses the same words therefore, a person might search “schools in New York City” where another might search “private schools in New York City” and another may search “catholic schools in New York City”.  

Depending how people enter their search criteria, your school could appear or “rank” a number of different ways.  Again, there are things you can do to your site to combat this challenge but most require an experienced web developer to ensure the site is optimally indexed for search engines.  A practical way to combat this is by utilizing paid search.  The Google AdWords platform allows a cost effective method to set up campaigns based on a series of key words you determine.  In addition, you can set up different descriptions or ads so that your school can appear with the most optimal message respective of what someone is searching for.  If someone searched for “catholic schools in my area” you could ensure a result appears that includes a description of your school and it’s catholic qualities.  If someone searches for “ Pre-K in my area” you could create a different listing that focuses more on the Pre-K qualities.

As you can see, with your primary website, it’s difficult to be all things to all people at the right moment.  Paid search using Google Adwords allows you to strategically position the benefits of your school in plain view of your target audience at the most critical times (when they are actively looking  for schools).

Display Advertising – consists paid advertisements that you come across online in a variety of places.  Examples include Facebook and Twitter as well as select websites that serve up ads while you browse.  Each channel involves a setup process where you can select criteria to determine who best to target your ads to such as, geography, demographics, and interests.  Like paid search, it gives you great ability to reach a specific group of people.  Unlike paid search, you have no idea what words they are searching for or what needs are front of mind.  You are simply trying to identify an audience that is similar to your current customers and deliver a compelling message which they will hopefully find relevance in and click through to your offering.  Visit our related post social media tactics for more details on how to begin executing ads via social media.

With a robust approach to drawing attention to your school, it’s important to reflect back on our first installment where we reviewed the importance of self awareness and identifying strengths and weaknesses.

As new audiences discover the offerings of your school, first impressions are extremely important. The experience that you guide visitors through will often be the first touch points they have with your school.  You will want to ensure a professional, error free experience that incorporates modern, secure processes.  For example, if key information is not accessible in a seamless way on your website such as tuition or application procedures, it’s unlikely visitors would make extra efforts to contact the school or continuing searching for what should be a standard piece of information.  Taking this example further, asking prospective families to print forms or mail in physical documents in the early stages of interest can reflect poorly on the consideration given to key processes.  

A seamless user experience that provides easy access to key information and a simple, secure and user friendly way for prospective families to apply to your school will further their relationship with your school and ensure an excellent first impression based on credibility and value.  If you've liked our content, please share this post with your fellow colleagues!

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Dealing with Student Retention and Enrollment in times of uncertainty

Hack #1

Getting Started - Differentiating Your School.

Introduction

Welcome to the first installment of our new blog series, 8 Hacks to help navigate your school during these trying times. 

There is no question that a thriving community of students and families is necessary to creating and maintaining a dynamic learning environment. However, how does this change with Covid-19? Distance learning puts an additional strain on the level of services that private schools are able to provide their students and community.  As enrollment potentially declines or remains stagnant, revenue constraints can quickly lead to difficult decisions as to which areas might receive continued funding and which areas might require a reduction or elimination of programs.  This can make it very difficult for schools to confidently highlight their programs and remain competitive among other education options.

In this series, we will highlight key areas of focus for school leaders who are frequently tasked with multiple responsibilities and little remaining bandwidth to navigate the nuances of competitive, necessary marketing programs.  With this level of focus we aim to make optimal use of our readers' limited, valuable time and provide practical, actionable resources to enhance your enrollment efforts.

In part 1 of this 8 part series, we will outline the foundational aspects of successful planning and execution, specifically two items: Gaining clarity into the aspects of your school that resonate the most with your community and thus deliver the most value.  And how to build a marketing campaign that contributes to highlighting these strengths and demonstrating the value to prospective and current families.

Address the current situation

Parents want to know that their child's education is valued.  Schools with a "tentative" plan is better than a school with no plan at all.  A letter from the principal explaining the current situation and the school's course of action for the next few months appeases parents' anxiety and gives them a sense of security. Clear explanation on how procedures and learning will be handled is imperative.  A webpage dedicated to Covid-19 updates allows parents to be informed, tips on effective distance learning eases parents' stress level and email communication allows parents and students, if applicable, feel that their needs are being met. 

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Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

Possibly, the most important part of marketing planning is brainstorming the strengths and weaknesses of your school in light of Covid-19.  No doubt there has been a slow down in operational responsibilities so take this time to reflect on exactly what makes your school so wonderful and why people should be excited to dive deeper into all it has to offer as well as identify areas of improvement that may hinder prospective parents from applying or retaining current families.  With that said, visitors to your school's website are likely evaluating other schools and programs and are rightfully focused on the similarities to ensure the core needs of their children are effectively met.  It is both in your interest and to their benefit that you can communicate a clear understanding of what differentiates your school from others.  Success in this area establishes a high degree of confidence in the services of your school and a strong sense of excitement that your school will offer a unique, premium experience in the midst of this pandemic.

Showcase Your Top Features

Now that your list is well developed, prioritize the strengths and weaknesses and dedicate time to examine them from the perspective of both a current and a prospective family.  Identify the top features that you feel would resonate most with parents and community.  Along those same lines, determine which features would be best to highlight in promotional efforts as well as how you might create a program to allow people to experience these special features...virtually. Perhaps you might host a virtual open house where prospective students can bring their own instruments and perform with the music instructor.  You might have your longest tenured teachers to engage with visitors and share their unique perspective from years of service.  You may choose to showcase your unique use of technology that demonstrates credibility and maturity of your operation compared to other schools that might rely on paper processes and clunky communications efforts.  As you can see, there are opportunities to get creative.  Identifying the features that bring value and that you are excited to share in the virtual world will greatly assist you building momentum to execute your marketing efforts.  

While discovering which items will resonate most with visitors is key, don’t neglect the importance of the remaining items on your original list. The full list will serve you well as you engage in deeper relevant discussions with prospective families looking for features that set your school apart.

As you reflect on your identified weaknesses or changes needed during this pandemic, be sure to critically analyze any weaknesses that might be immediately noticeable to families.  In your marketing efforts, you will establish a number of processes and pathways to both inform people and collect information on their interests, including online forms, student registration and application data.  Shortcomings in these key processes are highly visible.  As such, employing virtual tours, online enrollment, registration and fee handling processes will immediately inform visitors on the professionalism of your operation and your attention to critical details.

Build Your Campaign

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Undoubtedly, this pandemic has restricted school marketing and enrollment growth efforts.  For that reason, leaders must embrace the notion that a team focused on various parts is important and working remotely has its challenges.  Key duties must be delegated to competent, energetic staff and/or volunteers to really form a team effort.

There are 4 areas of focus to consider when matching the skills of your staff to the most appropriate role.

We will review each of these areas in more depth throughout this series however, in the team building stage, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the basic functions of each role.

Event Planning

Hosting virtual events that draw visitors is the lifeblood of an effective marketing effort.  On it’s own, this is a very large responsibility which often requires its own team, under the direction of your event planner to execute.  Responsibilities of this role cover all aspects of the logistics and technological know-how of organizing a virtual event, showcasing your school, equipment needs, and coordinating speakers among a variety of other duties.  Event planners are positioned to proactively handle issues and troubleshoot problems that might arise during the virtual event.  To maximize time and impact, a pre-recorded tour of your school and testimonies can be very effective.

Communications

In order to succeed in gaining interest and getting the most out of your virtual events, well developed communications is necessary to ensure people are aware and informed.  Your communications manager will identify and manage the available channels as well as channels you might want to add.  Common channels include flyers, website, email, social, media, paid advertising, community groups, and more.

Data/Registrations

As you begin to communicate your events and encourage participation, you will want to decide on the most appropriate way to collect information about people visiting your school's website and attending your virtual open house.  Having a record of who intends is critical to meaningful follow ups.

It is highly recommended that technology be incorporated into your data collection efforts.  Using online registration or data capture systems to register for the event gives people a first hand impression of the sophistication level of your school. Using technology in data collection provides great opportunity to showcase the technological advancement, professionalism and credibility of your school as well as collect meaningful information on your visitors.

Your data manager is someone who is comfortable working with data and data platforms and will work very closely with the communications manager to ensure potential visitors have a clear path with the registration and identifying interests.

Your relationship manager benefits from the successful execution of communications, virtual events, and data collection by analyzing visitors and the interests they’ve expressed.  The valuable information gained from your team's efforts can now be leveraged to warmly reach out after the events have concluded.  Your relationship manager is positioned to engage in relevant discussions that address the expressed interests of visitors including virtual:

Conclusion

With your best assets identified, a plan to mitigate known weaknesses, and your team positioned to their appropriate skill set, you are now prepared to develop the details of your marketing efforts with excitement, confidence and momentum.  As we proceed in this series, next we will review the key elements of understanding your target audience and designing an effective promotion plan to reach that audience.

Stay tuned!

Our next edition in the series is entitled, "Know your Audience Part 1 - External Promotion".  If you've liked our content, please share this post with your fellow colleagues!