Increase Student Enrollment and Retention- Building Trusting Relationships

8 HACKS TO INCREASE STUDENT ENROLLMENT & RETENTION

Hack #7

Building Trusting Relationships

After reaching the HUGE milestone of actively generating foot traffic to your school, it’s important to keep up the momentum. It is key to continue communicating to prospective families as they progress in their decision making process. It goes without saying that this is an important and very sensitive exchange. For both practical and polite reasons, no one wants to be harassed as to where they stand on a decision. At the same time, you won’t want to be overly passive as you may miss an opportunity.

In the posts on INTERNAL and EXTERNAL promotion, we noted the importance of recording data on prospective families and what features about your school might resonate with them and influence their decision. Topics can range from educational models, before and after child care, music, arts, theater, sports, doctrine, safety, class size. The list can go on and on. As those key items are identified, they can be used as warm opportunities to extend invitations to those prospective families.

Many scenarios can be identified and leveraged:

School band concerts provide opportunity to reconnect with those interested in music
School art shows provide opportunity to reconnect with those interested in art
Open Houses provide opportunity for those to meet with teachers to discuss education models
New financial aid opportunities allow you to quickly connect with those who have expressed financial difficulty
Fun family events provide opportunity for prospective families to get a taste of the school “culture” and interact with your “cheerleaders”
Parent education or workshops hosted by your parent organization show your prospective families that your parents are active and engaged.
College recruiting workshops provide opportunity for prospective families to realize your long term objective for your students

In all of these scenarios, by recording this data and making it actionable and personal, you are able to provide a great service to not only current families but prospective families. This genuine approach positions you to execute enrollment plans with a feeling of confidence that your efforts to provide service to families takes precedence over the implication or concern that your efforts are invasive.

To say that everyone will be overwhelmed by your effort to service would be false. However, building your plan from a service mindset will effectively demonstrate the value of your school to prospective families in a truly genuine way.

Increase Student Enrollment and Retention- Retaining More Families

8 HACKS TO INCREASE STUDENT ENROLLMENT & RETENTION

Hack #8

Retain More Families

A key component to overall enrollment growth is retention. The more students that you are able to retain year after year, the greater your potential to continue growing as opposed to staying even or declining. Someone once said, “It is easier to keep a seat that fill a seat!” We couldn’t agree more. How do your parents’ feel about your school?

Our final hack, involves retaining families by establishing a feedback loop. Such an effort allows leaders to gain insights into individual family concerns and how your school can address those concerns prior to families exploring alternative options.

Many neglect this critical area as in many cases, retention sometimes can feel that it requires little attention beyond sending a notice to families on key deadlines and basic expectations. Early knowledge of families’ satisfaction and intentions can greatly enhance the ability of school leaders to quickly address concerns and continue providing a top quality education and environment.

Are there processes in place for your parents to provide constructive criticism without experiencing a backlash? Do your parents feel that their opinions matter? Besides an anonymous suggestion box for ideas, a great way to understand the ongoing needs of your families is to develop and implement a survey program. Perhaps a survey that is linked with their annual enrollment and registration will provide feedback from parents as to what they feel very strongly about. Although the anonymous suggestion box is good for those parents who may feel threatened and singled out by their comments, a survey associated with a student is more meaningful; because if there is a legitimate concern, leadership should be involved and the issue remedied directly with the parent in a timely manner. When a parent knows that the school took the time to resolve their issue, they become advocates and cheerleaders for the school.

There are many different ways to design and execute a retention program. A streamlined way would be to incorporate a survey into your re-enrollment process. The video below demonstrates a great retention program framework.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJf5WIvDbYQ

0 Learn How to Increase Student Enrollment and Retention

Dealing with Student Retention and Enrollment

in times of uncertainty.

8 Hacks to help navigate your school during Covid-19

During these trying times with Covid-19, we realize that private schools' number one concern is keeping student withdrawals down and enrollment numbers up. How is your school doing? K-12 Online, together with Grow School Enrollment, has co-authored a series of “8 Easy Hacks to Increase Student Enrollment and Retention.” This FREE e-series will answer the marketing principles of WHO, WHAT, WHY and HOW as it relates to your school.

What You'll Learn

This 8 part series will cover the following:

Getting Started – Differentiating Your School
Know Your Audience Part 1 – External Promotion
Know Your Audience Part 2 – Internal Promotion
Get Noticed Part 1 – Communications
Get Noticed Part 2 – Advertising
Reduce Barriers to Entry
Build Trusting Relationships
Retain More Families

What You'll Get

Advice from experts in this field.
Explanation on how to effectively market your school and the reasons behind those marketing strategies.

Examples of easy ways to create brand identity
Tips for using all forms of media, including FREE and readily available options to reach your audience.