The top schools today have strong fundamentals and are adaptable to the needs of students. They are heavily involved in promoting engagement with parents and families in their students’ education. They embrace technology and encourage their students to progress within this new digital era.
Today, traditional methods of obtaining new students are simply outdated. Printed newspaper adverts, direct mails etc are no longer effective methods for schools as they can be quite expensive and the return on investment is rather low.
A school’s potential applicants are doing much more research before they even open communication with a school, shoving inquiries down to the bottom of your marketing funnel. It’s important that your school provides educational content regarding your classes, references from other parents and way to communicate and engage with your office.
In this blog, we’ve outlined 4 School Marketing Ideas to Help Increase Enrolment:
- Assess and improve your website
- Be strong on social media
- Engage and Involve Parents
- Multimedia enhanced literature
#1. Assess and improve your website
In the past, when parents wanted to obtain information about a certain school, the only option available for them was to inquire. However, today parents and families can access a multitude of information by simply searching online.For this reason, it’s imperative that your website is up to date.
Be sure to include your school’s name, contact information, location, instructions for applications, values and any additional information that may be relevant to parents and potential applicants.
We live in a mobile centric world, therefore ensure that your website can viewed on all devices. Having a mobile-friendly website is key so if you are unsure, be sure to test it out.
Another important online aspect to consider is SEO. You should create a secure SEO strategy along with specific keywords that will help your website feature at the top of the major search engines. Display interesting and relatable content on your website to help your SEO efforts.
Why not feature a blog on your site? Blog’s are great source for creating traffic to the website and can also be used as a means of keeping all those involved with the school up to date on matters.
Lastly, you’ll want to spread your content to as many people as possible, therefore start sharing it using social media and email marketing.
#2. Be strong on social media
Having a lot of content on your website is not enough, you need to be able to share this content on other platforms for more people to see. Being active on social media is crucial for any business in today’s world.
Throughout the day people are checking their social media pages for updates and any form of news so it’s the perfect place to get recognised. Choose the right social media outlets that best fit your school and devise a plan, remember to ask questions such as should we be addressing parents or students? You need to find your target audience and then select the appropriate outlet like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and more.
When it comes to social media, you must be prepared to put in the necessary time. It’s so important to be consistent and share interesting and relevant content regularly. Remember the more timeless the content is the better.
#3. Engage and Involve Parents
It’s important to make parents feel involved and what greater way to do this than through social media. Social media is everywhere and almost all ages have adopted it. It plays a big role in our everyday life and accounts for much of our communication today. As a school, you should use social media as a channel to connect and engage with parents daily. Keep them updated with daily posts and be prepared to answer any questions they may have instantly.
When preparing marketing material for parents, be sure to include a good description of the school along with your mission. Use these channels to tell your story and show parents what makes your school special. Post photos showing student experiences at your school such as tours, events, and any form of excursions. It may also be useful to have flyers prepared about your programs and electives.
#4. Multimedia enhanced literature
Many schools have an abundance of print material from over the years such as brochures and prospectuses which should be transformed into digital. Why not add video and audio to the PDF files with the help of digital publishing software. Using interactivity will grab the attention of your audience faster and engage them.
Create these digital documents and share them across all your social media outlets, your website and make them available to view on all devices. Once you have a digital brochure ready, it can be easily shared via a link so be sure to add this to your website, email it to your lists and post it on social media.
It’s essential for school’s nowadays to market themselves efficiently online. There is a lot of competition out there in the education sector and a strong marketing strategy is needed to remain at the top. With numerous digital marketing tools now available, you have no excuse not to effectively advertise your school and get noticed!
Create interesting and relevant content, engage parent’s and families through video and other interactive features and be sure to network. If you have any questions please email info@3dissue.com for any additional information needed.
