On SchoolGrowthSecrets.com, we normally share our authentic thoughts and observations around marketing and admissions practices to offer fellow professionals strategic advice and tips in school marketing and admissions. We also like to think that on this site, insightful data and content from other authors around the world can be gathered and re-disseminated. So in this article we would like to do exactly that: to share a great article that does a fantastic job of summarising 10 tips to increase enrolments at your school.
It is written by a marketing consultancy company, StatusDigital, who specialises in digital marketing solutions, as such some tips will be skewed toward digital strategies, but they are, nonetheless, useful reminders of what schools can do to widen market reach:
Source: StatusDigital.co.uk
{Posted by Graeme Wilkinson on 23 June 2016}
1. Make sure you understand a parent’s decision making process
This is possibly our most important advice and probably the hardest to get right. in education, unlike other industries, your customers are likely to remain with you for a considerable time so gathering customer insight will be one of your most valuable tools.
We recommend building this intelligence gathering into your recruitment process, and asking parents certain questions at different parts of the application process – questions may include;
- What triggered their search for an international school?
- What information helped them to decide on their chosen school?
- Which sources did they use?
- How long did it take for them to make a decision?
- What were their first impressions of the school?
This insight will help you start mapping out their journey from the point they started their search to their selection of their chosen school. Your goal is to discover what tools they used as part of their search, what questions they wanted answered and at which stages, and any frustrations / challenges they encountered.
2. Focus on Keyword Research
The importance of search can’t be ignored – there are currently 2.3 million Google searches made every minute. With search engines looking for the most relevant, trustworthy answers to queries, you should be aiming to be in the top organic results for relevant keywords to your school – for example your location and the type of curriculum offered etc.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and specifically keyword research will play an essential role when your school is developing an inbound marketing strategy.
Understanding what search terms your audience is using, and those which competitors are performing well for, will provide valuable insight into which keywords and phrases your school should optimise content for.
Developing a robust SEO strategy will help your school attract prospective parents via search engines by ensuring your content is as relevant as possible to their queries.
3. Develop an Inbound Marketing strategy
Inbound marketing is all about creating content that is going to be found by your target audience through search and social media. By implementing an inbound marketing approach your school will be able to closely align your marketing to the way prospective parents think and behave when considering which school is right for their child.
Developing an inbound marketing approach can significantly increase your admissions enquiries by attracting prospective families to your website with helpful, relevant content (this may be a blogpost, eBook, whitepaper, video, case study etc.) which is designed specifically for them and where they are in their decision making process. And the insight you gain from our first recommendation of understanding their decision making process will really help when developing your strategy.
A keen understanding of exactly which questions your target audience is asking will allow you to provide the answers through your blog and other content platforms.
So for example, if your research highlights that prospective parents want to know lots about what facilities a school offers, then make sure that you are promoting (through social media and optimising this content for search) content that focuses on this such as virtual campus tours, blog posts highlighting state of the art facilities etc.
For 7 more tips from Status Digital, click here.