Your school’s website is a marketing and budget priority

In my work with independent and faith-based schools across the nation, administrators often ask the question: “where should I spend my marketing dollars first?”

The answer is clear – your school’s website.

When a prospective parent Google’s your school, what is their first impression? What kind of image of your school is conveyed? Do they find enough compelling information that motivates them to take the next step by visiting your campus?

Most often, the first impression is mixed and the image you are portraying doesn’t match the quality education that your faculty and staff provide. In today’s competitive educational environment and difficult economic times that we face, school administrators often cut their marketing dollars first. However, this is direct opposite of what should be done.  We must reinforce our brand and more clearly communicate the benefit of our school to the community that we are trying to reach.

This leads us back to your school’s website. Your website must be designed in a compelling way that effectively communicates your brand with dynamic content. In addition, it is best to build your website on an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) that includes a back-end system to enter keywords to enhance the search engine optimization (SEO) for your webste.

Your school’s website is the priority in your marketing budget. This is where you should be directing your school’s marketing dollars first!