Utilizing Parent Ambassadors to Expand Your School’s Admissions Staff

Do you feel like you are always running out of time?

Do you feel overwhelmed when you look at your lengthy to-do list?

Let’s face it, you only have so much time to accomplish everything on your list. From giving tours to answering parent questions on the phone to keeping your school’s Facebook page updated, life as an Admissions Director at a private school can be all-consuming and never-ending.

You need a team of parents to help you.

A group of select Parent Ambassadors can expand your efforts and exponentially increase your effectiveness.

This is a core strategy that should be part of every Admissions Director’s marketing and enrollment plan.

There are five main roles that Parent Ambassadors can help you expand your enrollment and marketing effort:

1.  Tour Guide – Some schools use Parent Ambassadors to give or assist with campus tours on a personalized visit or open house. This can be a great parent-to-parent connection. A satisfied “customer” will always do a better job selling your school from their own experience than a paid “salesperson” can ever do.

2.  Personal Contact with Inquiries and Applicants – Your Parent Ambassadors can be utilized to make personal contacts with your prospective parents. This contact can be part of your follow-up sequence as a phone call, email or hand-written note, depending on the parent, their preferred approach and time available.

3.  Outreach to Feeder Schools, Churches and Community Events – It can be difficult to establish connections with feeder schools and churches, especially when you are attempting to reach the administrator or pastor. However, your Parent Ambassadors can help you in this effort (see previous blog post on this topic). They can also help with your outreach by attending and representing your school at key community events or by inviting prospective families from their neighborhood to an in-home coffee and dessert meeting.

4.  Online Reviews – It is important to have updated and positive reviews of your school on key school directory and review sites such as GreatSchools.com as well as on Google, Yelp and Facebook. Your Parent Ambassadors can help you by writing positive reviews as well as recruiting other parents in your school to write additional reviews.

5.  Brand Advocate – Your school’s reputation and word of mouth is critical to your marketing and enrollment success. Parent Ambassadors can help you in this effort by keeping their ears open to the word on the street and online. When something negative is said or published, they can jump in and defend your school as your brand advocate.

You might also be interested in reading Katie Gibson’s article posted in the AISAP 52 Blog on this same topic: The Power of Parent and Student Ambassadors.

Do you have a team of Parent Ambassadors at your school?

How have you utilized Parent Ambassadors to expand your enrollment and marketing reach?