Enrollment and Marketing Strategies for Private Schools

Last week I attended the Word of Mouth Crash Course in Austin, TX. This one-day conference provided an intense program of rapid-fire sessions by some of the leaders in the word of mouth marketing movement. This conference provided marketing strategies applicable at a private school.

One of the highlights for me was meeting Andy Sernovitz, author of the book I always recommend, Word of Mouth Marketing. He looked down at my name tag and said, “Ah, you are Rick. You were the first person to blog about this event.” It was pretty cool that he would remember me for sharing his conference through my blog–that’s word of mouth in action! 

I thought I would use this blog to share some of the main themes and strategies from the crash course. By the way, if you want to read more about the sessions at the conference, you can check out the word of mouth blog which provided live coverage of each session. Read more…

One of the strategies that private school admissions directors often consider is how to effectively reach out to feeder schools. 

The question I hear private school admissions directors and marketing committees ask: “How can we provide awareness at our key feeders to attract their families to our school?”

Most often the strategies are centered on the director or administrator of the feeder school. The thought is that if you can get the leader connected with your school then they will influence their families’ decision to consider your school. Some strategies include meeting with the director, inviting them to an event, tour, or professional development workshop on your campus, and trying to find a way to motivate the director to expose parents to your school. 

Read more…

I would like to share some private school resources for your enrollment and marketing strategies.

This week I presented at an AISAP Roundtable at The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach and at Independent Day School in Tampa on the topic of “Developing Your Word of Mouth Marketing Plan for Enrollment Success.”  As part of my presentation, I reviewed 400 websites and Facebook pages and shared some of the best ways that AISAP schools are using the Web to share their story. I will be sharing some of my findings with you in my upcoming blog posts.

To get a taste of what I presented, you can access a blog post that I wrote recently for AISAP 52 about this topic. AISAP  (Association of Independent School Admission Professionals) is a great organization that every admissions professional should join! You should also plan to attend the AISAP Summer Institute at La Jolla Country Day School from July 8-11 (I will be there as one of the faculty members). Read more…

In the past week I have reviewed over 200 private school websites. Some of the websites are really good, and some of them are really bad. 

Your school’s website should be your number one marketing priority. It should be the strategic focus of your energy and resources in your school’s marketing and enrollment effort.

In my review, I was surprised to see some of the mistakes that are being made on private school websites. Without showing you these examples, let me highlight these mistakes for you: Read more…

Video is one of the best ways to tell your school’s story.

Gone are the days of the professionally produced 10-15 minute video for private and independent schools. If anything, you need a much shorter video to showcase your school and some additional video vignettes.

If you are planning to produce a short video produced for marketing purposes, you may want to consider the Baylor School example: Baylor Leads. Even though it is a marketing piece, I really like how it captures the brand and overall feel of the school. In their marketing effort, they use both marketing produced videos as well as “in-house” video vignettes to tell the story of Baylor School. Read more…

I recently registered to attend the Word of Mouth Crash Course in Austin, TX, on May 10. This looks to be an idea-packed event that will be well worth my time (by the way, I  have four 25% discount coupons if you are interested in joining me…just let me know!).

I have been intrigued with how this organization has focused on using word of mouth marketing strategies to help fuel their attendance. While watching them at work, I have thought about how these strategies could be applied to marketing a private school.

Let me share with you some of their strategies and how you can apply them to your school: Read more…

Have you ever thought about the reasons why some private schools experience enrollment growth and why others decline?

If you were developing a theory of school growth, what would you propose as the most important factors that influence enrollment growth?

Based on my experiences in working with private, Christian and independent schools throughout the country, I believe that there are multiple factors that contribute to enrollment growth and decline at a school. Let me highlight some of these factors for you: Read more…

Your school’s brand is critical for your marketing effort. In my years of working with private schools, I have seen brands of all types—from terrible ones to those that are outstanding.  

What is branding?

Let me use two of my favorite quotes to define branding: 

“From a business point of view, branding in the marketplace is very similar to branding on the ranch.  A branding program should be designed to differentiate your product [school] from all the other cattle [schools] on the range; Even if all the other cattle on the range look pretty much alike.” (Al and Laura Reis, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding) Read more…

I believe private school marketing and admissions directors should pursue professional development opportunities. It is important to continue to learn in your profession. By attending conferences and workshops you will have opportunities to learn best practices, hear ideas that have worked in other schools and organizations, and network with your peers. 

I want to share with you several conferences that I will be speaking at and a few others that I am considering for my own development that might also be of interest to you. Read more…

If you haven’t set up some Facebook ad campaigns for your school, you should. The process is rather simple and follows an intuitive process for setting up your ads.

One of my favorite Facebook ad options is the sponsored stories page-like and post-post ads.

Think of sponsored stories as a way to facilitate word-of-mouth to the potential private school prospects you are trying to reach. Sponsored stories focuses on showing your ad to the friends of your Facebook page “likes” (your fans!), which a personal endorsement. Read more…