As a school administrator, you have thought through every aspect of your institution. You know the education level you want to provide to the student body; you know the types of families who will best fit your environment; you know the connection your staff has to their focus areas. Every detail about how your school operates has been carefully considered and planned. There’s just one thing you know needs improvement: student attraction and retention rates.
Private and charter schools live and die by the earned loyalty they garner from families and communities. While a strong physical presence is important, your digital reputation is impacting how many people are contacting you for a tour and how many students you will enroll in the upcoming year–whether you realize it or not.
It’s not a new concept that engaged families are a key indicator of enrollment and retention rates. PTO/PTA groups, room parents, family-led events, donation drives, fundraisers, etc have all been proven ways to give enrolled families ownership in the educational process. The more successfully your school can create stakeholders out of parents, the more likely your retention rates will thrive.
But, aside from traditional methodologies for engagement, what is your school doing online to bring parents into the inner circle? Your target demographic is online. It’s time to start bringing them to your school and keeping them there…before they ever actually come for a tour. It’s time to implement inbound marketing for your school.
Attract
Find out where your target families are online (start by completing a buyer persona). Once you’ve figured out who you are trying to bring to your school, you can figure out where they are. Then, put together content and conversation starters that resonate with their concerns, goals, fears, and hopes. Content marketing is going to be a leading driver of traffic to your site, so make sure your efforts in this area are thorough.
The layout of your website affects everything, the content, navigation loading time etc., so if your website isn’t up to your visitors’ standards, or if it fails to make an impression in the first few seconds, you’ve lost a potential family. Mobile traffic is the primary source for modern parents, so make sure you have a site that is responsive and easy to navigate from a smartphone. Parents want to know if their children will fit in, what extracurriculars your school offers, and of course, the cost. Answer these questions with pictures and videos of staff and students. Firsthand accounts will give your school more credibility.
Parents want to see real faces of the school, and they want to know who will be teaching their children. Use your website to create an open environment that communicates transparency, culture, and your brand story. Highlight staff and students; don’t use stock photos because real moments matter to parents. Make sure that you are adding value to every piece of content you put out. Ask yourself why is this important? Will they remember this after they finish reading it? Establish your school and staff as thought leaders and resources for parents. It is essential that your website and digital presence begins building trust with families from the first moment they connect.
Convert
Once you’ve drawn people to your website in the Attract portion of the buyer’s journey, you will want to convert those visitors into calls, tours, and prospects for enrollment. Make it easy for parents to contact you in a variety of ways. Click to call buttons, email, social media links, blog comments, and perhaps even a live chat option are all options to consider sharing with families. You want to remove any barriers to open communication with the school.
This is also when you want to put the spotlight back on the families, curriculum, and staff. Offer ways for prospects to feel a part of your community through storytelling and transparency. Use your social media platforms to pull back the curtain and show what life is like at your school. Your website can be a source for parents, lured by the conveyed culture, to research more about the type of education offered and the results they can expect.
Close
You’re almost there, your parents are close to signing on the dotted line. So how do you push them over the finish line? During this stage it’s important to be as transparent as possible about your curriculum and cost. When you are displaying the prices of your school it needs to equalize with value. This is where content comes back into the picture. Showcase testimonials and reviews from other parents on this page. Alumni success stories will validate your tuition fees and gives parents a perspective of what’s to come after their students graduate. This is also a great place to showcase your curriculum. Break down the curriculum by age, and what makes your curriculum different than others. Describe what languages do you offer, extra curriculars, art and music.
Delight
Delight your parents by continuing open communication with them throughout the time their child is attending your school. Engage with parents over social media, emails and newsletters throughout the year. Every school should have a blog; highlight success stories of students, interview teachers and staff, and update parents on new curriculum changes throughout the school year. All of these items will help with your school’s retention- one of the biggest problems for private and charter schools. Once this phase of the buyer’s journey is completed, you’ll start over again and the cycle continues. After using all of these stages, word of mouth will spread and you will continue to expand your school as well as retaining the students you already have.