How to Market A Private School
The key to increasing your private school enrollment is through marketing, primarily content marketing. With content marketing for private schools, you are telling your school's story so that it attracts families and entices them to join your school family.
Private schools have numerous options to get the word out, but content marketing is how you differentiate yourself and your school from the competition.
As parents begin their school search, they have a number of questions, such as:
Your marketing materials, website, social media presence, and personal interactions should all follow a consistent theme and work to answer these questions.??
Make sure you deliver on what you promise in terms of what you say and do. This will not only reassure parents, but they will be able to see their child on your campus.
You can and should create buyer personas to help you focus your marketing efforts.?Defining an ideal parent and student will help you develop marketing content and collateral that speaks directly to them.
Why Private School Marketing Matters
Developing a?private school marketing plan?will help you prepare your school and parents for the enrollment process ahead.
It is no longer feasible for a private school to have great programs and excellent teachers in today's competitive market. Your school's enrollment numbers will not increase until prospective students and parents know you exist.
You have to attract and educate prospects about the experiences at your school. You can concentrate on your educational offerings, such as class sizes, educational opportunities, etc. This should also provide a window into student life through a student’s eyes.
As a private school, the key factors for expanding your enrollment are balancing your traditions, publicity, and your legacy story. An effective content marketing strategy and plan can ensure that your school’s long-term objectives are current, practical, and achievable.
This post will help you determine the process, define your niche, and grow your school via a marketing strategy that distinguishes you from other schools in your area.
How to Execute Your Private School Marketing Strategy and Plan
As education teaching methods become more advanced and more progressive, it is critical to express what the foundation of your private school symbolizes clearly. This is entirely customizable, and following a strategy and plan will help you cover all the bases by:
Here’s how you do it:
Tell Your School's Story by Leading With Your Strengths
Promote your achievements, whether they are excellent test results or a K-12 Christian-based STEAM curriculum in your area. If it matches their wants and resources, parents have no trouble investing in their children.
Your executive summary should outline each aspect of your marketing plan. We recommend that you keep it on the table throughout the planning phase. Writing your positioning statement last, on the other hand, will guarantee that your entire plan is cohesive and adheres to your institution's aims. Your executive summary will serve as a cheat sheet of your plan and define your story for you and other parties (advisors, employees, financiers, etc.).
Remember that you have the ability to frame your content. What you promote might be the first time your target audience has heard of you. Make sure your school’s unique value proposition is appealing, professional, and uses complete concepts while being concise.
Tell Your School's Story by Identifying Your School’s Weaknesses
Weaknesses are acceptable if you actively work on ways to address them. The first step is to recognize them, and if you can do that, you will be able to be a resilient school. Check to see whether they are damaging you amid your competitors' options.
However, when addressing stumbling blocks, if you have a proposed plan prepared, you will be viewed as proactive and self-aware. Prospects will see this transparency and understand it. Then you and your school can make the most of the shortcomings.
Tell Your School's Story by Finding Hidden Opportunities?
Discovering assets you didn’t realize you had or were capable of will boost your value as a private school marketer. Keep in mind that your private school has a specialty or niche and a market that can and will impress both students and parents. Use your distinct message and suggestions to supplement existing strategies and give your school a marketing makeover.?
Tell Your School's Story by Assessing External Threat(s)
Competitors aren't the only threats to be aware of. You should keep an eye out for new technological advancements, political factors and pressures, local, regional, state and global environmental challenges that will help you stay prepared. If you are aware of what is going on, you can position yourself to keep your school top of prospects’ minds.
Tell Your School's Story by Following Market Trends
You can keep ahead of your competition if you understand the climate and how your school fits within it.?
Use the market trends to inform you on:
Facilities, academics, technology, organizational structure, and spiritual life are essential areas of your offers that can be split into key categories to enhance your market growth.?
These key areas will be determined by research and conducting a?long-range plan. With this plan, you can be sure of which action items will be vital elements in the development of your plan.
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Tell Your School's Story by Knowing Your Schools Competition?
Know where you stand amongst competing schools. You must understand their distinct capabilities in order to ensure that your school is on par with the other area alternatives. You may even determine where you can aim higher with this information. Knowing the qualities of competing institutions, such as the price or programs offered to students, can help you understand what you're up against.
Tell Your School's Story by Outlining Your Schools Offerings
As part of your?private school marketing plan, you will need to be able to answer the following questions:
When you start outlining your school's offerings, you will need to review the above list and make sure your tuition is competitive. Showcase your teachers, administrators, and specialists, especially if they have rare specifications. Emphasizing these aspects of your school's ecosystem increases its worth.?
Each of the steps previously listed will help you settle comfortably within your school’s niche. Now that your objectives have been broadened, you may go forward with marketing techniques that target specific segments.
Five Types of School Marketing Plans & Channels
With your competitors in mind, it is crucial to employ a number of marketing strategies to increase your school’s brand recognition. If you want to be perceived as a contender school, your next steps should be deliberate. Begin by determining what sort of plan(s) you require:
Quarterly or Annual Marketing Strategy
Quarterly and annual marketing plans outline the techniques or initiatives you'll implement over a specific time period.
“Breaking News” Marketing Strategy
A "Breaking News" layout will serve as a guide for the various ways you'll implement announcements to emphasize a new award, certification, or other excellent news you want to share with your target audience.
To execute your traditional and digital media strategies, you’ll want to use a variety of channels and strategies such as the four following ones:
Paid Marketing Strategy
Pay-Per-Click (PPC), paid social media promotions, or native advertising should be considered and be part of your paid marketing strategy.
Initially, paid advertising can help you get a steady stream of leads until more organic methods such as content marketing kick in. With paid advertising, you can influence and inform specific segments of your target audience more effectively within your budget.
Your metrics will be able to be tracked easier, and it will aid you in the reporting of outcomes. This will help you in measuring your school’s success.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Social Media Marketing outlines the strategies, platforms, and methods you intend to use to achieve certain goals on social media for your school. If you want to increase traffic to your website, social media platforms are an excellent place to help lead prospects to your detailed resources.?
Social media platforms allow you to express your message through graphics, photos, images, and videos. This will help enable you to expand your audience in order to get more leads.
Social media networks should be seen as an extension of your website. They can be a quick approach to get parents’ and students’ attention and maybe increase enrollment. Using various tactics like hashtags, you can capture parent and student personas that you are aiming for.?
Content Marketing Strategy
This covers the creative resources you develop to promote the offerings at your school. These content assets could include strategies, tactics, and campaigns in order to communicate the school's mission from several perspectives.
This marketing strategy allows for the most unique material while still providing direction. Examples might be a school tradition or an awareness day.
Now that you've determined which tactics are best for your purposes put yourself in the shoes of the parent. This is what you will use to tailor your content in order to reach your buyer persona.
Say you received a donation intended to help with STEAM learning. Something like this is the perfect use case for the “Breaking News” Marketing plan. You can use the outlets and plan to announce not only the dalmatian but that you are focused on STEAM learning.?
This will work in your favor, primarily if your competition does not provide Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math curriculum. This will help elevate your school in the minds of parents who are willing to invest in their child's education.
With each activity, you should have an objective in mind. Your success and the success of your private school will be seen in the results, such as interactions over a given time, enrollment numbers, and metrics.?
Get Your Website Listed in Local Searches
Apart from Google ranking, getting found in directories such as GreatSchools.org will help you get in front of your target audience.
Other Ideas to Consider?
In order to target prospective students or parents, try to launch your campaigns six months before the semester or enrollment begins. If families are researching options, they will be actively on the hunt around this time.
Final Thoughts
The key to marketing your private school and increasing your school’s enrollment is through marketing it effectively. If you need help?marketing your private school, then reach out to us. We are experts in marketing for private schools.