Do you operate a private school? Are you finding it difficult to increase enrollment? Perhaps with all the unexpected expenses you took care of during the lockdown you can’t afford to employ the service of a marketer, so what do you do? The answer is not far-fetched – it lies in your school’s images, news, awards, testimonials, and other memorabilia.
One common mistake that schools make is neglecting the power of photos. As a school, you are selling yourself, it is right to always have images facilities, and many other activities are done in your school saved with you.
If perhaps you have those with you, gather them together and save them. If not, it is not too late to start gathering those now. You might be wondering, what is he saying? Well, let us take some of these e-commerce websites for example. When you want to buy something from an online store, the picture of the product attracts you, doesn’t it? The reviews tell you what you need to know about the product, and how it can be of benefit to you.
This is the same thing we are saying with your pictures. Your pictures have ways of telling new parents more about your school. So how do you go about this? Marketing your private school can be done affordably and effectively. Here are five ways to effectively market your school;
1. Build your photo library
You should spend time creating a catalog for your school’s digital images. You can organize them into different categories like; Academic, Sport, Extracurricular, Events, and so on. This number 1 step is crucial as it allows you to see what you have at a glance.
2. Develop your news library
No matter how old your school is, you must have celebrated some major milestone events. What better way to keep this than cataloging and sharing them. Your school probably has a record of graduation ceremonies, award-winning events, magazines, school annual reports, sporting events, and so on.
Create a catalog for these, forming a history book for your school. In addition, this also makes it easy to use when applied to your website or various social media accounts.
3. Post regularly
New materials always attract the eyes. Posting regularly on your social media accounts or website is an important task as online readers are always ready for new content. Employ a staff that can write well and makes use of these pictures to post content on your page. Allocate some minutes during the day to post online. For instance, you can post pictures of students just resuming for a new term or that of the debate team winning a competition.
4. Encourage interaction with the audience
After you might have attracted attention to you, the next thing is to foster communication with your school. Encourage interaction by putting a form on your website. The same goes for your social media accounts, prompt reply is crucial. Have dedicated contact details for your admission unit, and always reply to messages. Let your website form be short, you don’t like filling long forms, the same applies to your audience.
5. Always follow up
Consistent follow-up generates great results. Always meet with your team to discuss what they were able to achieve for the week, and what more can be done to make the marketing strategy effective. When following up on parents, it is normal for some to turn you down, do not let this stop you from doing this.
Remember, the more audience and inquiry you get, the higher your chances of increasing enrollment.
