So in the context of school marketing, how do you bring students into your school or increase enrollment?
How do you ensure you are consistently committed to investing in your school marketing?
Here are three things you must do:
✅ have a marketing budget
✅ have a marketing plan
✅ execute your marketing plan within your marketing budget
Within the context of the marketing plan
You need to factor in some core activities, which includes:
1⃣ Winning competitions
As a means to promote your school. Ensure you register your school pupils/students for competitions no matter how small it seem to you.
If you are able to win, make noise about it.
Include it on your flyers and handbills
That's the key, if you have social media handles, design special flyers for it and use the award won as banners on your platforms.
That's how to generate word of mouth ( a benefit to talk about)
When you pick handbills of every school around you
What you see is the samething written on all of them
Qualified and experienced teachers, spacious classrooms and laboratories etc
Those things don't sell again
Note this-
People don't buy features, they buy benefit
Hence position your school as a winning school
And one of the ways to prove that you are a good school with excellent academic, social or extra curricular activities is to win competitions.
2⃣ Engage in community Service
To effectively engage school community related services
I always encourage school owners to pick some SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS and align the school around it
For instance, let's say the school chooses No poverty
Read up about the goal that have no poverty and design community initiatives for this.
When you do this you announce your school to the community and become a better known brand
You can also pick from the united national world days
And ensure you engage the community in this
For instance, you can pick World cancer day and design handbills to sensitize about cancer.
And the handbill has your school name, logo and contact addresses on the cancer awareness campaign or any other initiative you have chosen
But *ensure its a need within your community*
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3⃣ Be intentionally strategic
This is third term, many schools won't start entrance exams until late July /August.
This is bad
Many schools won't start publicity until during the long holidays
This is bad
As from the 5th or latest 7th week, you should have been ready with entrance exams and already running your first batch of screening exams
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We have designed a lot of growth strategies for school and over time,
The teacher mentality always rob the schools off.
They have this all is well mindset and believe that once you teach well, students will come
That rule worked well in the early days of school business.
Not now that there are schools on every street.
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4⃣ The school owner
The school owner is the chief marketer of the school not the teachers
How many school owners here have complimentary or call cards for themselves or even their management team not to mention their teachers ?
While the headteachers and principals focus on academic success, the school owner who is fully engaged in their schools should take the school marketing, Public relationship and customer service personally
I'm not saying they shouldn't get involved in the academics, if you have professionals working for you design appraisal systems.
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5⃣ Engage social media platforms
The business of the 21st century, if you are not online
You are either fake or you don't exist
Hence, schools should:
✅ List their schools on online business directory ( vconnect, schoolscompass etc
✅ have social media handles and website - ( social media handles to engage parents and general audience.)
As a school consultant, that has worked with some schools across board
I have seen the difference between the progressive schools and the non progressive schools.
It lies on how fast they are to adapting new ideas and innovations.
5 to 8 years ago, schools owning website and social media handles was strange and unheard of in some cliché
But today, its a must
Just as schools having digital learning systems.
To grow student enrollment, school shouldn't be doing hope marketing where they expect parents to just walk into the school. You must do things to make them walk in.
I believe in your success!
**************You can connect if you need us to help you with your school marketing plan and implementation.
IEBelieve - 08093759013
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