Marketing is crucial to business and organizational success. The stiff competition in the educational sector has made promotion even more important to attracting and retaining students. Only private schools with positive brand images and reputations can win top learners in the competitive, and sometimes, chaotic landscape. In this article, we explore the top 10 digital marketing ideas that contemporary private schools can implement to win more students and thrive. Read on to understand!
The Importance of a Marketing Strategy for Private Schools
You may ask, what is the importance of marketing strategy for private schools? The answer is straightforward. There are numerous advantages of a well-defined marketing strategy for educational institutions, especially those struggling to attract learners. Below are a few of them:
- It creates awareness about an institution’s brand and reputation
- It enables educators to identify and target their ideal audiences, ensuring optimal impact
- It can help differentiate an institution from the rest, making it more appealing to the right learners.
- An effective marketing strategy also helps schools build trust and credibility with their stakeholders, more specifically parents.
- it can also improve an institution’s enrolment rate and numbers, leading to increased revenue.
- It can allow a school to charge higher tuition fees due to an improved reputation.
- Lastly, it fosters long-term relationships with parents and the community within which a school operates, ensuring continued support.
Mastering the Art of Digital Marketing for Private Schools: Top 10 Strategies to Attract Parents and Students
Now that we’re conversant with the advantages of marketing for private schools, let’s move to the thrust of the matter, strategies. Institutions employ diverse promotional techniques to build their brands. Below, we discuss the top 10 traditional and digital marketing strategies for private schools.
- Scholarships
Let’s face it. Most private schools charge higher fees as compared to public institutions. Many students from underprivileged backgrounds can hardly afford them. Colleges such as Columbia, Dartmouth, and Brown, to mention a few, charge upwards of $82,584 in annual tuition fees. However, to remain relevant and popular, they offer various scholarships and financial aid packages to deserving students. These benefits target gifted and smart learners from poor families, emphasizing inclusivity and service to humanity. The strategy has worked over the years, as parents, guardians, and the media talk widely about the scholarships, improving the institutions’ popularity.
- Alumni networks
Great universities produce great graduates. If you doubt it, have a keen look at our country’s political, business, and social landscapes. Wherever you look, graduates from top universities, e.g., Harvard, Yale, Duke, Princeton, and Stanford, among others dominate. The achievements of these top individuals reflect positively on their colleges. For private institutions, this can be a marvelous opportunity to market their brand. They can establish a strong alumni network and use it to highlight the success stories of their graduates, appealing to a wider audience in the process.
- Leveraging social media
The advent of social media has completely revolutionized our ways of communication. Most people spend hours on the platforms daily with 10% of users, translating to 33.19 million Americans, considered addicts. Since marketers follow potential customers wherever they are, the latest private school marketing strategies overemphasize social media. They use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to engage their stakeholders through interactive posts and stories.
- Referral programs
While many may view referrals as old-fashioned, they remain the most effective marketing strategy of all time. According to a report by Market Watch, their success rate is 23%, while that of emails, influencers, and affiliates stand at 8.4%, 2.55%, and 0.5%, respectively. This is significant, especially for private schools struggling to improve their enrolment rates. They can engage their current students, parents, and staff in word-of-mouth marketing, offering some rewards for successful people.
- Campus tours
Sometimes all it takes to influence a prospective student to join a school is visiting and experiencing its environment in person. Therefore, consider organizing open houses for high schoolers and their families. Take the opportunity to show them your facilities, faculty, and non-teaching staff. You can also highlight your academic programs and past achievements in the process. Who knows, one or many things might impress the students and attract them to your school.
- Writing contests
Writing competitions can attract students from diverse social, racial, geographic, political, and economic backgrounds. They can be more effective if the prize contestants can win is more appealing, say a $10,000 reward. These kinds of competitions favor students with solid and coherent writing skills. Students who doubt their competence, especially in choosing the right topic, can seek urgent help from professional writers at FastEssay. As a fast essay writing service, they can help you choose the most updated, interesting, and debate-worthy topic to explore in your papers.
- Community engagement
Schools, private or public, don’t exist in isolation. They operate within communities with several stakeholders. Therefore, they need to collaborate with local businesses, families, and organizations to foster lasting connections. Offer them tuition discounts, buy their local produce to feed the students, and participate in their cultural or sporting events. This way, you can be sure that parents will send their children to your institution and recommend it to others.
- Influencers
Celebrities and influencers have become integral to digital marketing for private schools. A single mention by a top trendsetter can drive millions of traffic to your website. However, it requires working with the right individuals. Once you identify an influencer in education, collaborate with them in creating impactful materials for your school. These can be videos, presentations, or photos showing your school environment, performance, or community.
- Emailing
Emails remain one of the most powerful marketing tools around. However, it must be done right if it’s to be impactful. The first step is to create an updated and relevant emailing list, which could include your students, their parents, alumni, and other stakeholders. Once you have the right contacts, you can design impactful messages and share, say weekly or monthly.
- Strategic collaborations
Sometimes, you must work with others to excel. For a school with limited resources, partnering with other institutions in the education sector can provide a major boost. For example, offering certifications and programs students can transfer to other colleges can help significantly.
Your Network Is Your Strength!
As discussed in the article, schools can use diverse marketing strategies to promote their brands and programs. However, each strategy has its shortfalls, requiring careful consideration before implementation. The secret is maximizing opportunities that offer the most impact. Your best bet is to utilize your network of parents, alumni, students, faculty, and non-teaching staff to pass word-of-mouth info to others, popularizing your school in the process.