To Blog or Not to Blog?

That is the question for you and your school.

And the answer is a resounding YES.

Whether you are the head of school or the marketing director, let me give you several reasons why you should blog about your school:

• Blogging has significant search engine optimization (SEO) value for your school’s online presence. Search engines thrive on content that is dynamic and changes frequently—and that is what a blog is all about.
• According to research conducted by HubSpot (www.hubspot.com), blogging increases visitors to your website. If you can get more people to go to your school’s website and thereby produce more leads, then this strategy is a no-brainer.
• Writing a regular blog provides a personal strategy for you to communicate your message and the story of your school. If you have the ability to write effectively and tell a story about your school, then blogging can be an effective method to get your message out. 
• You have the opportunity to control your message and to publish as often as you want. Just think about all the effort you take to get your story published in your local newspaper; now you can publish anything you want about your school anytime you want. You are your school’s brand journalist.

However, if you don’t have the time, desire or passion to write, then blogging might not be for you. If it’s not for you, then you need to find someone else to share your school’s message online in this format. Blogging is one of many important online marketing strategies that every school needs in their arsenal.

So go ahead and try it. I did. And look, you are one of many school leaders now reading my blog!

Thank you. By the way, my next blog post will be published through my new website. If you have subscribed to my blog, you will still receive my new posts. You can find my new blog at www.EnrollmentCatalyst.com/blog.

Telling Your School’s Story

Most school leaders do not tell their story very well.

Think about it. We live in a world that thrives on stories. We pay money to sit in front of a large screen for two hours to be drawn into a story. We sit around the table telling our family members stories about our day and our lives. We read a book that tell us a story.

And you know what?  A good story is read. A good story is viewed. A good story sells. A good story is experienced.

We have an opportunity to tell the story of our school, but we just don’t do it very well.

Marketing is more about telling your school’s story than putting together a slick ad campaign. It’s the story of your key brand messages, what I call your unique selling propositions (USPs), wrapped around stories of real people and real experiences.

Take a look at everything you and your marketing or leadership team has written and published in the past month about your school. Is there a story that you are telling? Or, is it a series of updates about events and activities that don’t captivate the reader? What are the underlying messages about your school that you are trying to communicate?

Let’s say that one of your school’s USPs is college preparation. It’s one thing to say that you are a college prep school. It’s quite another to share stories of your alumni demonstrating this core message.

Perhaps one of your school’s USPs is the integration of faith and learning. Again, it’s much more powerful to tell stories about your faculty and how they intentionally do this in the classroom.

What if your Facebook updates told real stories of your faculty, students and alumni? What if you began every email newsletter with a story? What if you had short video vignettes on your website that told these stories?

I really liked the theme of this video introduction on Providence School’s website: http://www.prov.org/admissions/default.cfm. Can you imagine if they took this theme to the next level and actually told the stories of their faculty, students and alumni? Now that would be powerful marketing!

It’s important to realize that your school has a story to tell. Your job is to effectively tell it. When prospective parents are drawn into the real life stories you tell, they will be much closer to selecting your school for their children.

Marketing is really about telling your school’s story.

A Data-Based Enrollment Dashboard

During the next six months, school administrators will focus on their enrollment numbers as they prepare for the upcoming school year.

Budgets will be created based on these numbers. Positions and programs will be added or eliminated based on these numbers.

This data is critical for a school.

What’s surprising to me is that many schools don’t have the enrollment data they need to guide them. While they may know the number of contracts received, many of the other key data variables are missing.

School administrators need a data-based enrollment dashboard that contains a daily snapshot of their results. This dashboard should include the following:

• Admissions — Inquiries, Visits, Shadows, Applications, Admits, Deposits and Enrollees
• Retention — Available Pool, In Process, Re-Enrolled/Contracts Received, Cancelled.

In addition, these results should be shown in light of the enrollment goals. This will show the school administrator the number of students needed to reach the goals that have been established for the next year.

Recently, I helped Indian Rocks Christian School in Largo, FL, create their enrollment dashboard. They call their enrollment dashboard the “Red Report.” Their enrollment director presented the report to their school board a few weeks ago and they loved it. In this one-page report, the board knew everything they needed about the enrollment at their school.

The following is a screenshot of this enrollment dashboard. I would be glad to email you this spreadsheet if you are interested in using it at your school.

Advertising Your School on Facebook

It’s amazing that there are over 600 million users worldwide on Facebook and it’s very likely that your school’s target population is using this social media site.

As the number one social media site, it is critical for schools to utilize Facebook as a way to target prospects. While you must do this by building your school’s page, it is also important to include Facebook ads as part of your overall marketing strategy.

Facebook allows you to target your ad to specific demographics including age, gender and location, as well as to target their interests and likes.

Yesterday I helped a school set up two Facebook ads. The first ad is targeted to friends of their school’s fans on Facebook. In less than 30 minutes we created an ad with a photo and teaser copy to encourage these friends to check out the school’s page. When the ad is clicked, the individual will be taken to the school’s Facebook page and will be encouraged to “like” the page.

The second ad targets the same group but is focused on advertising the school’s upcoming open house. Once again the ad was designed with a photo and teaser copy. In addition, we created a special landing page on their school’s website so that they would go directly to this page to discover more information on the open house when clicking on the ad.

Both of these ads are set up as PPC ads (pay-per-click). In other words, the only time you pay for these ads is when a prospect clicks on the ad. The cost for this click is based on your ad’s reach and focus. In the two examples above, the cost per click is about 75 cents each (Facebook will suggest a range for you ad). When an ad is created, you can establish a budget for the campaign that creates a ceiling for how much will be spent by your school–you might want to begin with a budget of around $200 for an ad and see what happens. 

These are two easy examples in which you can create an ad for your school on Facebook. You can learn more about Facebook advertising by clicking on the link at the bottom of your Facebook page. You can also begin by setting up your own ad and experimenting with your target demographics and potential reach.

So go ahead–Start using Facebook advertising today as a very cost-effective way to market your school online to your target demographics. You’ll find that it’s much more effective than that traditional print ad.

Undercover Head of School

I normally don’t watch TV except for sports and the news.

On Sunday evening I was flipping through the countless cable channels and came across the show, “Undercover Boss.” Immediately this show grabbed my attention as it featured one of the owners of the Chicago Cubs going undercover.

The owner had grown a beard and wore a hat. His appearance was very different from his usual executive attire and polish. He went undercover selling hot dogs, parking cars, working on the grounds crew, changing the scoreboard, and more. This experience gave him an inside look at the organization that he would never have seen in his current role.

One thing he said stood out to me. As he was speaking to the staff of the Cubs organization at the conclusion of his undercover experience, he said, “I don’t know anything except that all of the ideas to make the Chicago Cubs a better organization are right here.”

I think schools can learn a lot from this TV show and from what he said.

I am not advocating that you grow a beard, wear a hat and disguise yourself among your faculty, staff and students—although that might be a very telling experience. However, I do think it is important for you to see your school in action—to experience it in ways that you might not normally see—especially if you are the head of school.

Sometimes the boss—or in your case, the head of school—doesn’t have a clear picture of what is going on. Therefore, you must rely upon what your people tell you.

Sometimes you must get out there and become vulnerable with your people in your school. You must allow them to tell you the way things really are so that your blinders are taken off.

You must realize that your people—your faculty and staff—have the ideas you need as the head to make your school a better place.

Only when you really know what is going on in your school and listen to the ideas of your people will you know what you must do to make your school a better place—for your faculty, staff, parents, students, donors, and alumni.

And when you work to make your school a better place by listening to the ideas of your people, the impact will be felt on your enrollment.

Your School’s Marketing Budget

Last week I had the opportunity to lead a webinar for 100 school administrators throughout the nation. As a follow-up to this webinar, this week I hosted a Q&A session with the same group.

There were some great questions that were asked that I may write about in future posts. However, two key questions were asked about a school’s marketing budget that I wanted to address.

1. What percentage of a school’s budget should be allocated to marketing?

Your marketing budget should be at least 2% of your school’s total operating budget. Typically, I recommend to school administrators that they should allocate 3-5% of their budget to marketing initiatives. Most schools I have worked work don’t allocate nearly enough!

2. What are the top priorities and initiatives that should be included in a marketing budget?

There are two main areas that I recommend including in your marketing budget. First, all of your initiatives should be focused on fueling word-of-mouth marketing. You should ask yourself this important question: Will this initiative help generate word-of-mouth marketing for our school? If not, then you might want to think twice about including it in your budget. You should include dollars to build your parent ambassador program, customer service, internal communications, video vignettes, your school’s brand and more.

Second, your dollars should be focused on developing an exceptional website and utilizing key online marketing strategies. After the word-of-mouth referral, the prospective parent will take a look at your website. This is a critical first impression and must be a budget priority. Beyond your school’s website, you should allocate resources towards search engine optimization, Google AdWords, Facebook and more. Web-based marketing must be a priority in your budget.

You, Your School and Facebook

Facebook has changed the landscape of the Web. With over 600 million users, Facebook is the leading social media site for personal and professional connections.

School leaders have a great opportunity to use this tool to reach their target audience and to effectively tell their story online.

Facebook must be a strategy that is part of your overall marketing effort. The following are several steps that you must take:

• School Page – The starting point for your Facebook strategy is to establish a page for your school (sounds basic, but I had to begin here). You should upload your school’s logo and contact information to your page. In addition, you should consider having an alumni page to reach out to this group and keep them connected to your school.
• Status Updates to Tell Your Story – Most schools make the mistake of using their status update to only advertise upcoming events and athletic results rather than telling stories of people whose lives have been positively changed or influenced because of their experience at the school. These stories should be linked back to your school’s unique selling propositions (USPs) to reinforce your key brand messages. Every time you give a status update you should consider it as an opportunity to tell your school’s story.
• Daily Status Updates – Ideally, it should be your goal to provide a status update daily on your Facebook page (that’s right, I said “daily”). The main mistake that school leaders make is that their school’s status updates are infrequent and inconsistent.
• Encourage Your Parents to “Like” your Page – It is important to build your fan base by reaching out to your current parents. You should encourage your parents to “like” your page. When this occurs, they will begin to see your status updates and it can be seen by their friends online (as well as anyone else looking at your school’s page). This is how you get your message out to your target audience!
• Get Involved in the Conversation – It is important for your school’s leadership team to be involved in the conversation and to be active on Facebook. This involvement can be compared to a Head of School walking to the parking lot to talk to a group of parents; getting involved in Facebook is taking this same step to the “online parking lot” where  your current and prospective parents are talking today.

Your parents are on Facebook. Your prospective parents are on Facebook. Your Alumni are on Facebook.

You must be on Facebook too to be part of the conversation.

Two Outstanding Events with Outstanding Results

One of the things I like best about working with schools across the country is that I get to see new ideas that actually work. Recently, I came across two great events that might help you in your enrollment and internal marketing effort.

Friend’s Day—At First Baptist Academy in Naples, FL, the school has a special “friend’s” day for current students to invite their friends to spend the day with them. They host two days when the public school is off for the day, one for the lower school and one for the upper grades. The goal is to encourage and motivate current students to focus on inviting their friends they want to encourage enrolling in the school, especially when students are key to the decision! The result: An increase in prospective students visiting campus with strong peer-to-peer influence to enroll.

Dads Make a Difference Day Celebration—As a vision of the Head of School at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School in Bradenton, FL, this special day was created to honor fathers of their students. The event begins with a light breakfast followed by an assembly in which performances by students and several tributes to fathers take place. This is a great event to connect fathers to the life of the school! The result: A “feel-good” event for fathers and reassurance that they are making a great investment in their child’s education.

Two outstanding events with outstanding results.

24/7 Marketing Mindset

I am seeing a shift that needs to take place in schools.

Gone are the days when we could rely upon word-of-mouth alone to grow our school.

Gone are the days when we didn’t have to think about marketing.

Gone are the days when faculty and staff think of marketing and enrollment as someone else’s job.

Gone are the days when we didn’t drop everything to take care of the prospective parent in our office, on the phone, or an applicant on campus ready to do an interview that isn’t scheduled.

Gone are the days when we didn’t allocate resources and full-time personnel to this most important area.

Instead, we must shift our mindset. Everyone at your school must think of their job as a brand marketer, an admissions director and a retention specialist. We need a 24/7 marketing mindset and for many schools, this is a cultural shift.

This shift will take time, energy and resources. It won’t happen overnight. It will be a gradual process that should be led by the Head of School and the Director of Enrollment. This intentional effort will take meetings, explanations, energy, new processes and directives. You may even need to step outside of your comfort zone.

It may also mean that you move some faculty and staff off of your bus (in the words of Jim Collins in Good to Great) if they fail to make this shift. With less students enrolled, your school’s impact is diminished and jobs are eliminated. With more students, your opportunity for impact is much greater and jobs are secure.

The new normal for schools is here in a 24/7 marketing mindset.

In the words of one school administrator I talked to this week, “I wish I would have done this five or six years ago.” The key is that he is working on this now.

Trust me, the cultural shift will be worth the effort.

Roll Out the Red Carpet

Rolling out the red carpet implies that there will be someone famous or a celebrity who will soon be walking through the entrance to a special event on a special occasion–like the upcoming Grammy’s on February 13.

Donna Cutting, in her book The Celebrity Experience, suggests that we need to roll out the red carpet for our customers (www.donnacutting.com).

In your context, you need to roll out the red carpet for your parents and students (because it’s ultimately about your student’s educational experience!).

This doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to have a red carpet on your sidewalk leading up to the office door (although one school I was working with considered this idea).

What this concept does mean is that your parents and students are the most important customers in your schools. You must do everything you can to provide outstanding service and create a memorable experience for them.

So how can you do this? Consider these ideas:

• Challenge faculty to send positive notes to parents about their child (rather than just sending out messages when the child is in trouble or is not doing well academically).
• Treat everyone that walks through your door or calls your office with immediate priority and service. The way you respond and how you treat them will go a long way in how they feel about your school.
• The Head of School can personally deliver birthday cards to students on their special day. Also, the head of School should send a birthday card to parentsAfter all, everyone wants to be treated in a special way on their special day!
• Send a personal note to a parent after they re-enroll thanking them for their continued commitment to the school and communicate how important they are to the community. Include a thank-you gift like school-branded magnet for their car or refrigerator.
• Change your voice message daily or weekly to say something like: “Thank you for your call. Today is Thursday, February 3^rd, and I have several meetings on my schedule. However, your call is very important to me and I will get back to you today or before noon tomorrow.
• Do something unexpected and special for your students on Valentine’s Day. The administration could personally deliver chocolate hearts to the students with a special message that says, “We love having you as a student at our school.”
• While we are on the subject of chocolate, give your faculty and staff a “Pay Day” candy bar on payday with a card thanking them for investing in the mission of the school through their dedicated service.
• Greet your parents in car line and give them a school-branded mug with a special note inviting them to one of your upcoming small group coffee events.

This list barely scratches the surface for what you can do to roll out the red carpet for your parents and students. Go ahead, brainstorm your own list and work on implementing your ideas.

When you roll out the red carpet, it will make a difference and create incredible buzz for your school.