How to Improve Your School Marketing with 8 Easy Techniques [Part 2]

Is your district putting more emphasis on marketing this year?

Are you feeling the pressure from private and charter schools in your area?

School marketing is becoming more important as competition is increasing for public schools across the country. It is time for school districts to embrace marketing. If you remember anything form this podcast, make sure to know that marketing is an investment… not an expense.

Marketing is an Investment... Not an Expense 

In Part 2 of this article, you’ll discover four more simple tips to improve your school marketing.

 

Click Here to Read Part 1

 

Let's Recap Part 1

School Marketing is about using tools to get more parents to enroll their children in your schools and keep them there. School Marketing is also about getting more community members to support your schools more often so your school district succeeds.

In part 1 we discussed these important tips:

1. Live Video for Marketing
2. Google Analytics
3. Marketing Success with Facebook Ads
4. The Facebook Pixel

Knowing our goal of marketing, let’s look at the next four simple techniques to improve your school marketing.

 

Improving Your School Marketing

5. Content Marketing with Lead Magnets

Content marketing is about being useful. Give your audience something that will help them make an informed decision. Hopefully a decision that will result in them choosing your district.

Before anything else, the most important thing you can do is to educate them before you sell to them. You goal should be to create content that educates your audience.

"You goal should be to create content that educates your audience."

And a lead magnet is just that… a piece of content that is so valuable that your audience will give you something to get that content. Most of the time it is their email address.

 

My district has had great success using this technique with parents of preschoolers to market our kindergarten program. We offered a Kindergarten Milestone Checklist to parents if they signed up for our Kindergarten Email Newsletter.

 

 

6. Creating Niche Email Lists

 

From our Kindergarten Newsletter we have had several families choose CFBISD as their district of choice for their incoming kindergartner. Our newsletter focuses on tips and techniques for parents as their child begins school for the first time. It is in partnership with our district parent blog, School-A-Hoop.

Much like our Kindergarten Digital Newsletter, we have created several niche email lists to meet the needs of the different groups in CFBISD. General district newsletters can be fine, but the real power comes with niche lists, with content for a specific group who has specific questions.

 

Past Article Alert: How to Use Email to Make a Powerful Impact

There is too much data and too many tools to not know what people want in your district. And everybody's wants are not the same. Your athletic parents do not want the same information and help as your fine arts parents. You elementary school parents are more concerned with what is happening in elementary school at the moment. 

Here is a sample of "Niche Lists" we have created in CFBISD:

• Fine Arts Parents
• Athletic Parents
• STEM TIPS
• Pre-K Parents
• High School Programs
• CFBISD Alumni
• Over 65 in the Community

Our list are influenced by our data and well thought out. Niche content is emailed to them in hopes they choose CFBISD, or remain as a proud parent.

7. Stop Worrying About Likes

So many people on social media are concerned with likes. All I can say is... social media is not a popularity contest. It's about finding the right audience who is going to engage with your content.

The Order of Importance of Social Media Engagement (Least to Best):

1. Likes/Hearts
2. Comments
3. Shares/Retweets

Worry about engagement, not if someone likes you.

Likes can be good to build an audience who is going to share, but make sure they are the right likes.

 

8. Build Audience Personas

 

You must know your audience to be able to create content that they will consume. Building audience personas is crucial for each of your campaigns. 

 

 

Everybody is different, but similar groups bubble to the surface when you do the research.

Many leading content marketing blogs have used this great quote from Ardath Albee to define Audience Personas:

"A marketing persona is a composite sketch of a key segment of your audience. For content marketing purposes, you need personas to help you deliver content that will be most relevant and useful to your audience."

 

The key statement I see is "help you deliver content that will be most relevant..."

 

Defining your audience can help with many different things including campaign management, social media paid ads, and video marketing.

 

Hubspot has an excellent Buyer/Audience Persona template to help brainstorm and build your audiences. We use them in our district to help organize the process.

 

 

Click Here to get Hubspot's Buyer Persona Templates 

 

Conclusion

 

All school districts should start thinking about school marketing. It's an investment that all districts will need sooner than later.
 

With increased competition from all types of educational establishments, it is better to start now to be ahead of the game. Remember, you are investing in the future of your school district.
 

What do you think? Will you try these school marketing techniques? 

 

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

School Marketing Trends to Own in 2017 [2]

With the first semester coming to a close, it is time to start thinking about what strategy we will have in place for 2017.  

Last year saw quite a few changes in the why and the how school districts are marketing to their parents, students, employees and community. Marketing is an investment all of education will have to adopt going into the new year.

 

 

This is part two of two focusing on the first five trending areas. 

 

Part 1 Can Be Found Here

Here are my next five thoughts of where school districts should concentrate their marketing in 2017:

 

6. Customer Service is Marketing

In the era of chatbots and automated marketing techniques, personal interaction may be the last thing on your mind for your 2017 marketing strategy.  However, as 2017 quickly approaches, customer service will be extremely important.

Use your social media platforms to answer your parent’s concerns. Train your frontline staff the importance of making a good impression every time they greet visitors or answer the phone.

Advertising great David Ogilvy’s famous quote is very relevant, “The consumer is not a moron, she’s your wife” Or better yet… your parents, students, and voters.

7. Interactive Content is Cool

People don’t want to be sold too.  They want to be entertained. They want to be engaged.  Your content needs to be engaging.

Storytelling is always key in engaging your audience.  People are captivated by an emotional story that relates to their life, but that does not mean you have to tell a story all the time.  Sometimes you can just have fun.

How to Create an Interactive Tweet that will Drive Engagement for Your Company

 

Build polls in Twitter, create quizzes that relate to programs in your district, or have contests with User Generated Content.  The key is to have fun with your audience and make them part of the experience.  The more they interact with your content, the longer they are going to stay on your site.

Here is an article that might help with interactive content:

4 Tools to Create Interactive Content in Minutes

8. Don’t Forget the Millennials and Gen Z

Can you believe it? Millennials are now your parents. And they can not be treated the same way you treat your normal audience.

According to AdWeek’s article entitled “Marketing toMillennials and the Necessity of Social Brand Advocacy” Millenials don’t trust advertising.  In fact, the only people they do trust are the people they know.

Here is an article I wrote to help gain trust from your younger audience:

Students Hate Your Marketing… Here are 4 Ideas to Gain Their Trust

9. Focus on Native Advertising

Print is almost dead. Unless you are trying to build brand awareness, putting an ad in your local newspaper is going to be a bust. There is little return on your investment. However, there might be a way to squeeze a little life out of newspapers… especially online.

In 20 Years… A School District Will Buy a Local Newspaper

Native advertising might be your best bet when it comes to newspapers.  Native advertising according to sharethrough.com is a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed. Meaning you could write a story about your district and pay for it to be in a newspaper.

There are several other opportunities with native advertising. 

Here are some examples from Copy Blogger:

12 Examples of Native Ads (And Why They Work)

10. The Rebirth of Email

You read any marketing book or blog and you are going to read about the importance of building your email list. The problem with education is that we think asking for parent email addresses and sending a blanket email to the entire district is best practice. It is not. Niche lists are key.

Building niche lists from a specific audience is easier than you think. We know our students have thousands of different interests, and we know their parents want to know how their children can pursue these interests. This is how you capture their email for specific lists.

Landing pages will play an important role in building your lists. And with landing pages, you will need some form of a lead magnet to entice them to sign-up for your list.

You can learn more about landing pages and lead magnets here:

16 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See

Leadpages.net

Once you have their emails you can target them with specific messages and engaging content. It is a great way to sell your programs and target specific interests.

Have a safe and relaxing winter break. 

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.