For many families, private education is a necessity. Some choose private education because they value a specific worldview, are constrained geographically, or seek a specific learning environment for their children. Those pursuing private education need to know about all the details your school has to offer.
These families are using social media channels, search engines, and online directories to begin the discovery process. This is one of the biggest decisions the family will ever make—one that can literally impact generations to come. This is why private education marketing is a must for your institution.
Many schools are comfortable with increasing student population from word of mouth referrals and those connected to the school. Unfortunately, many new families to your area will not be a part of the referral network, and they will subsequently turn to the digital world to assist with their choice.
Be proactive and solidify your online positioning by investing time, energy, and budget into inbound, private education marketing so that you can be present at the right time for these parents.
Stories. You have stories of kids who have turned into altruistic citizens, dads, moms, spouses, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and ministers. Stories of parents who have found incredible peace in knowing their children are cared and loved for like they are at home. They’re confident that their kids are educated within the worldview of their choosing.
You possess stories of teachers and staff members who have been able to invest the necessary time, energy, and love into each child. Private education marketing is going to rise and fall on your ability to tell a story, using video, case studies, and more.
For these stories to find the hearts of your target market, you are going to need three primary marketing initiatives:
Your website will be your first impression for most of your prospects. Does it communicate who you really are? Does it tell a story you’re proud to share? Is it easy to use from a mobile device?
There are a few lessons to be learned from successful and failed websites. Your website should clearly communicate what you want people need to know when it comes time to make a decision.
However, how these facts are positioned on the site is not nearly as important as to how the site is positioned in the search engines. If you’re not in the first few results on Google for your local market, then investing in SEO is something that needs to happen immediately. As a local private school, you want to rank well for the surrounding area. What’s the farthest a family drives to be a part of your school? Make that your radius, and optimize for that geographical area.
If you need assistance with a responsive website or with search engine optimization, Blueprint specializes in private education marketing.
Once you have your site responsive and optimized, think about what kind of content brings prospects into the consideration stage of choosing you as the best option. For the most part, you are only going to compete with a handful of other local private education options.
Are you doing any comparison studies, charts, or infographics? An agency like Blueprint can help you make a solid content marketing schedule and production plan. Innovative methods like these enrich the prospect’s online experience and will better position you as the best top option.
As far as channel management goes, private education marketing requires top notch social media management and email marketing. Simply posting to Facebook or sending a monthly newsletter is not enough.
True lead generation and enrollment production will only come by investing in paid social media advertising and sequential email marketing automation. Platforms like Infusionsoft or Hubspot help power these marketing tactics, but working with Blueprint to build the protocol for this is the best use of your time and budget.
You know private education, but Blueprint knows private education marketing. Wherever the gaps are on your side, we’ll assemble the right team of marketing professionals to supplement your needs. We’ll help you rank well online, drive more tour exposure and enrollment, and ultimately, have more incredible life-changing stories to tell.
