Private schools across the world have faced unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to protect children and their families during this difficult time. With schools forced to provide eLearning for their students coupled with challenging economies, many parents have reassessed their positions when it comes to schooling.
A consequence of this has been an increase in the number of homeschooling children with many parents opting to use alternative education strategies for their children. While this clearly presents challenges for private schools, the reality is that schools still need to aggressively market their offering, finding new ways to engage parents in order to highlight their unique selling points and to attract future students into their schools.
In this article, we discuss the role of lead generation as a part of the student enrollment process and how leads should be managed using an education-sector-friendly CRM system.
Private schools use digital marketing as a means of identifying families with school-age children, attracting them, and then managing them through the different stages of enrollment. This process is ongoing and ideally takes learners from their early academic careers, right until they are ready for the real world. Once parents find a school for their children, it is likely to be a long-term decision. Private schooling, in particular, is considered an investment - one which parents would like to see a return on, ultimately setting their children up for successful futures.
With that context in mind, schools can begin by putting a marketing plan in place. Here are the 6 steps to doing so, as applicable to the school context:
A CRM, or customer relationship management, is a platform that assists the marketing team. It helps gather information and streamline the processes behind the scenes, to improve the experiences had by customers. By utilizing CRM software, marketers can build database lists and record the interactions that people have on the school's website and with school representatives, storing this data in an easily accessible way that helps provide clarity to school administrators who need to understand the student enrollment funnel in order to gauge if the school is on track with its enrollment targets.
In addition to this, one of the most significant functions of CRM is the ability to automate processes. It essentially helps to consolidate otherwise disjointed and admin-heavy processes. For instance, it can identify and group the contacts into specific segments. The marketers can determine what these segments are, but it can be something as simple as elementary school learners and high school students. These segments allow marketers to develop specific messages to share with each audience. These platforms can help in customizing the look and content of the emails, ensuring they are engaging, as part of content marketing. Email marketing is one of the best methods of marketing for schools and should be in the marketer's bag of tricks for 2021.
As far as CRM systems go, we recommend HubSpot. They have vast experience in educational marketing, making admissions, leadership, and admin easy for the school to do. We at Nexa are Diamond tier partners with HubSpot. We would be happy to assist your school in getting started on this highly intuitive platform which also offers consultants, implementation, and training where needed.
In a nutshell, HubSpot explains their service as: "Clever CRM that can be customised to meet your needs, social media management tools, calendar integrations, intelligent marketing communications automation and impressive reporting capabilities … Save valuable time by managing everything in one place. Nurture enquiries from the first website interaction through to open day visits and enrolment. Manage overseas agent relationships and collaborate across teams to ensure a consistent approach to all things admissions."
Like all CRMs, Hubspot's version provides multiple ways of tracking enrollment processes and engaging with families and students. Below is a list of the key features that every school needs:
The diagram below shows how the CRM works and integrates with the mindset of parents going through the school enrollment process:
Digital promotion and communication is the crux of online marketing. Based on the performance of these activities, marketers can measure the ROI in order to justify the resources required to market a private school. As we mentioned above, this requires a well-established value proposition and brand. By having this to begin with, and measurable goals, the team can be successful in both generating and nurturing leads in 2022.
Here's the 4 Step Strategy:
Through digital marketing, the school's visibility will be increased, which then provides opportunities to take that brand awareness one step further with networking. Networking and building connections that are personal and authentic can make the difference between an enrollment or not, as this demonstrates to audiences what the values of the school are. In order to do this, marketers will need to incorporate 4 marketing techniques, namely:
The process of converting leads will take various forms, based on the needs and preferences of each person interacting with the site. What marketers need to do is to meet all of the possible needs with lead magnets. Schools can do this by sharing valuable education-related content, for instance. The website's landing pages will need to be up to par, and the marketing team will need to create content that is engaging and compelling. Schools can benefits from several types of media, from videos to podcasts, events, eBooks, and interactive quizzes to name but a few. Rember, this content should meet more specific needs than the content in the previous step, aimed at attracting audiences.
Once someone has shared their contact information with the school, they have the opportunity and responsibility of protecting that data and providing them with the value they expect to receive. It means the marketing team will need to share more in-depth content with them, to ensure that the school is interacting with them consistently and being responsive. This step is all about investing in the building of relationships, with both the students and parents alike. With the ability to reach audiences in several ways, digital marketing can facilitate this process, especially when equipped with a high-performing CRM system.
Having clear calls to action provide audiences with ease and simplicity to follow-throughs. Make the interactions with the school as straightforward as possible, encouraging the next steps, such as setting up appointments and tours or reaching out regarding application processes. After all, generating leads without the ability to convert them will not result in successful enrollment figures.
As with any business heading into 2022, schools need to get their digital marketing in order. It is the best way to find future pupils and increase enrollment numbers. The three key takeaways from this article are:
Work with us at Nexa, Dubai's top lead generation agency and the region's only Diamond tier HubSpot partner for the best in CRM services. We've also won numerous awards for our work in the education sector. Here's an example of an award-winning campaign that was run for the Arbor School, Dubai, UAE using HubSpot.