crafting a sustainable student enrollment campaign for charter schools

Crafting A Sustainable Student Enrollment Campaign

2015 CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOLS CONFERNECE

March 17, 2015

INTRODUCTIONS

Kim Brater VP, Marketing

Charter School Capital

Kirt Nilsson COO

Scott Kaufmann Partner

Lucid Agency

Michael Barber Founder

barber&hewitt

WHY ARE WE HERE Sustainable Student Enrollment

WHY ARE WE HERE

Enrollment issues:

1.  Need to attract and retain students. Nobody just shows up when you open the doors.

2.  Budgets are tight, resources strained, and priorities many.

3.  The thought of marketing yourself and your school can be confusing at best, and daunting at worst. But, it doesn’t have to be…

AGENDA

•  Define student enrollment and marketing in the context of charter schools

•  Discuss enrollment strategies and tactics to drive goals and objectives

•  Slides are available here: www.slideshare.net/CharterSchoolCapital

WHAT DOES GROWTH LOOK LIKE? Sustainable Student Enrollment

CHARTER SCHOOL GROWTH CATEGORIES # of Stude

Start-‐up Survival/Establish

Sustainable Maturity Efficiency

Time (years) 0 2-‐3 5-‐10

Growth Flexibility/Stability

DEFINE GOALS UPFRONT

“First have a definite, clear practical idea; A goal, an objective.” -Aristotle

•  How many students? •  What type of students? •  How much retention is needed? •  Team should understand these goals

DEFINE & REFINE ENROLLMENT METHODS

•  On the spot / event •  Online •  Normalize the enrollment process

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MARKETING & CHARTER SCHOOLS Sustainable Student Enrollment

MARKETING IN THE PUREST SENSE

Marketing is communicating the value of a product, service or brand to customers, for the purpose of promoting or selling that product, service, or brand. Source: Wikipedia

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ENROLLMENT & MARKETING

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•  Students are not required to attend your school – Why would parents choose us? – What makes us unique? – How are you going to find these students? – How are you going retain students?

MARKETING FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS

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SO, HOW DO WE GENERATE AWARENESS & NEW STUDENTS WITH LIMITED TIME & MONEY?

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START WITH WHAT MAKES YOUR SCHOOL UNIQUE

Sustainable Student Enrollment

THE PROCESS OF PROMISE

Define what makes your school unique, distinguishable, and compelling. Define the values that will connect your school to your students, families, and community. Your uniqueness & values build to the core essence of who you are.

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WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE

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Define what makes your school unique, distinguishable, and compelling. What makes your school different? Program focus? Students served? Educational philosophy? Which aspects of your organization can’t be easily replicated?

WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE

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•  Who do you want to serve? •  Why should students choose your school? •  Why would parents want to send her kids to

your school? •  What are you providing to families and the

community that isn’t already offered? •  How are you different? Better?

DEFINE YOUR VALUES

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Values define who you are, how you work, who you want to serve and why, they help you know when to say yes and no. More than anything, your values are the benchmark of the legacy you want to leave behind.

YOUR SCHOOL’S ESSENCE

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Take what makes you unique and your core values, and then craft your essence. Your essence should be embodied in everything people see, hear, touch, taste, or smell about your school. It articulates a higher-calling, a clear positioning amongst your competitors. Your team should be able to convey this whenever needed.

NOW SHARE YOUR VALUES / PROMISE

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NOW WE KNOW WHO WE ARE, IT’S TIME

TO CRAFT OUR MESSAGES.

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CRAFTING YOUR MESSAGE Sustainable Student Enrollment

AUDIENCES & GOALS ARE KEY

Audiences: •  Students •  Teachers •  Parents •  Leaders •  Community /

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Goals: •  Awareness •  Increase

enrollment •  Fundraising •  Student retention

COMMUNICATION METHODS MATTER TOO

Methods: •  Face-to-face •  Social media •  In-school •  Web •  Media

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MESSAGE / CALL-TO-ACTION

Leverage what makes you unique, your values, and promise to craft messages for specific audiences, goals and the communication methods. Ensure appropriate call-to-actions are leveraged.

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NEXT UP, WHAT DO WE LOOK LIKE?

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SCHOOL IDENTITY Sustainable Student Enrollment

SCHOOL IDENTITY

Identity consists of the visual elements the define your school including:

–  Logo –  Color palette/system –  Visual style/guidelines –  Signage –  Templates (letterhead, presentations, etc.) –  Name badge (everywhere) –  Business cards –  School lapel pins –  Shirts

Share your story (your promise) with your design resources. Identity should reflect your story.

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IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS

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$ $$ $$$

99designs.com crowdspring.com

Volunteer

Independent designer Small agency

Large agency Design firm

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

•  Identity done well can position your school for growth opportunities.

•  Bad identity can turn away potential parents / students.

•  Pay attention to the demographic and geographic influences on identity and design.

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START-UP PHASE Sustainable Student Enrollment

BEFORE YOU EVEN START

•  Establish an advisory team –  Find people who believe in your promise/values – Make the ask –  Find broad advice (parents, community leaders,

business leaders, former charter leaders) –  Identify creative ways to compensate them

•  Ask for help – Seek help from your contacts – Connect and seek mentors/advisors that can

compliment your skills

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YOUR PEOPLE ARE YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH AND ASSET

•  Students, teachers, parents, and the community are your greatest assets – Run workshops with groups to help them tell the

school’s story and its values. – Have them tell your story. Often.

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LEVERAGE NON-PAID MARKETING CHANNELS •  Social –  Primary: Facebook, Instagram (we are visual people) –  Secondary: Twitter, LinkedIn –  Tertiary: Pinterest

•  Email –  Multiple vendors offer free services for education/non-

profits –  Easy, opt-in communication with stakeholders, fans,

friends of your school •  Website –  www & blog

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WEBSITE AND/OR BRANDED EMAIL OPTIONS

•  Tons out there. Here are a few we like: – Google Apps for Education (lots of additional

productivity tools) – GoDaddy – Squarespace – Wordpress – Pagely

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GROWTH PHASE Sustainable Student Enrollment

LAYER PAID CHANNELS Search Marketing – Organic •  Best for giving your website

maximum visibility to those who are searching for your school on search engines.

•  Organic listings are free. Rankings are determined by the search engine to produce the best user experience.

•  Relative content, easy navigation, etc., all play into a positive user experience which, in turn, improves your search rank.

•  Create a strategy to include top-quality, relevant information on your website to match what users are searching for. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 2015 CCSA | 38

LAYER PAID CHANNELS Search Marketing – Pay-per-click •  Best for giving your website maximum

visibility to those who are searching for your school on search engines.

•  Advertisers bid in on search terms

(keywords) users are likely to use to find their school.

•  Paid listings use a “Pay-Per-Click” (PPC) system where the advertiser pays for each click on the their ad.

•  Once the user clicks on the ad, the goal is that they visit the page and complete a desired action, such as filling out a contact form, donating, or applying for enrollment.

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LAYER PAID CHANNELS

Display and retargeting (“banners”) Best used for creating brand awareness and bringing users back to your website to complete a conversion. •  Display ads appear next to content on various websites in

text, image or video format.

•  Display campaigns can be set up to target audiences in a variety of ways (time of day, on certain websites, etc.).

•  Retargeting: Showing display ads to users who have previously visited the website, leveraging their familiarity with your brand to encourage them to complete a conversion.

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ENHANCE NON-PAID CHANNELS

•  Social –  Display and retargeting advertising available through these

platforms. –  Target your audience based on location, industry, job title, etc.

•  Email –  Begin to segment audiences

•  Website –  Enhance content created for your site –  Begin to develop content calendar that shares your school’s

stories

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SUSTAINABLE MATURITY Sustainable Student Enrollment

MATURE YOUR MARKETING PLANNING

•  Quarterly/annual marketing planning and budget –  Identify goals by audience/target – Develop strategies and tactics to target

audiences –  Identify budgets by channel – Ongoing measurement

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BRING YOUR STORIES TO LIFE

•  Leverage video and other visual storytelling mediums –  YouTube is the second largest search engine –  Snapchat, Periscope, Meerkat offer other visual storytelling opportunities

with different audiences

•  Help your school stand out and connect with your audience by creating videos worth sharing.

•  Use video to explain concepts and visions that are difficult to put into words.

•  Create a YouTube channel where all of your videos will reside for your audience to view.

•  Share your videos through social media or blog posts.

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LEVERAGE MORE SOPHISTICATED TOOLS

•  Audience segmentation and relationship management (Salesforce, Base, Hubspot)

•  Marketing automation (Hubspot, Eloqua, Marketo)

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CREATE REVENUE GENERATING MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES

•  Community sponsorship – Street signage – Digital signage (if applicable) – Annual banquets/benefits – Sponsored content (i.e. emails sponsored by

local service business)

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RETENTION MATTERS TOO Sustainable Student Enrollment

RETENTION, RETENTION, RETENTION

•  Talk about your accomplishments, always – Build your case all the time – Promote to parents and advocates

•  Seek feedback – Online surveys

•  Foster word-of-mouth – Engage parents and advocates in “About Us”

sessions – Help them advocate for and sell your school

THE BUDGET QUESTION Sustainable Student Enrollment

AVERAGE MARKETING BUDGETS

5-15% of annual budget

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BUDGETS FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS

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CHARTER SCHOOL MARKETING BUDGETS

Budget = time + sweat equity

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Start-‐up

Growth

Sustainable Maturity

Budget = limited dollars + time + sweat equity

Budget = dollars + time + sweat equity

THANK YOU Digital Marketing 101 for Charter Schools

Kim Brater VP of Marketing

Kirt Nilsson COO

Scott Kaufmann Partner

Lucid Agency

Michael Barber Founder

barber&hewitt

Slides available at: www.slideshare.com/charterschoolcapital

crafting a sustainable student enrollment campaign for charter schools

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enrollment marketing

context of charter schools

goals copyright

wikipedia copyright

enrollment process

enrollment strategies

enrollment methods

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