WHY IS SCHOOL MARKETING ESSENTIAL IN 2021 AND BEYOND?

Do you think school marketing is important? Do you know how marketing can benefit your school?

School marketing is one of those things that often gets overlooked, and left to the bottom of the to-do list. In today’s blog, you can find out exactly why school marketing is so essential for your School in 2021 and beyond!

We will cover a variety of topics including:

• The definition of marketing
• 5 reasons why school marketing is essential
• 3 crucial school marketing strategies to implement
• How Education Office, the leading School Marketing Agency can help you develop a winning marketing strategy

DEFINITION OF MARKETING:

First and foremost, let’s understand the exact definition of marketing. After all, if we don’t understand what it means then we will never successfully harness its power!

Credit: https://www.ama.org/the-definition-of-marketing-what-is-marketing/

5 REASONS WHY SCHOOL MARKETING IS ESSENTIAL

Now you understand the definition of marketing, it’s time to cover the real reasons why your school needs to successfully market itself. Below are the top 5 reasons why you must consider school marketing now!

#1 HELPS YOU KEEP UP WITH THE COMPETITION 

With schools having to constantly compete to attract new students, it is essential that your marketing is strong, consistent and professional from the outset. First appearances are everything! With this in mind, if your marketing isn’t up to scratch you simply won’t be able to compete successfully against other schools in the area who are marketing their school better than you are.

Think about is unique about your school? Is there something that you’re proud of or have recently achieved? Consider what makes your school so special and use that as a focal point in your overall marketing strategy. If you fail to hook prospective parents with engaging marketing, you will never get them through the door to show off what makes your school the perfect place to send their children.

#2 ATTRACTS HIGH-QUALITY TEACHING STAFF

When a teacher is looking to progress in their career they will be looking to align themselves with a school that shares their determination to succeed. If your marketing is well thought out and consistent your school will be more likely to portray a forward-thinking, success-driven enterprise. As a result, you will be more likely to attract better quality teaching staff, who are excited about your school and projects.

With competition for pupils being so fierce, the quality of your teaching staff could make or break the number of pupils you enrol. After all, one of the main things a prospective parent looks for is the school’s academic achievements.

#3 CONNECTS YOU WITH PARENTS

You must hook parents with your marketing from the outset as they no longer take as much time thoroughly studying all of your long form website content, prospectus’ and league tables! With people working longer hours, and an increased number of distractions like social media decreasing attention span, not only are you competing with other schools, you’re competing with common life distractions.

Due to these reasons, the average prospective parent is spending less time researching their child’s school options, and more than likely spending less time visiting schools and attending open days. Instead, they are looking for easily engaging marketing that is clean and easy to read, as well as optimised using multiple touchpoints.

Effective touchpoints to consider implementing when creating a marketing campaign for your school include;

• Targeted social media campaigns
• High-quality web presence
• Clean and concise printed literature
• Eye-catching school signage

These items, when initiated properly will help to quickly capture prospective parents, helping to influence their decision making process.

#4 IMPROVES BRAND IMAGE

Working on your school’s marketing will naturally improve your brand image, but when doing so, it is important to ensure that your messages, colour schemes, and layouts are kept consistent. As a result, you will make your school more easily recognisable which in turn helps to build trust and portray a positive brand image.

In order to create consistent marketing, it is advisable to have a clear set of brand guidelines to stick too. This will give you a clear focus when creating any marketing material and ensure continuity throughout your whole marketing strategy. There are a variety of aspects related to your branding that are important to get right if you need help with your branding, simply drop us an email to hello@educationoffice.uk.

#5 EFFECTIVE SCHOOL MARKETING IS LOOKED UPON FAVOURABLY BY OFSTED

A school’s Ofsted result is one of the most influential factors for parents when considering which school to send their child to. Every school should consider implementing high-quality marketing to benefit its Ofsted efforts. From your website, signage and social media, each aspect becomes incorporated within your whole marketing strategy, which can all benefit how effective your school marketing is.

Before and during the Ofsted visit, inspectors will encounter your various marketing related materials. If your marketing is well considered and of high quality, it will portray your school as a professionally run, forward-thinking organisation. In turn, this will be looked upon favourably by Ofsted and help to gain the best possible result for your school!

3 CRUCIAL SCHOOL MARKETING STRATEGIES TO IMPLEMENT

#1 IDENTIFY YOUR SCHOOL’S NICHE

When you’re creating a marketing strategy for your school, it can be helpful to picture your school as a business. Treat local schools as competitors and focus on your target audience – local parents and guardians. With your knowledge of your school already, you can start to build on this target audience understanding student and family goals, as well as any challenges they may face.

Often, low-income parents aspire for their children to go to college but don’t know how to make this happen. These parents might gravitate toward a school that offers extracurricular classes or dual enrolment. If safety is a top concern among your parent demographic, they might jump at the chance to send their children to a school offering a strict conduct or dress code. These areas are important to think about, especially for the parents and children you want to attend your school.

Successfully marketing your niche can yield great results, with one of the main benefits being increased enrolment.

#2 BUILD YOUR SCHOOL’S BRAND

Once you’ve created your niche, you can start to build on your school’s brand, which is one of the most important aspects to help attract your target audience. Ask yourself the following – What do they value most? How do your key selling points align with their needs? If you can demonstrate how your mission supports their aspirations, you have the building blocks of trust and loyalty.

#3 COMMUNICATE THROUGH HIGH-QUALITY & UNIQUE CONTENT

Do you want to brand your school as supportive and engaging? Illustrate that by sharing student journeys and success stories. Every piece of content you create must be on-brand to avoid inconsistent messaging. Ensure that your logo, any straplines, fonts and layouts are consistent throughout, regardless of whether that is on flyers, your website, or social media.

If you’re trying to spread awareness about your school, try creating a social media campaign around this. Engage your audience with a range of long and short form content, with a call to action at the end. This could be a link to booking a school visit or a button to sign up for your newsletters.

School visits and newsletters are both amazing ways to communicate with parents and allow you to generate loyalty which in turn, hopefully, translates into enrolment!

Other ways to communicate through high-quality content include:

• Interesting website content
• Leaflet drops
• Blog posts
• 3D school tours

Want to learn more about implementing successful school marketing strategies, email us at hello@educationoffice.uk.

I WANT HELP FROM A SCHOOL MARKETING AGENCY!

Don’t worry! You are in the right place!

The team at Education Office have a proven reputation of being the leading school marketing agency, delivering first-class marketing services to schools, colleges, universities and training environments.

We will happily engage in free focus groups with teachers and pupils in the design process, creating new identities and logos. With over 27 years of experience in printing; school books, planners, prospectuses, signage, stationery etc you can rest assured we will meet any deadline.

Our creative team will explore your environment to help us create the perfect photographs and videos to showcase your unique offering. With expertise in web and app development, we will design. build and train your team to manage your day to day website and app updates. So why not let Design Office, the leading School Marketing Agency exceed your expectations today! You can call us on 01270 252106 or email us directly at hello@educationoffice.uk.