Marketing Ideas, Tips & Techniques For K-12 Schools
Imagine one day you arrive at your school at 8 am as parents and buses are dropping off your students. You walk into your office to a ringin
Can you remember a teacher who took something hard and made it easier? The teacher who hadn’t forgotten how it feels to be a student...Th
When talking to our clients about school branding, I sometimes feel a faint skepticism in the air.The unspoken reaction is this, "we are not
Social-emotional learning is a hot topic. Today, Erick Roa shares with us about his contribution at Empatico and The Kind Foundation.
John LaPerch is a funny guy with an in-depth knowledge of marketing. He is Director of Online Marketing & Social Media Content Creator.
Facebook is the largest user platform out there. Many, however, still doubt its potential as a teacher recruiting tool in terms of both qu
The Google founders recommend that all companies ask their customers, "How disappointed would you be if we no longer existed?" So we added i
There are three reasons why schools should focus on Private Foundations:Private foundations may have smaller annual amounts to give out but
Sadly, many schools TRY to write their own ads; the results are unfortunate...Ads full of clichés and sentences that seem to go nowhere.Imag
Do you know what's a ‘stealth applicant’?It used to be that you got to speak to most families considering your school.If I had a dollar eac
Our guest today is Jim Tiffin. He infuses excitement into everything he does, and his enthusiasm will infect you in this podcast.
What is a foundation? The definition appears obvious at first.A foundation is a nonprofit entity that awards grants to organizations.Thinkin
In this episode, we dive deeper into the exploration of how school funding works.
“How we deliver content and engage students matters a lot, and part of our job is to draw in those students so that they want to learn; that
In this episode we answer a question by Marisa from Tipton, IN: “Is texting a good method for connecting with prospective parents?”
Digital advertising is the single most effective way to generate awareness and inquiries from prospective families.It is most effective when
Eventually, even an enrollment funnel that pulls parents through their decision-making process will not be sufficient.
Our guest today is Joe Erpelding. Joe is the Principal at Design39 Campus where he has used his previous experience.
In this episode we answer a question by Britney from Stansbury Park, UT: “What else can we use to measure our website traffic apart from Google Analytics?”
Our guest today is Cordell Carter. We had a fascinating conversation about the funding landscape for K12 education.
I've been watching "Mad Men" reruns recently.It's made me think deeply about how marketing & branding have evolved over the decades.He
Today more than half the United States (about 30 States) offers some kind of extended educational choice to families:Individual Tax Credit/
In this episode we answer a question by Tracy from Portland, OR: “When should we use a landing page instead of our website, for our campaigns?”
Our guest today is Patrick Bassett. You may know him as long time NAIS President, or even as founder of Heads Up Educational Consulting.
In this episode we answer a question by Keenan from Potomac, MD: “How often do we need to redesign our school website?”
Our guest today is Michael Soskil. He is a teacher, an author, an international keynote speaker an education consultant and an inspirational leader.
In this episode we answer a question by Janah from Charlotte: “Should we run ads on Facebook if we have negative reviews there?”
Tom is the CEO of Getting Smart, a learning design firm and one of the leading voices in the upcoming education revolution. I first came acr
Every Saturday morning, you will get fresh school growth insights in your inbox. Here is a sample newsletter.
We have to prepare our students for this brave, new world. But should we also prepare for a structural transformation of our schools? Schools choosing to outsource their non-core functions, shrinking, becoming smaller and agile?
John began his journey in publications, but he has spent the better part of his career working in admissions and recruitment, taking on different roles in the field.
Our guest today is Ted Dintersmith, one of America’s leading advocates for innovative education policies.
Our guest today is Stephen Ostendorff. He is the Director of Graduate Admissions at Bank Street College of Education in New York City.
Our guest today is Brendan Schneider. He is the Director of Advancement at Sewickley Academy.
In this episode we answer a question by Tim from Hanover, PA: “Does marketing work for schools in an area where population is decreasing?”
Our guest today is Justin Medved. He is the Director of Learning, Innovation, and Technology at The York School - a K to 12th-grade independent day school in Toronto, Canada.
Traditionally, “performance marketing” means metrics-driven, inquiry-focused, left-brained, algorithm-loving data advertising."Brand marketi
Horse Power was a comparison everyone could understand...Suddenly, Watt had put the steam engine into a language that made sense to the la
Here are a few things that didn’t exist last time Tiger Woods won the Masters:Twitter, iPhone📱, iPad, Kindle, 4G, Android, YouTube, App S
In this episode we answer a question by Cindy from San Pedro, CA: “Can a school do marketing successfully with stock photos?”
Our guest today is Miles Latham. He is Managing Partner at Affixxius Films - an in-house bespoke commercial film company with an innovative and unique approach to providing breathtaking videos for public and private sector companies and organizations.
For most of our client schools, fundraising covers 20% of operating expenses.How?They've moved on from individual donations. They've stopped
In this episode we answer a question by Tara from Baltimore: “I moved the school to a larger location, how do I get the word out now that I have relocated?”
Our guest today is Angelo Lambroschino. He is the Senior Admissions Officer at Caldwell University.
In this episode we answer a question by Sarah from Richmond, VA: “How do you get prospective parents to answer a school-related survey?”
1. In two years' time, it is more likely that my school's enrollment will bea. lower than todayb. relatively flatc. higher than todayIf you
Venture philanthropy. Angel philanthropy. Enterprise philanthropy. Impact philanthropy. Catalytic philanthropy. Strategic philanthropy.These
Our guest today is Tom Vander Ark, an education advocate, and adviser for better learning.
Did you know that over 70% of schools nationwide believe they won’t make it without digital advertising?Here’s an interesting fact:We survey
The web is changing for both parents and schools. Parents no longer read and learn by going from one site to another. Instead, they get info
In this episode we answer a question by Doris from Austin, TX: “How do we overcome the perception that the area is bad?”
We've just partnered with a wonderful PBL focused school in Southeast Seattle -in the wooded Seaview neighborhood just south of Alki Beach
Our guest today is Tim Mains. He is the Superintendent at Pine Bush Central School District in Middletown, New York.
The first time I met Lee he was greeting students with a smile and checking the crosswalk as they jumped off the school bus one by one. We
If I asked you to describe a friend in five words you’d have no problem. You would say she is kind and maybe fun, you may see her as loyal
Our guest today is Don Wettrick. He is the Innovation Coordinator for Noblesville High School, the founder and President of The STARTedUP Foundation, and the author of "Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level."
I had landed in Portland, Oregon the night before. I had gotten a total of 5 hrs sleep.Before heading to my first meeting, I walked into a
Our guest today is Ryan Schaaf, instructional designer, professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and author of 5 books.
Our guest today is Jennie Winton. She is the co-founder of Mission Minded - a branding firm established in 2002 to work exclusively with nonprofit organizations.
As of early February 2019, we can report that Harvard has received a total of 43,330 to the Class of 2023. Just last year Harvard broke i
In our podcast today, Andrew shares a delightful summary of the recent road trip across Texas, where he and Alexis visited 20 schools in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin to get a closer look at what schools are doing “on the ground.”
For most schools, the biggest opportunity for growth comes from taking families from enrolling zero times to enrolling once.Let me explai
Our guest today is Scott Allenby. He is Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives at Proctor Academy.
It was 6 am, and I had boarded the plane feeling grumpy and cold due to lack of sleep. "Hopefully, Houston will be sunny," I thought to m
Our guest today is Shelli Kurth. She is the School Director at Thrive Public Schools in San Diego, California - award-winning K-12 charter schools.
Making the right strategic decisions is important.If you get the big picture wrong you are bound to fail. Targeting the wrong family demog
The Balanced Scorecard is a workshop for establishing high-level strategic goals and metrics by which to monitor your school’s progress.I
Jim Collins once said that "a big secret among effective leaders is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising amount of the time
Our guest today is Chantelle Zakariasen. She is a conversion copywriter who specializes in using quizzes to gather information from prospects.
You are the first to arrive. You hook up your laptop and prepare to lead your typical Monday management meeting.Your staff starts arriving
Our guest today is Bill Diskin. He is Director of Admission and Financial Aid at Cannon School. Bill specializes in serving students through helping independent schools with enrollment management, admissions, and financial aid for families.
Most school heads we talk to are seeking, recurring, healthy, organic growth.We've worked with schools that were consistently able to grow
The world of education requires us to evolve more quickly and significantly than ever before.Despite the pressure to change we've found t
Back in late 2015, I was visiting Mary Kay down in New Orleans to help her out with enrollment growth. She'd gone through three years of s
Our guest today is Laura Elizabeth. She is the creator of designacademy.io - which helps developers conquer their fear of design through a practical, hands-on, step-by-step process. Laura also developed client-portal.io - a WordPress plugin for organizing projects.
The problem was the students in California are fed up with all the messages that are coming to them left and right from different companies, educational institutions, and other organizations vying for their attention.
Most educators still think marketing is just another word for sales.In fact, marketing has evolved into the sharing of knowledge with the
We're in goal-setting season, and most schools are preparing their annual marketing plans. We're getting a lot of questions about how am
We love to talk about 'the family journey toward enrollment'.And yet no-one in marketing spends any time talking to traffic planners.Two
In this episode, Joshua talks about the roles of serendipity and diversity in his position as a teacher, an administrator, and a founder of the school.
Schools are relational products. Learn to "Sell The Invisible".
There’s really only one thing school marketing is about…Building trust with prospective parents. Why? Really stop and think about what
1. Behind-the-scenes sneak peek of your schoolGiving your prospective parents an idea about what happens behind the scenes piques their c
I woke up at 6.30am.The rain was rattling against the shutters.My wife was sound asleep; it was my turn to take my son to school.I manage
We’ve all heard the reports; attention spans are shrinking.You are being told that parents are always distracted.If that’s true, how do w
1. The Traditional Enrollment Funnel Has Changed No longer is enrollment marketing focused only on moving a prospective parent through t
The basics of site-level marketing, presentation, and events.
In case you’re not familiar with the idea of the traditional digital enrollment funnel, it works like this: you get lots of visitors to your
Every week we run at minimum 20 experiments for 10 different clients.We make sure that we choose clients from different performance grou
We are living through the golden age of Facebook marketing for K-12 education. It is powerful, affordable and carries the vast majority o
If you’ve ever tried to quit a bad habit or establish a new one, you know that change takes time.When it comes to creating change in our own
My top 3 time management habits (easy to follow with huge payoff):1. Writing my top three priorities on a post-it each morning and sticking
Telling principals that leadership drives school performance is a bit like saying that we need oxygen to breathe. Over 40
A new day of shivers. The third snow day and October is not out yet. Slamming the door behind her, already tired, she would not be back unti
"Your value proposition is very simply the difference between what you say you're going to do and what you actually do as viewed through the eyes of your customer."
It can be easy to put the needs of others before your own when you're the School Head. Teachers, staff, students, parents, and board members
Technology Integration In The Classroom, Made Easy
It's been a punishing decade for districts nationwide.State funding fell sharply, and local funding didn’t make up the difference.In most st
When I was in high school, the history curriculum required us to learn about Russia for a quarter. Our teacher, Mrs. Linda, who was born in
You’ve been telling us over and over that your school is unique.And we believe you... Most schools we work with have truly unique stories, a
Over hundreds of interactions I've had with some of our nation's best schools, I've found that one of the most persistent challenges faced b
According to a study from UChicago's Consortium for School Research, 'School Climate' is one of the three top predictors of academic improve
Sitting in his brown upholstered rickety chair, Victor was letting the phone ring while he was deep in his thoughts... exhausted and overwhe
I will share the step-by-step process that Jane followed in her first 30 days. She won over her school head, created a powerful marketing engine and gained 12 new students during the 2017/18 school year.
1. Start by sharing your own struggles with the issue. Talk from the heart. 2. Demonstrate the impact of enrollment and/or attrition in nu
She'd bitten off more than she could chew. She decided she'd quit two weeks into her pregnancy. Raised money on maternity leave.Taking her
When we talk about enrollment strategies, it’s easy to obsess over specifics. How to write the best email or tour script, where to find your
“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.”— Charlie MungerI lov
When researching for my thesis a while back, I analyzed more than 230 school leaders to reveal the main behaviors that explain how certain t
Following a 17-year teaching career, Mia Cochrae had just accepted a Principal position.Confident and optimistic, she would later understand
By its very nature, a school leader's job leaves little time for reflection.You rush from meeting to meeting, check your e-mail constantl
Do you struggle to measure the return on investment (ROI) for your paid social media activity? Are you still trying to trace your enrollment
There is a lot of school marketing lingo being thrown around these days. Too much. So much that I find it a little ridiculous. 🤪Here are so
Password Private Resources Access function passWord() { var testV = 1; var pass1 = prompt('Password',' '); while (testV
We spent over fifteen hours on a proposal. We needed it to cover payroll.We followed-up with emails and calls.We heard nothing back.It happe
Families shouldn’t have to come to campus to feel your magic. But how can you ensure that the right families get to know your school BEFORE
You decided to devote your life to education. You knew that salaries have been declining for years.But you wanted a way to make an impact. W
Parent personas, aka parent profiles, are necessary for the success of a school’s marketing plan. As our friends at Hubspot write, a persona
There are two types of educators in the world. Those who believe in age-old proven educational principles. And those who would favor Sir Ken
Most school heads I talk to are frustrated about one thing. They're doing amazing things at their school day-in and day-out, but few paren
More and more, schools are focusing less on getting their mission across. Does this statement surprise you? Millennial parents are somewhat
"They wanted my job, and it would be easy enough to discredit me."That's the first thing that Mathias told me. The school had been through t
The stories that lament the death of email marketing are high on hype and low on reality. The truth is that for generating school tours, ema
Feel That Marketing Is Too Undignified For Your School? Permission Marketing is a fundamentally different way of thinking about advertisin
A relevant education in today’s changing world What skills come to mind when you think of the phrase “necessary education?” Basic literacy a
Balancing the communication tightrope Imagine this: You’re leading a school with a particularly important mission. Maybe it’s a focus on STE
Why is having a site significant? Your audience is spending more and more of their time online. Even if schools typically meet parents offli
What if you had a specific set of steps you knew would consistently guide prospective families from piqued interest to full-time enrollment?
They all share five entrepreneurial characteristics. As a principal, do you think of yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think of the school
Neville Medhora once said “No one cares about you. They care about themselves.” This is a message that successful businesses infuse into the
When it comes to nurturing relationships with prospective parents and preparing marketing for the purpose of driving enrolments, emails
Word of mouth is by far the most common answer when asking a school leader where they are getting their new students. By far. It’s very powe
In this article, you will learn how to adjust your marketing strategy and treat your school as an investment with an excellent rate of retur
In this article, we will show you how to tune out interruptions and gain authentic feedback you can implement immediately. “No significant l
Time. Such a precious resource, yet most of us take it for granted. How can we get a better understanding of what our time is really worth?
Schools in other states, take note. This article will help you deal with regulatory changes coming your way. Reality Check: Although New Yor
It’s hard to imagine life without social media. We use it for everything. Work, play, friendship, and family. Many of us can’t do without it
Two-in-ten. That’s how many U.S. adults get their news from print newspapers (as of early 2016). And, twice as many adults (four-in-ten) get
Choosing a daycare is a big deal. Parents will go the extra mile to find the most nurturing environment for their kids to thrive, and this i
There’s a high demand for the skilled trades. There always has been, and there always will be. Twenty-one percent of the engineering workfor
Socrates once said that “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”. With 55% of high schoolers feeling unprepared f
According to recent studies, students in the United States are underperforming compared to their peers in other advanced nations, including
Independence Day. Our great nation’s birthday, and like all birthdays, a momentous occasion to celebrate. The fireworks have definitely beco
First impressions matter — especially to prospective students and parents who are choosing a school to enroll in for the next school year. A
Today’s parents have tremendous choice when it comes to their children’s education. Whether to choose a private, religious, charter, or publ
Why Not Start a Summer Camp? You Can Make a Difference While Increasing Enrollment. What if you could start a summer camp at your school tha
An important part of maintaining enrollment is student retention. Students often cite a lack of connection to the school community as the pr
Every year, beginning in January, the Sunshine Academy starts its annual enrollment campaign for the upcoming school year. They have a great
If you’re an enrollment manager, it’s fair to say you’ve got a lot on your plate. You keep your department in motion every day by: Supervisi
Are you planning for the future of education based on outdated demographics? If so, you are making a common and potentially serious mistake.
As a private or independent school, you should be thriving. With so much to offer and the highest grade averages, things should be going ver
It’s no secret that most schools struggle to properly reach their audience on Facebook. And if they do, often by chance, they usually fail t
We have some good news. You can finally start feeling in control of your enrollment. School leaders always have this little nagging feeling.
“We are losing students. Families no longer want to send their children to our school.” Sound familiar? You are not alone, there are many sc
Recruiting and retaining students is becoming increasingly difficult. Today, students and families no longer choose only between private or
Effective open house campaigns once meant filling the halls with artwork and dusting off your PowerPoint floppy disk. Today, that dated appr
A number of schools are telling us: It doesn’t look good. School choice doesn’t seem to be helping. But we keep answering: Despite the negat
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