With the end of this unprecedented school year on the horizon, school leaders deserve a serious round of applause; you made it through what was undoubtedly one of the craziest years to navigate for the education system. As this year comes to a close, the opportunity for recruitment is wide open. Parents are actively in search of school options for next fall that best suit their children. Your school may be the perfect fit for a searching student, but they will never know unless you make yourself known. While recruitment is most effective when done year-round, student availability is at its peak, making it the optimal time to boost recruitment efforts. But how? Here are 10 simple steps to boost your recruitment strategies and reach your enrollment goals.
#1: Set Specific Goals
Boosting your recruitment efforts starts with recognizing gaps in your enrollment. How many additional students are you hoping to enroll and in what period of time? Answering these questions makes your goal specific, measurable, and time-bound. Then, determine key data points such as your cost per lead, total leads needed, lead to enrollment conversion rate, historical student retention, and previous year’s marketing results. By defining these metrics, you can start to obtain a precise plan of action for how to convert your leads into students and fill the void in enrollment.
#2: Establish Your Budget
Now put these numbers to work. After you have accounted for retention, churn, and conversion rate, you can establish the number of leads you need to bring in. Remember, this number is different from your enrollment goal. To determine your optimal marketing spending, multiply your cost per lead by the total leads.
#3: Get Organized
An organized system is vital during recruitment efforts. Gather any current data that aligns with meeting your goals. It will ensure that all further recruitment efforts are data-driven. Use a reliable system to collect data, manage prospective families, and track enrollment phases. To optimize organization, you can digitize paperwork and keep all contacts and communication records in one centralized area.
#4: Build Your Brand
Believe it or not, your school is a brand! Taking simple steps like being consistent and recognizable in your imaging, logos, colors, and fonts across all social platforms goes a long way. Make sure you can describe your school’s unique strengths, mission, learning community, and teaching methodology, and you are clearly communicating those things to parents. Don’t forget the audience you are reaching and ensure your tone and register match.
#5: Increase Your Digital Presence
Your website and social media platforms should be able to communicate with parents just as easily as a representative from your school can. Verify that all information is up-to-date, accessible, and clear. This includes accurate contact info, staff photos, messages from school leaders, description of the school, application process, upcoming events, and any COVID-19 information. Your social media platforms are a great place to show some school spirit and personality through photos, videos, and stories while providing regular updates on news, changes, events, and safety. You can optimize this further by having a social media plan and scheduling your posts. Remember, if parents can’t find clear answers from browsing your online presence, it creates a sense of uncertainty. Now more than ever it is crucial for schools to provide that sense of certainty and comfort for your parent community.
#6: Define Your Enrollment Process
Your recruitment efforts lose tremendous value if your enrollment process is not clearly defined and made simple and accessible for parents. Go digital and offer online and mobile-friendly applications and enrollment forms that are easy to find on the school’s website and keep paper versions handy to meet all parent preferences. Be systematic and have a distinct progression to optimize the enrollment process. Don’t forget to make sure you have designated staff members readily available to guide parents and answer questions when needed!
#7: Define Your Follow-up Process
Don’t let qualified leads go to waste! Just like your enrollment process, the follow-up process should be clear and systematic. Delegate roles to ensure your whole team knows who is reaching out to who. It will help avoid confusion for your team and for parent prospects. Calling, texting, and emailing prospects with a clear call to action are the most effective methods and can be simplified with the right tools. All communication with parents should be tracked so you can monitor progress and know exactly where students are in your pipeline. Following up with families is a full-time job, so make sure you are prepared to dedicate the time to enhance your results.
#8: Build a Campaign Around Your Strengths
Now that you have your goals, budget, and messaging set, it’s time to launch a campaign. Choose channels that work best for the audience you are trying to reach, whether it’s Facebook/Instagram ads, Google ads, or a physical ad. The campaign should capture your school’s unique strengths, mission, values, and tone to attract leads that match your school. As parents engage with your campaign, it opens the opportunity to connect with and enroll interested students. And with your newly established enrollment and follow-up process and organization system, connecting with prospects is seamless.
#9: Engage with Your Parent Community
When parents are satisfied with their school choice, they are often the best spokespeople for promoting it to other families. Following up and engaging with current and prospective parents is key to leveraging your tools to boost your enrollment. Active communication with parents through responding to comments, monitoring content engagement, and connecting with families demonstrates that your school prioritizes fostering a positive community for both parents and students to join.
#10: Track Results and Optimize!
Remember, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it! Tracking your progress and measuring results are essential to understand what works (and what doesn’t), whether you are meeting your goals and your return on investment. It will help you define exactly where your funds should be invested. Don’t waste useful money that can be spent in other school resources. The more consistent you are in tracking and determining what isn’t working, the faster you can adjust and optimize.
At first glance, these 10 simple steps may not seem so simple, especially when your school needs to recruit students now. Don’t worry, Schola is here to help! Schola was born from the belief that finding and enrolling students in the ideal school should be a seamless and accessible process. Schola guides your school through every single one of these steps so you can increase engagement and brand awareness, attract student leads, streamline and optimize your recruitment process, and ace those enrollment goals. Take advantage of the marketing tools available in your Schola dashboard! All you have to do is claim your free school profile on Schola.com! Start gaining marketing insight and connecting with families today!
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