Word of mouth marketing ideas for Christian schools

If there’s one topic that ignites our email signup list or our Facebook page engagement, it is word-of-mouth marketing!  In this post, I wanted to share with you 23 easy-to-implement word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing ideas that any private Christian school can work on starting today:

  1. Stories are WOM fuel – curate them and create them and showcase them!
  2. Treat families like kings and queens – they will tell their friends about it.
  3. Engage your fans – especially on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.
  4. Give families reasons to talk – take queues from bigger brands who offer memorable customer service.
  5. Empower them to share – put videos on YouTube or Vimeo, post them on Facebook and invite families to share.
  6. Explain how families can refer – map out a system and exactly the procedure for referring (and outline any incentives)
  7. Educate families about any perks or bonuses – referral incentives should be simple to understand, not so complex no one does it.
  8. Do something unexpected for families – it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money but the ROI can be huge.
  9. Send hand-written notes of gratitude – be unique and surprise families in ways that they remember and share.
  10. Create family pages on your school website and allow families to generate the written, audio or visual content
  11. Invite community voices to write for your school blog – Chamber president, business owners, nonprofit leaders (they drive traffic, too)
  12. Seek out community blogs and have your head of school write an article about education – reach out into the community media
  13. Do something creative in your acceptance letter (send it in a creative package or invite them to visit a private YouTube link)
  14. Create a private Facebook group of loyal parent ambassadors and remind them about FB posts to like, comment and share
  15. Hold a photo contest where participants get to submit photos holding a sign with school logo from vacation spots
  16. Give away your school space to a new church on a Sunday (if you don’t charge them, they’ll publicly thank you for your generosity)
  17. Randomly pick families and send them a sweatshirt, a new decal or some other spirit wear and ask them to post a picture with it
  18. Unleash the creativity of your students with a student-generated video that shows what THEY like about the school
  19. Host a webinar about parents, tax preparation or something else of value to parents (but not self-promotional) – friends will invite friends
  20. Send an email out once a month with a unique student story and some key facts that arm parents with WOM fuel
  21. Ask specific ambassador families to write 5-star reviews on Google, GreatSchools.org and on your school Facebook page
  22. Issue school-generated images that families can grab and post on Instagram with a unique hashtag for your school
  23. Have parents of long-time families make phone calls, drop by for in-person visits or send emails to new families

 

Other great resoures on WOM:

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23 Word of Mouth Marketing Ideas for Christian Schools

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