17 great opt-in headlines that will increase your list of prospective families in order to grow your school

Still one of the best ways to market your school is the consistent use of email marketing.  “I don’t think our emails garner much attention,” you might suggest? In another recent post, I suggest a few important reasons why your school’s current email marketing system is NOT working well.

The point of great content is to make your case inside somewhat neutral content (heavily slanted toward your school’s greatness, but not overly promotional) while capturing the prospective’s email address in the process.  This ensures you grow your email list which allows you to reach a greater number of people.

Below I categorize the headlines to give you different ways to think about this kind of content.  In this article, I offer some ideas for magnetic opt-in content that your prospective families will crave and click on: (more…)

The most effective marketing tool your school is NOT using to talk to prospective families

Most schools I consult with tell me that they are using email to communicate with families.  At which point I ask, “which ones?”

If you are using Constant Contact or some other email marketing provider to communicate only with your internal families, that’s OK, but that is more about communication and less about marketing.  Yes, good communication is vital for retention efforts (one of the reasons families often give for leaving a school is poor communication).  But I’m talking about reaching out regularly with prospective families.

Here are 5 tips you want to consider with your email marketing:

1. THINK LIKE A PUBLISHER:  just like anything having to do with marketing, it is best to make sure it operates like a system.  The “hit-or-miss” strategies you have used are no longer effective.  Make your email marketing work on a calendar.  Work with your creative team (staff and/or volunteers) to look at your school calendar and create email marketing messages around attractional events (sports, theater, etc), marketing events (open houses, preview nights, etc.) as well as community events that showcase your involvement in the town at large (Christmas shoe drive, Spring Break food pantry assistance, etc.)  Holiday themed messages are appropriate as well.  Think more like a magazine publisher and start capturing and creating high value content for these monthly or bi-weekly messages.  For your December email marketing newsletter to prospectives, for example, you need to be gathering the content in October.
2. BE USEFUL:  (more…)