Now that school is around the corner, it’s time to refresh your digital marketing strategy for your school, academy, or university. From experiencing a pandemic to entirely transforming a new academic environment for students and staff, the marketing and communications strategies that used to work for your district “pre-covid” may not work in this ever-changing 2021 environment. It is now the time to be pro-active, adaptive, and present to meet the increasing expectations of today’s families. 

Practice #1: Start a School Blog 

A school blog is a wonderful way to display the activities that students participate in and around the school. It’s also a great place to distribute advice and share the community’s voice. The blog will give outsiders an inside look on the programs and events that the students participate in. Connecting with the school’s community will emphasize how much the directors care about the students and faculty, while promoting conversation. It will also let more people organically find your school when searching for their children’s next academic steps. Overall, creating a blog will strengthen your school’s brand identity.  

Practice #2: Enhance the School’s Website 

Times are changing, and so should your website! Making an inadequately designed website and not thinking about the user’s experience will produce site traffic and static action. Like the director of Front Porch Marketing, Julie Porter states, “create a clean, user-friendly website.” This will increase the school’s reputation and lead to more engagement. Just remember to keep it simple to navigate and creative. An easy way to accomplish this is to rebrand logos, create a color scheme that seamlessly translates throughout all pages, and habitually update the navigation tabs.  

Practice #3: Make Social Media Accounts 

Posting on social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, create opportunities for parents and guardians to find your school organically. People can easily share, like, or comment on your posts to help create more popularity quickly. As your account grows, the more recognition and traffic your school develops. You can achieve this by devoting time into capturing professional videos and photos of events and activities.

A great example of this is with one of our clients, Faith Family Academy. As Christine Finnegan, our media relations director states, “be consistent will all messaging throughout your platforms.”  In addition, you can connect with your audience by responding to their comments and other members can add reviews.

Practice #4: Begin an Email Drip Campaign 

Emails are increasing in popularity due to people relying on the digital-sphere to stay in the loop. This upward trend in email reliability is the result of them being tailored to user preferences and behaviors. This personalization helps users see information related to their interests rather that unfavored topics that are being pushed upon them through advertising.

By asking current families and interested families for contact information via a survey or sign-up sheet, users can subscribe to an email list and look at automated content daily or weekly. This proves to be an easy strategy for reminding and promoting members of future academic and recreational events. Email workflows truly provide a personal touch to electronically reach each community member. 

Practice #5: Promote School Events 

Events, such as an open house, are a great way for newcomers to meet the faculty and staff. It also helps families understand if their values align with the school’s and if the school fits their expectations. Parents and guardians will also be given the opportunity to explore the campus for the first time.  

Additionally, back-to-school kickoffs are a wonderful way to understand what people personally look for in a school and its curriculum. Having organized school events with informational pamphlets to give out aids prospective families to secure their decision of coming to your school. Whether you share the events via social media or on the website, the end result allows you to increase engagement and nurture relationships with newly inquiring families.   

Conclusion 

The expectations of parents are higher than ever. It’s crucial that your school’s digital marketing strategy adapt alongside them. As the fall semester comes right around the corner, use these best practices to ensure that your digital marketing strategy is future-proofed.  

Any good marketing plan wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of some event marketing as part of the mix. Hosting an event allows you to reach people personally, build a relationship, and increase brand loyalty.

I love a good analogy, and I liken running an event to conducting a symphony. A symphony needs a strong conductor to unify performers, set the tempo, and control the pacing of the music. It needs a strong and diverse instrumental ensemble to provide a beautiful, multi-layered performance. And it needs a captivating musical score that sets the tone and crescendos in spectacular fashion.

Planning and executing a successful event lies in these details:

Crystallize Your Vision

Start by “scoring” your event. Identify your audience, define your message, and determine the experience you want to provide. Having a clear vision is important, because all the smaller event details and decisions will flow from it.

Logistics Follow

Your “score” will inform your logistical decisions. Choose a venue, food, music, entertainment, format and feel in keeping with your vision. Stay true to the experience you want to provide and these decisions will flow easily.

Choose Your Partners Wisely

Ensure the professional  partners you choose to assist you are on board with your vision. Your caterer, photographer, videographer, etc. should be well versed in what your plans and expectations are for the event.

Plan and Train

Plan everything, down to the minute. Have a schedule and a timetable. Ensure that your “orchestra” understands their roles from beginning to end. Identify your transition times, your presentation times, time spent ramping up and time spent winding down. It’s all important. Extremely important.

We love planning and executing events for our clients. Most recently, it has been our privilege to partner with Practice Ministries in order to “Set the Table” for the future success. We look forward to delivering an exceptional experience to their attendees bright and early on Thursday morning!

Do you need some help planning an event? Come see us on the Porch!

In 2000, when I was young and an idealist, I was working at an agency. The principal there had a mantra: “In marketing there are three ways to do things – good, fast and cheap – you can pick two.”

I didn’t get it, and for years, I tried to prove the pick two mantra wrong, without success.

Today, and hundreds of projects later, here is my official acquiescence and nod to the marketing professional that laid this out so succinctly.

The mantra is true. You cannot achieve good, fast and cheap. You must pick two.

I find this mantra is true across many spectrums. Case in point: I love to cook. Let’s take this approach and apply it to cooking:

Weekday dinners at the Hickman Home

• Good and Cheap: BBQ smoked chicken thighs with roasted root vegetables, 4 hours, $3 per serving
• Fast and Good: Cauliflower rice veggie bowl with turkey, 30 minutes, $5.50 per serving
• Cheap and Fast: Macaroni and Cheese with canned chicken, 15 minutes and $.87 per serving

Not into cooking? Apply it to your passion and see how it holds up.

Here are some recent projects on the Porch where the mantra held true:

• Good and Cheap: The GEM social media strategy which leverages optimal posting times and post sharing. We have been successful keeping social media channels current, fresh and relevant – all while meeting budget.
• Fast and Good: TodoModo Group trade show in December. With a two-week turnaround, we lovingly call this our Holiday marketing miracle.
• Cheap and Fast: “Not good” is not okay with us. Recently a prospect’s budget and timing didn’t work, and while we were grateful for the opportunity, we graciously declined.

We are tenured professionals dedicated to your business. We’ve run the course of projects from marketing strategy and planning, brand development, brand refresh, global internal and external communications, CSR, sustainability, operations in retail, fashion, real estate, restaurants, construction and more. We’ve got you covered with experience and expertise.

Join us on the Porch! Pick your two and let’s rock!