For private establishments like charter schools, increasing enrollment is often a priority in order to maintain a high standard of operations. Attracting prospective students, appealing to their families, and encouraging them to enroll all takes time, effort, money, and dedication. When it comes to promoting higher levels of enrollment, abiding by the following strategies can help.
Analyze Past Data
In order to understand how you can improve your current methods, you need to thoroughly analyze and understand the trends of the past. Identifying enrollment trends, retention trends, and customer satisfaction ratings is a good start. You will likely need to reference internal and external data. Contacting “feeder” schools and sorting through internal records will likely take place during this step, but ideally, you will spend more time conducting analysis than you will gathering information.
Assess Existing Tactics
No matter what marketing tactics your school currently utilizes, it is always a good idea to review your existing strategies, assess their success, and research how you can improve your methods. Where your school dedicates most of its marketing budget should come under the most scrutiny, especially if your school has shifted its focus to digital marketing. The primary benefit of digital marketing is that such advertisements make it easier to calculate conversion rates and engagement, so if these tactics are not bringing about a proportional amount of success in your enrollment goals, re-evaluating the allocation of your budget may be wise.
Revitalize Marketing Efforts
Once you have reviewed your existing marketing tactics, making an effort to improve upon or completely revamp your strategies will come next. The marketing world is constantly changing, so it is important to stay on top of common trends in order to reach your target audience and engage them. When revitalizing your tactics, remember to clearly identify key features of your school so as to more effectively communicate essential information to prospective students and their families. This includes:
- Your school’s mission
- An understanding of your target audience and their goals
- The value of an education received through your school
- Advantages of attending your charter school
- And the credibility of your institution.
Accounting for these topics in your marketing efforts will present an informative, professional, and reliable image of your charter school that also presents it in an overwhelmingly positive light.