Email marketing can and should be a critical tool in your enrollment marketing strategy. But for many schools, email marketing is ineffective leading many to say “email marketing is dead.” Let me suggest that email marketing as a tool for nurturing leads, informing and educating audiences, and driving traffic to a website is alive and well. In this series about email marketing for schools, let me suggest 7 reasons your email marketing is not working: (more…)
I wrote a version of this on my personal Facebook profile – so I wanted to share it with you as well. Families all over the world recognize the Christmas holiday for a variety of reasons and with various traditions. Because we have young kids, Santa is still part of the fun. But as a follower of Jesus Christ, this is what Christmas really means to me:
Christmas is our family’s celebration of the best gift ever given!
I’m thankful for a compassionate loving God who gives generously in spite of my failings. Believing that the baby born in the stable would one day die in the cross for my sins – well, that is why our family celebrates. We live abundantly because that same baby later conquered death and rose.
We also rejoice that Jesus will come again – he will judge us for our sins but since we are clothed in the righteousness of God because we believe in Jesus, we are free and have nothing to fear. We anticipate the second coming of Christ, whenever that may be.
We celebrate all of this (1) in spite of our sins, and (2) not because we have done many good things.
We celebrate Christmas because of God’s mercy.
Merry Christmas!
-Randy
The recent evil in Newtown, CT, shocked our nation. Stunned by the tragedy that took so many innocent lives, our nation will grieve this for a while. Why? Because it is centered around the place our children are at almost 8 hours a day….school.
In the wake of this recent events, but also triggered by a few regional and local school communications situations, I thought I would carefully offer a few suggestions on ensuring a sound crisis response from your school: (more…)
While I’ve written many times that “content is king”, I think the important distinction is that “shareable content is king.” In our cluttered world, there’s a lot of content out there in our news feed, in our news stream, on our pin boards, and in our email inboxes. But often it is nothing by noise, spam, or just irrelevant chatter in our digital mailboxes. The foundation of a solid social media system for your school is to connect relevant content with the right audience who will pass it on to others with a similar need.
First of all, where do you get this relevant content that is worth sharing? Recently, I wrote “3 Places to Get Ideas for Your School’s Blog Content.” I found another article listing “12 Characteristics of Highly Shared Content”. The key is to listen to your audience’s needs. Ask them for input. Write what they are asking about, not just what you want to say.
Once you have great quality blog content, it’s time to share it for optimal exposure and maximum impact:
- Tweet your blog article, not just once, but over a period of time (or at peak moments during your marketing season)
- Post this article on your school’s Facebook page
- Put a link to this article in your school’s email marketing newsletter (where you hopefully have numerous prospective families on the list)
- As a follow-up to a family who came for a tour, you can email them links to articles that speak specifically to each family’s concerns
- Pin your article to a parent-related board on Pinterest
Shareable content is highly-relevant information that your audience has asked you for or that you know they need to understand it. Shareable content cuts through the clutter in our world and resonates with the needs of your immediate audience, and then they share it with others who have a similar need.
FINAL TIP: Writing shareable content for your families may force you to think differently about your intended audience. While current families may be the first to read your article, your final destination is really the laptop of the prospective family who currently has a friend whose kids are enrolled at your school. Armed with the right kind of relevant content, your current families become ambassadors who can passively promote your school by passing a link to a friend via email, Twitter or Facebook. For example, highly shareable content may be “How the class size at my son’s school increased his grades from Cs to all As!” or “How a smaller classroom environment has turned my wallflower daughter into a social butterfly.” Current families read (and maybe write) this content and then stand positioned to post such insights all over Facebook, Twitter and on their Pinterest board about their kids’ school.
ACTION: If you need ideas on setting up your school’s social media system, contact us for your FREE 30-minute phone consultation. No obligation to sign up for anything – just an opportunity for us to listen to your needs, share ideas and help you lay out a plan that will work for you.
