Enjoy all the creativity from this high school who shot their entire lip-dub video backwards (see link below the video for original footage)! Amazing talent – and a great way to market your school’s innovation. Here’s are 4 simple ways that this single video can be used in this school’s marketing (imagine if this was YOUR school):
TWITTER – The initial source for this video came to me via a tweet I saw from one of my followers (by the way, follow me @schoolmktg). Hundreds – maybe thousands – of followers all over your community could see your innovation without having to spend a dollar on TV advertising (or radio, print, etc.) I saw it tweeted as “Ten of the best high school lip-dub videos.”
FACEBOOK – Videos of this nature are like social candy for Facebook junkies. This could be played on your FB page, then shared by all of your fans on to their own personal profiles, and then on and on. I think you could garner a few new “like” this way for sure!
YOUTUBE – Another great source for viral activity – and a way to introduce interested parties to other videos you have (maybe not as innovative, but perhaps educational or informational videos about your school).
BLOG – Embedding videos into your blog posts make for easy content-generation (case in point!)
Your school can spend alot of money on attracting new students. And you need to do that.
But you’ll also admit that the retention of great families generates significant value:
MONEY – returning families help your bottom-line and they keep your funding dollars flowing. One headmaster told me, “the more families we can keep, the less fundraising we have to do.”
VALUE – when schools can tout at graduation that they have had 25 students from K-12, or when they lay claim to 85% or more of our families return every year, this reinforces the value that you are desperately marketing to prospective families
REFERRALS – legacy families, or families that have been apart of your school for years and even generations, often are your best ambassadors. They voluntarily share their experience with their friends at church, at the coffee shop or basketball game, or even on Facebook.
Met with a great Christian school for the first of our 6-month engagement together. When we do this, we always customize our marketing strategy planning to each school. There is no such thing as a cookie-cutter marketing strategy. It’s got to be focused on their unique location, situation, challenges, opportunities and where they are headed.
But one of the first areas we always tackle is obtaining online reviews. While this is only a sliver of what comprises your social media system (see graphic above), we often go into quick attack mode because there are ALWAYS prospective families searching and investigating your school.
They may be:
following up on a postcard in the mail or a ad they saw in a magazine about your school – now it’s time for them to start their investigative process to determine if your current “customers” (your current families) are as excited about your school as you say they are in your printed piece
frustrated with the public schools and “just looking” into what other choices they might have
For many private Christian schools, the name of the school is based on its location. Church’s often deal with the same issue and many churches are considering name changes to reflect a broader reach. And because a large percentage of private Christian schools have been birthed from the mission of churches, the names of our schools often reflect our geographic location.
Here are some issues schools face:
Suburban Pride – Perhaps the name of your school is based on a suburb around a larger city.
ADVANTAGE – people know exactly where you are located – in larger Metropolitan cities, if your school name is based on the larger city name, this may confuse and frustrate potential families who change their mind about attendance when they find our their drive time would be an hour or more from one side of town to the other. Keeping it suburb specific can let people know upfront where you are located. Also, in major cities, suburbs have unique cultures, and so it allows you to reach more specifically to specific population segments and target markets
DISADVANTAGE – because of the suburb-specific pride mentioned above, residents from other neighboring suburbs may not feel as welcome as you want them to be.
Bigger is Broader– Perhaps the name of your school is based on the large city.
DISADVANTAGE – see above (it’s akin to when you are traveling overseas and someone finds out you are from Texas and they ask, “do you know George Bush?”) It’s nice to associate with the larger city, but also, you may have to compete with other more geo-specific data for search engines related to your location especially when you are trying to reach specific suburbs.
ADVANTAGE – sometimes the suburban name is too limiting, especially as families make the decision to travel further for the opportunity to attend a school of their choice. One Maryland school decided to change its name to reach that broader audience, including communities beyond the traditional reach of the school.
Related: here’s an article written to businesses about picking a winning name – good things to consider!
