Those once-reliable marketing strategies can sometimes sputter and stall.

Brochures gather dust, no one attends your open house, and your Facebook ad reaches one random person across the world for some reason…If that strikes a nerve, sometimes all it takes is a fresh perspective to break the mold.

While many schools understand the importance of promoting their offerings, a surprising number are missing golden opportunities to improve their school marketing and speak directly to the families searching for the perfect place for their children.

Take a look at these marketing strategies for schools that often fly under the radar, even for seasoned marketing professionals.

Insider Marketing Strategies for Private Schools

Tip 1: Tap into Psychographics

While demographics like age, income, and location provide a basic understanding of your target audience, psychographics offer a much deeper level of insight. Psychographics deal with the values, interests, lifestyles, and motivations of your prospective families. If you understand these psychological factors, you can create marketing messages that hit on a more personal level.

Uncovering your audience's psychographics requires a bit of detective work, but you can:

• Survey your current families
• Conduct surveys
• Examine enrollment data
• Tap into social media

Most social media platforms offer analytics tools that provide insights into your audience's interests and behaviors.

For instance, if your school promotes student safety and well-being like The Independence School, focus on your initiatives, promote your counseling services, or showcase your wellness and mindfulness programs.

Aligning your marketing messages with the values and aspirations of your target audience can create a stronger connection that increases engagement.

Tip 2: Use a Content Pillar Strategy in Your Marketing Plan

A content pillar strategy provides a framework for organizing your marketing efforts and establishing your school as a thought leader in your field. Identify a few key themes that are relevant to your school's strengths and your target audience's interests from Tip #1. These themes will serve as your content pillars.

Next, create a variety of in-depth content pieces around each pillar, like:

• Blog posts
• Thought-leadership articles
• Videos
• Digital ads
• Infographics
• Downloadable resources
• Social media posts

If one of your pillars is "STEM Education," like St. Thomas School, create a series of blog posts exploring different aspects of your STEM curriculum, social posts featuring interviews with your STEM faculty, landing pages showcasing school events and projects, and digital ads focusing on facilities and programming.

Pro Tip: Don't forget the power of storytelling! Weaving narratives into your content can build emotional connections with your audience. Share authentic stories of students who have overcome challenges, alumni who are making a difference in the world, or faculty members who are passionate about their work.

Tip 3: Harness the Power of "Barnacle SEO"

Barnacle? Well, this search engine optimization (SEO) strategy uses the authority of well-established, high-traffic websites in your niche to improve your school's online visibility. By attaching your school's digital presence to these established platforms (like a barnacle!), you can benefit from their existing traffic and authority, and increase your chances of appearing in search results and reaching new audiences.

Find the online directories, review platforms, and community forums where your target audience spends their time. Some to consider include GreatSchools.org, Niche.com, PrivateSchoolReview.com, and local community forums or parenting websites.

Claim and optimize your school's profiles on these platforms, and make sure your information is consistent and accurate, including your school's name, address, website, contact information, and a compelling description.

Tip 4: Optimize Your Website for Voice Search

With the rise of smart speakers and voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and AI assistants, voice search is rapidly changing the way families find information online—more than 20% of Internet users rely on them. Optimize your content for voice queries, and use natural language and conversational keywords that people are likely to use when speaking.

For example, instead of targeting the keyword "independent school," optimize for phrases like "Find the best private schools near me" or "What private schools have strong arts programs?"

Most voice searches are done on mobile devices, so a seamless mobile experience is crucial!

Keep Reading: The State of Voice Search for Schools

Tip 5: Engage Your "Lookalike Audiences"

Social media advertising offers powerful tools for reaching new families, and one of the most effective strategies is creating "lookalike audiences." Google and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to upload data about your existing families, such as their demographics, interests, and online behavior.

The platforms then use this data to identify additional new users who share similar characteristics, creating a "lookalike audience" that you can start engaging.

Here’s how to create a Lookalike Audience for your school’s ads:

• Step 1. Gather Your Source Audience Data:
   
  • Meta: You'll need a "Custom Audience" first. This could be a list of your current family members' email addresses, phone numbers, or people who have interacted with your Facebook page or Instagram profile.
     
  • Google Ads: You'll need a list of website visitors, customer emails, or people who have interacted with your YouTube channel or app. You can create this list using Google Analytics or your data.
     
• Step 2. Upload Your Source Audience:
   
  • Meta: In Ads Manager, go to "Audiences" and create a "Custom Audience." Upload your data file or connect to your data source.
  • Google Ads: In your Google Ads account, navigate to "Tools" > "Shared library" > "Audience manager." Create a "Customer list" and upload your data file.
     
• Step 3. Create Your Lookalike Audience:
   
  • Meta: Go to "Audiences" and create a "Lookalike Audience." Select your source audience and choose your desired audience size (1% being the most similar to your source, 10% being the broadest).
     
  • Google Ads: In "Audience Manager," create a "Lookalike segment." Select your source audience, like first-party data, customer lists, or website visitors, and choose a similarity level (e.g., "More similar" or "Broader").
     
• Step 4. Use Your Lookalike Audience in Your Campaigns:
   
  • Meta: When creating your ad campaign, select your lookalike audience in the "Audience" section of your ad set.
     
  • Google Ads: When setting up your ad group, add a similar segment to your targeting options.

By targeting your ads to these lookalike audiences, you can significantly increase your chances of reaching families who are likely to be interested in your school. It’s a great strategy to expand your reach beyond your immediate network, burst out of your “bubble,” and connect with highly qualified prospective families.

Tip 6: Analyze Website Heatmaps and User Behavior

Website analytics tools provide a ton of information about how visitors interact with your website. Heatmaps, in particular, offer a visual representation of user behavior, showing you where they’re clicking, scrolling, and hovering on your pages. This data can reveal the physical areas of your website that are most engaging and which areas might be confusing, frustrating, or losing conversions.

For example, if you notice that visitors are overlooking a call to action that isn’t prominently displayed or isn't very mobile-friendly, you can reposition it to a more visible location to increase conversions and improve the user experience altogether.

Tip 7: Launch "Retargeting" Campaigns

Retargeting campaigns let you re-engage website visitors who have shown interest in your school but haven't taken a desired action, such as scheduling a tour or inquiring. When someone visits your website, a cookie is placed on their browser, which allows you to show them targeted ads on other websites and social media platforms they visit later.

These ads can serve as gentle reminders of your school's value proposition and encourage them to return to your site. So if a family visits your tuition page but doesn't complete an inquiry form, you can show them retargeting ads featuring testimonials from current parents about the return on investment they've experienced by choosing your school.

Set up a retargeting ad for your school in 5 quick steps:

• Step 1. "Tag" Your Website Visitors: Place a tiny piece of code that keeps track of who visits your site. You can get this pixel from platforms like Google Ads or Meta Ads and add it to your website's code.
   
• Step 2. Create a "Retargeting List:" Use your pixel to create a list of those specific people. This is your "retargeting list."
   
• Step 3. Set Up Your Ads: Create an enticing ad that reminds visitors about what they saw on your site. Maybe highlight a special program or a unique feature of your school.
   
• Step 4. Launch Your Campaign: Choose a platform and use your Meta Pixel & Google Tag Manager to create custom audiences based on website/page activity, and tell the platform to show your ads only to the people on that list.
   
• Step 5. Show Your Ads Across the Web: Now, when those people browse other websites or scroll through social media, they'll see your ads!

Tip 8: Host "Ask Me Anything" Sessions on Social Media

Transparency and authenticity go a long way in social media marketing, and hosting a live "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) session on platforms like Instagram or Facebook can create a sense of openness and provide insights into your school's culture and community.

Invite your head of school, faculty members, current students, or alumni, as Stone Ridge Sacred Heart School did, to answer questions from prospective families in real time. (You can always have some prompts ready to go while you wait for live questions…)

Moreover, these sessions can be recorded and repurposed as evergreen content on your website, email, or social media channels for families who discover your school later on.

Tip 9: Use Data Analytics to Identify "Trigger Events"

Data analytics can help you identify "trigger events" that might prompt families to consider a new school for their children. These events could include a family relocating to your area, a child reaching a critical age for school transitions (like entering kindergarten or middle school), or a couple that was married within the last few years.

By monitoring these trigger events, you can proactively reach out to families who might be actively searching for a new school, se the stage, and tune your marketing messages to address their specific circumstances. It brings a whole new level of relevance and effectiveness to your outreach.

Here’s how to tap into a “trigger event:”

• Step 1. Access Meta Ads Manager: Log in to your Facebook account and navigate to Meta Ads Manager. This is your central hub for creating and managing your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns.
   
• Step 2. Create a New Campaign: Click the "Create" button to start a new campaign.
   
• Step 3. Choose Your Campaign Objective: Since you're aiming to increase awareness and engagement, consider an objective like "Awareness." To drive users to your website, select "Traffic."

   

• Step 4. Define Your Target Audience: Expand the Advantage+ options—this is where you'll hone in on those trigger events:
   
  • Demographics: Start with basic demographics like age, location (crucial for targeting relocating families!), and parental status.
     
  • Detailed Targeting: This is where the magic happens!
     
  • Life Events: Under "Demographics," expand "Life Events" and select options like "New parents" or "Expecting parents." You can even specify the child's age (creepy…)
     
  • Behaviors: Explore the "Behaviors" section for options like "Residential profiles" to target those who have recently moved.
     
  • Interests: Target interests related to parenting, education, specific school types (e.g., "Montessori schools," "private schools"), or summer camps.
     
• Step 5. Set Your Budget and Schedule: Determine your daily or lifetime budget and choose the dates for your ad to run.
   
• Step 6. Choose Your Ad Placements: Select where you want your ads to appear. Facebook and Instagram are usually excellent choices for reaching parents. You can further refine placements within those platforms (e.g., Facebook News Feed, Instagram Stories).
   
• Step 7. Create Your Ad: Write some compelling ad copy and visuals that resonate with your target audience and their trigger events.

Example for new parents: "Give your child the best start in life. Explore our nurturing preschool program." (Include an image of happy preschoolers)

Or, "Welcome to [your city]! Discover a school that creates a love of learning."

• Step 8. Track and Optimize! Once your ad is running, monitor its performance in Ads Manager. Pay attention to metrics like reach, engagement, and website clicks.

As always, Track Your Results and Make Adjustments!

With any marketing campaign, old or new, it's crucial to track your results and make adjustments along the way. Monitor key metrics such as website traffic, social media engagement, inquiries, and conversion rates. Don't be afraid to experiment with new approaches and keep optimizing your campaigns based on the data you gather. The key is to stay flexible!

Key Takeaway

Try some of these strategies to connect with your audience in more meaningful, strategic ways. Stay curious, stay innovative, and don’t stop refining and improving our marketing approach. If you need a little extra help getting these initiatives up and running, we’re always here to help!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connor has spent the last decade within the field of marketing and communications, working with independent schools and colleges throughout New England. At Finalsite, Connor plans and executes marketing strategies and digital content across the web. A former photojournalist, he has a passion for digital media, storytelling, coffee, and creating content that connects.