Inbound marketing is a cornerstone strategy for schools looking to boost their enrollment numbers. It’s cost-effective and strategic, it builds trust, and over time, you’ll start gaining an even deeper understanding of your prospective families with every click.

Inbound marketing for schools is centered on delivering content and strategic interactions, all designed to meet potential students and their families at every stage of their decision-making process. To really work, though, it has to be relevant and hit at the right time.

Best of all, inbound marketing works in the background because it subtly focuses on attracting prospective families and guiding them through a journey from initial awareness to the final decision, turning passive interest into active engagement.

For schools, using inbound marketing strategies can make a HUGE difference and ensure that each step of the admissions funnel is optimized to convert interest into enrollment. Whether you're familiar with the fundamentals of inbound marketing or just starting to explore this effective approach, applying it specifically to school enrollment can significantly improve your results.

Inbound Marketing for Enrollment

An effective inbound marketing enrollment strategy starts with looking at each stage of the funnel to provide a clear blueprint for how your school can effectively attract, engage, and delight prospective families. Broadly speaking, it can look like this:

Awareness

The first stage, awareness, is when your prospect is aware that they have a problem or pain point—such as not wanting to attend the local public schools or researching financial aid to attend private school. To reach individuals in this "awareness" stage, you need to create content that answers key questions they may be asking, such as, "Why choose an independent school?"

International School of Denver's marketing efforts included publishing a blog on choosing a private school, and it’s pushed them toward the top of Google with content positioned for the awareness stage—nicely done!

Research & Consideration

The next stage, consideration, is when your prospect has clearly defined their exact obstacle and begins to research solutions. For example, this would yield a prospect to conduct some searches like "best private schools near me or best art schools in the Pittsburg area."

Folks in the consideration stage need to be nurtured to keep them thinking about your school as they decide where to go— it's the perfect time to retarget them with paid ads, social media ads, or direct email communications.

Conversion/Decision

This stage, decision, is when your prospect has decided on a few schools that they would like to attend—and have most likely already applied to—but is waiting to make a final decision. Individuals in this stage should be handled with care, as every interaction matters.

During each of these stages, it's important to create different content that resonates with your prospects based on where they are in the process. Your messaging must be different based on whether they are just beginning their search or have chosen your school.

Step 1. Preparing for the Campaign

Performance Metrics and Setting an Attainable Goal

When you're thinking about the type of content you'll create and the various people you'll target, start with one goal.

• If your goal is more inquiries, you'll want to focus on strategies to drive success in the awareness phase.
• If your goal is strictly to increase student enrollment, you'll want to focus on the final enrollment number, which may mean focusing on individuals in the consideration and decision phases.

Regardless of your goal, you will want to ensure it is measurable and trackable. Define success by setting measurable targets for traffic, lead generation, and conversion rates.

Develop Your Personas

Before you begin marketing, you need to know who you're targeting. At the center of inbound is personalized messaging. You want the content you're sharing to resonate with a specific audience’s needs and challenges. This has been proven to be successful based on statistics like:

• Email conversion rates increase by 60% when you personalize content
• 74% of consumers become frustrated by content not related to their interests
• The average conversion rate when you use personalized content on your website is 20%

This means you'll want to take the time to identify your personas to determine different messaging for different audiences. Remember, no one wants to receive content that isn’t relevant to them.

Personas have desires or a need or pain they want to address, and they're looking for a solution — which could be found at your school. Always keep your personas in mind, as they help you identify how to identify, understand, and engage your ideal student.

Step 2. Content Creation

Once you know your ideal personas, create your content based on the persona's needs. Make sure the content you are writing and sharing makes sense based on where the individual is in the funnel. Some types of content you can share include:

• News stories
• Blog posts
• Podcasts
• Social media posts
• Video content
• Case studies or profiles
• Infographics
• Help Guides
• Viewbook

Rowland Hall’s blog on finding the right independent school is a great example of content that taps into the questions a parent may have in the awareness stage.

Step 3. Website Preparation

Once you've established your goal, identified your personas, and created content, it's time to get your website ready for your inbound initiatives. A few minor changes to your homepage, landing pages, and more can go a long way with your inbound marketing campaign.

In general, you'll have two types of visitors coming to your website:

• High Commitment Visitors: These are ready to apply/inquire and don't need any real convincing at this point — your school is already at the top of their list. These visitors are more patient and willing to fill out longer forms.
   
• Low Commitment Visitors: These are known as the shoppers looking for schools through unbranded searches. They’re just poking around, deciding on what they want to do, and may need help making a decision. Your school is one of many things they're looking at. On the contrary, they are NOT willing to fill out longer forms. If your goal is to build awareness and fill your funnel, short forms will make this difference (or you will only attract the high-commitment visitors to your site.)

These types of visitors will probably come to your website in one of the following ways:

• From search: More than 90% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and 83% of these searches are unbranded (i.e., "best schools in Tampa.")
   
• From social media:  Up to 89% of marketers see social media generating more referral traffic from social media.
   
• From mobile: Finalsite schools see an average of 50% or more of all traffic from mobile devices (go to your top hit pages and see what they look like on a mobile device.)

This means your website and content need to be optimized for each of these channels, so you need to implement the following:

• Landing Pages: Create specific landing pages with clear CTAs for different content offers (e.g., ebooks, webinars.)
   
• Do an SEO Check: Evaluate your website's search engine optimization (SEO) by checking your homepage, landing pages, and interior pages’ keyword usage, page titles, and meta descriptions. Optimize for keywords you want to rank for, like "all-boys school in Boston," to help improve your organic search ranking.
   
• A variety of Calls-to-Action (CTA): Create clear and targeted CTAs on high-performing pages and your homepage. These guide visitors to the most important pages of your website — and, in most cases, are pages on which they would convert, such as an inquiry form, download a brochure, or schedule a tour. Be sure that your call-to-action buttons appeal to both high and low-commitment visitors.

The Willows School offers dozens of blogs and think pieces to position itself as a leader in the latest topics in education.

• Different lead qualifying forms: Having one long form for all leads to fill out is a quick way to see your numbers drop. Consider where individuals are in the funnel and how much information they may be willing to give you. If you're trying to fill your funnel and get the most conversions, 3-4 form fields are optimal to see these kinds of results. Make forms easy to find and fill out for an improved user experience. 

The Joy School is prepped and ready to offer its website visitors a content offer. A brief, mobile-friendly form is a great option to provide helpful content and start connecting with families.

Step 4. Lead Nurturing

Once your campaign launches, it’s critical to nurture your leads through more channels, like email marketing, social posts, and even targeted ads.

• Develop Email Marketing Campaigns: Nurture leads who have shown interest by subscribing to your newsletter or downloading materials. Design automated email drip campaigns to keep them engaged.
   
• A PPC Strategy: Invest ad dollars in pay-per-click and social media ads that drive website visitors to targeted landing pages.
   
• Social Media Integration: Promote your blogs, videos, events, and CTAs on relevant social media platforms to reach a wider audience.

The Wardlaw + Hartridge School repurposes its content across social media platforms, including thought-leadership blogs about the community benefitting the boarding student experience.

Step 5: Monitoring Your Campaign

• Track Website Traffic and Conversions: Regularly monitor website analytics to see what content resonates best with your audience. Use these insights to identify areas for improvement and optimize your website for better results.
   
• A/B Testing: Test different website elements like headlines, CTAs, and page layouts to identify the most effective versions for driving conversions.

Key Takeaway

Building an effective inbound marketing enrollment strategy doesn't happen overnight, but you can start now. By following these inbound marketing tips for your school, you can transform your school website into a powerful tool for attracting new students and growing your enrollment.

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.