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In the weeks after the lockdowns, The Woods Academy was one of the first schools in its county to open its doors, thanks to the flexibility of its hybrid approach.
And like many independent schools, Woods experienced an enrollment boost as many students transferred from other schools following the pandemic.
“After that initial surge, our enrollment stabilized, putting us in a pretty good position,” shared The Woods Academy’s Director of Advancement Caitlin McNamara Chalke. Although The Woods Academy’s enrollment numbers were strong, there was still room for improvement.
Located in Bethesda, Maryland, The Woods Academy is a Catholic community that guides academic excellence, spiritual enrichment, and character development for students age 3 - grade 8.
Chalke conducted thorough research and spoke with the school‘s admissions and division directors to gather information on their priorities. It came as no surprise that enrollment remained a focus for everyone.
“We realized that once we got kids and families through the door, retention was high,” said Chalke. “Our middle school was doing well because once families experienced our school, they fell in love with The Woods Academy.”
“We collaborate with Finalsite for our advertising and ensure our branding is cohesive across all channels. Launching a new website with a consistent look and feel has helped strengthen our brand identity, and our social media outreach is strategic, resulting in increased engagement and reach compared to the previous year.”
CAITLIN MCNAMARA CHALKE
DIRECTOR OF ADVANCEMENT
After years of working in education, Chalke is well aware of the multiple hats school marketing professionals wear. Despite its importance, an integrated digital marketing strategy can often be overlooked as other priorities take hold.
“I think one of the hard things about this role is feeling confident in your decisions,” Chalke shared. “It’s OK to say ‘I can’t do this now’ because we're overseeing many different projects, and in reality, it's not always going to be perfect, and we can't do everything. I have a budget, but I still need strategic decisions.”
The Woods Academy recognized the need to elevate its digital marketing efforts to engage prospective students and families more effectively.
Partnering with the experts on Finalsite’s digital marketing services (DMS), The Woods Academy began to maximize its budget and capitalize on the full platform of Finalsite’s tools and services.
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“We collaborate with Finalsite for our advertising and ensure our branding is cohesive across all channels,” Chalke said. “Launching a new website with a consistent look and feel has helped strengthen our brand identity, and our social media outreach is strategic, resulting in increased engagement and reach compared to the previous year.”
Understanding that it can take multiple touchpoints for someone to recognize a brand, Chalke worked closely with the Finalsite team to develop a holistic marketing approach and focus on families with younger children to capitalize on early engagement.
The content was distributed across various channels, including the school's website, social media platforms, and email marketing campaigns, while pay-per-click ads and social media advertising would support long-term retention and ensure Woods’ brand was consistently visible.
“We developed personas for enrolled students, prospective students, their parents, and alumni, focusing on the different decision-makers in the families,” said Chalke, noting that their key demographic included Millennial parents in Montgomery County and Northwest D.C who are philanthropic and can afford private education.
Specific questions honed in on its target audience’s personas, like,
Who are these parents?
What interests them?
Where are they getting their information?
Do they align with our mission at The Woods Academy?
How do we reach them?
“We analyzed how these parents gather information,” Chalk continued. “They're on traditional and digital media, social platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and value word-of-mouth. Professional advice from pediatricians and education consultants can also play a significant role in their decisions.”
“When targeting Millennial parents, we use both social and Google advertising. Social media builds brand awareness, while Google advertising targets parents actively searching for schools,” Chalke explained.
As for content, The Woods Academy highlighted its Montessori and lower school programs and emphasized its unique offerings, small class sizes, and dedicated teachers.
The Woods ACademy’s efforts paid off: its Google advertising saw a 35% increase in ad impressions and a 17% increase in clicks for its Monterrosi campaigns. Specific ad extensions for its divisions also saw a 5% improvement in click-through rate (CTR) engagement, boosting The Woods Academy’s ad's overall CTR to a remarkable 12.81%, outperforming an industry average CTR of 6.21%.
To amplify The Woods Academy’s reach and engagement on social media, the DMS team developed a comprehensive social ad strategy and tailored its messaging to each platform to reach a broader audience and drive traffic to the school's website.
“For social media, we aim for brand awareness, aligning all our messaging and visuals across platforms,” added Chalke. “This consistency resulted in a 45% increase in impressions and awareness on social, and our geographic targeting in Montgomery County and Northwest D.C. has been very effective, seeing a 6% increase in impressions.”
The Woods Academy also engages in traditional media outreach, appearing on local news like Fox5 and NBC4, which boosts parent pride and attracts prospective families. Parent ambassadors, known as OWLvocates (their mascot is the Owls) are encouraged to write reviews and share social media content with their networks to support the school’s online presence even further.
“The efforts have led to a 7% increase in inquiries and steady year-over-year improvement,” Chalkes said. “By focusing on our target audience, we've seen a 60% increase in Google search inquiries, a 10% increase in applications, and a 29% increase in recommendations from education consultants.”
But the results don't stop there — The Woods Academy’s website saw an 11% increase in traffic compared to the previous year, its Facebook reach increased by 13%, and Instagram's reach increased by a whopping 78%.
With a 360-degree strategy supported by Finalsite’s digital marketing services and Advantage, Finalsite’s strategic marketing and support team, all of these efforts contribute to The Woods Academy growing its brand awareness in the community.
People were definitely clicking, but how would The Woods Academy keep the momentum going?
The Woods Academy leveraged the power of Finalsite’s platform to create custom landing pages with relevant information and call-to-action to further engage families. Once a prospect submitted a form, an email nurture campaign was set live, triggering an automated workflow series of six emails sent every eight days, continuing to engage its families with supporting content about the school.
With such a busy schedule, one of the biggest benefits was that all of these efforts were happening automatically in the background. Lead data was sent directly from the embedded form to the Admissions Office to kickstart communications.
“People are talking about us,” Chalkes said. “Anytime someone mentions The Woods Academy, the automatic response from the other person is, ‘Oh, I've heard so many great things about that school,’ You can’t help but think, ‘Yes! Our brand awareness campaign is working and our word of mouth is on overdrive.’” A win/win for any marketer!
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