By Matthew Levi
If you’re a school owner and you need more students in your school, you should pay attention to this piece because at the end, I will show you the exact steps you must take that will guarantee sales for you.
I’ve seen many school owners complain bitterly about this.
I will tell you one honest truth though: if you are not willing to spend money on proper MARKETING, then this will not work for you; so you may as well stop reading from here.
Also, your services as a school must be top notch, else this would be a colossal waste.
Are you still reading?
Alright. Let’s get to it then.
One of the most effective ways…no; the most effective way to make any parent bring their wards to your school is if they TRUST your service!
Read that again.
TRUST!
How can you gain this trust.
I’ll show you. Just keep reading.
What the average school owner does is to look for a band or hire some people to be dancing and be making noise up and down to just grab people’s attention.
Now online, they just start running Instagram ads (if they do at all) without proper tracking.
This is what you should do instead: GIVE PARENTS A BAIT!
Yes! Bait. B.A.I.T.
Just like how you put bait on a hook to catch a fish, set a bait for parents this same way.
How do you set this bait?
Let me show you how.
If you run a nursery and primary school, you can write a short guide on how to make children write or read better. You can give this guide out in form of an ebook, a blog post, a video or an audio.
I’m sure this is one area many pupils have problems with.
You may create a guide on certain habits that can help a pupils brain become sharper.
You can create a guide on how to help children become more brilliant.
You get my drift?
If you run a secondary school you can create a guide on sex education to parents.
If you run a Montessori, address a common problem that many kids face. Perhaps how to make a child sleep better or something.
Once you have your bait ready, the next thing is to put it on a hook.
How do you do this?
Run Facebook or Google Ads to your website or Facebook messenger, targeting mothers or fathers of kids within the age range your school caters for.
Once targeted, ask them to drop their WhatsApp contact or email address to receive your free guide, and to keep getting further tips on how to help their kids become better.
Now, most parents would gladly drop their contact details (I have done this hundreds of times, and still do it).
Once they have dropped it, they have taken your bait, and are now in your ‘trap’.
You see this simple thing I have just said, many school owners don’t know about it. Take advantage of it right now.
Why do you need their contacts?
I’ll tell you.
Now, you have a database of parents who are your potential customers.
What do you do next?
Keep contacting them, and giving them educational tips about raising children. Don’t spam them with adverts all the time. Give out educational content.
I can tell you with 100% confidence. Less than 2% of schools do this in Nigeria.
Why do you need to keep contacting them?
It’s to build up their trust in you.
Why do you need their trust?
So they can like you, and eventually enroll their kids in your school.
The average customer needs to be exposed to a product or brand at least 7 times before they make a purchase.
If you don’t have parent’s details, how do you want them to be exposed to your brand many times?
How do you show your competence?
Now the last but not the least step: Ask them to enroll their kids in your school.
There are really subtle ways to do this.
I may not be able to go into details because this post would take forever.
In any case, I hope you have learnt something and act immediately on this information.
If you have any question, please feel free to ask me.
Matthew Levi is a Teacher, Brand Developer, Business Strategist
Thanks! Very useful, but what about parents that change their number and find it difficult dropping the present line used, what should be done please?
Obtain the new number then
but what if you are not top school in your area and you have just opened and there is not much of response from the people incase you contact them also so what could be the possible solution to attract those parents but more like female parents to school?
Changing strategies would benefit the school if one strategy isn’t working.