Yes, it really is a New Year already! People always talk about how quickly time goes (regardless of whether you’re having fun or not!), and it really is true. From our experience in print marketing, that’s why we know now is a great time to start planning campaigns for later in the year. So today, we’re looking specifically at marketing tips for private schools September intake initiatives.
That’s a very niche sector to focus on, for one blog, you might think, but having worked with several private schools doing just this, we feel we’ve picked up some invaluable tips to help others.
Do you need to know where to start? We’ve created a timeline on what to focus on to help keep it simple. Hopefully, it’ll help you establish your priorities and give you a few ideas on how to market your school for the September intakes.
January-February
First and foremost, use these first two months to decide on your target audience and focus on what it is you want to achieve with your campaign.
- Is there a specific age range of students?
- Is the focus more on school students or boarding students?
- Decide on a target radius of students (proximity to the school).
- Are you looking to drive international enquiries?
- When do you want the campaign to start and end?
Next, pick an agency to work with. Here at Clone Media, we can build and send the whole campaign with you. Notice we say ‘with’ and not ‘for’ you. Your print marketing still needs to ring true to your brand, values and beliefs as a school, so we’ll work closely together to manage the entire process.
Simply provide us with the above details, and we can do the rest.
We’ll even write up a case study about the success of your campaign for you to share, too!
March-April
DoorDrop Campaigns
Spring is the perfect time to use a Doordrop campaign to pique curiosity. Once you have established the who/what/when above, we can hone in on who to target. Don’t worry; you don’t need specific addresses for these campaigns, but we can work with you to make sure your material lands on the right doorsteps.
We carry out data profiling to determine the areas with the highest proportion of your target audience within a specific radius using your target audience data.
We then send your campaign to those addresses, sit back and wait for the inquiries.
Previous DoorDrop results include:
- 133% increase in enquiries compared to the previous year
- Immediate admissions
- Enquiries for school years not targeted
May-June
Direct Mail Campaigns
“Did you know that Education is one of the best industries that Direct Mail works in?”
Perhaps sending a personalised message thanking them for the enquiry or to say how great it was to meet them. Maybe you could send an age-appropriate activity pack to the prospective student, or even a video brochure highlighting a ‘day in the life’ at your school? With around 96% of people engaging with Direct Mail messaging, it’s worth a go, isn’t it?
For more interesting stats on just how well Direct Mail can work, head over to DMA.org.uk.
If you’d like to speak with our highly experienced Direct Mail marketing team here at Clone, we’d love to hear from you.
