The way to grow your school’s enrollment is by having more one-on-one conversations with prospective parents. If you’re wondering why you can’t just increase the number of tours you convert into new students, read this.
This leads to two obvious questions:
- How do we find these parents to have conversations with?
- How do we find the time in our schedule to have these conversations?
“Just have more conversations” is easy to say, but it isn’t so easy to put into practice. There isn’t a mob of eager parents banging down the door to your office to have a conversation about a Montessori education. If there was, your school would already be on a waiting list!
But there are families researching their options for childhood education in your neighborhood right now. You just need to get your message in front of those parents. The quickest and most cost effective way to do that is with digital advertising.
Different advertising platforms are better at meeting different goals, so it’s important to know what your specific goal is before you start spending money on any advertising. These platforms can be broken up into two broad categories: interruption based marketing and intent based marketing.
Facebook is a great example of interruption based marketing. Your ad is going to be shown to prospective parents while they’re busy doing something else. They’re catching up with friends, looking at relatives photos, or watching silly cat videos. Whatever it is, they’re in the middle of something else when they see your ad.
This type of marketing is great for reconnecting with prospects that you’ve already been introduced to. Unfortunately, when it comes to making a first impression these types of platforms aren’t going to have measurable results quickly. You’re catching these families at the wrong time – like a telemarketer calling just as you sit down for dinner.
The opposite end of the timing spectrum is intent based marketing. Simply put, intent based marketing is about putting your message in front of families who are actively looking for the solution that you can provide.
Google Search Ads is the perfect example of intent based marketing. You’ve probably experienced it without even thinking about it. If you’ve ever googled for “best 24-hour plumber” in the middle of the night, you’ve seen intent based marketing in action. You need a plumber, and there are plumbers who want you to know about their business. Its a win-win.
The same is true for your prospective families. They are looking for a school that they can trust with their children. They are looking for your school, they just don’t know it. They’re going to go to google and search for “best Montessori school near me”, or maybe even something more broad like “best childcare for toddlers”.
If you’re taking advantage of intent based marketing through Google Search Ads, that’s your chance to appear in front of these parents and tell them exactly why your school is their best choice. They find a great school and you find a new family to enroll. Its a win-win.
This may make Google Search Ads sound like the silver bullet for meeting your enrollment goals. It isn’t. There is no magic wand to wave that will instantly fill your school with students, but Google Search Ads *is* an important piece of the puzzle.
Step 1 to having more conversations with parents, and growing enrollment, is driving more traffic to your first point of contact: your website. That’s where Google Search Ads can shine. But there is a lot left to do after their first web visit.
If you’d like to learn how to turn your new website visitors into personal conversations and school tours, and to find the answer to “How do we find the time in our schedule to have these conversations?”, click here.
If you’d like to talk about how Montessori Digital Group can help your school implement a holistic strategy for finding leads, starting conversations with them, and securing new enrollments, click here.