Here are 11 marketing ideas for private schools.

1. Evaluate and optimize your website

In today’s online world, many families will have made a decision about enrolling in your school before an application is submitted. Therefore, it’s essential your website is findable and answers families’ questions in an easy-to-read format. Considering a redesign? Click here for “It’s Time to Rethink the School Redesign Process”.

2. Publish blog posts regularly

While it can be challenging to find the time to blog regularly, a school blog can position your school as an expert on topics related to education, improve your school’s website in search, increase enrollment and boost retention. A blog is the foundation of a content marketing strategy while giving you content to publish on social media. Need ideas for school blog topics? Click here for “50 Captivating Blog Topics for Schools”.

3. Optimize for local search engines (SEO)

Local search engine optimization (SEO) for schools is an important marketing strategy. Local SEO will help you get your school listed in Google and other search engines. If SEO is done correctly, your school will show up in Google Maps, making it possible for families to find your school and calculate the distance from home or work. You can get an SEO audit report of your school’s website using my free tool: Free SEO Audit for Schools.

4. Develop a robust social media plan

Social media networks offer schools an opportunity to convey a sense of familiarity in addition to building community with families by sharing content that encourages engagement. Social media should keep families up-to-date on school activities, events, and news, as well as promote educational content published on your blog. Want more ideas for your school’s social media strategy? Click here for “10 Creative Ways to Boost Your School’s Social Media Presence”.

5. Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet. Everyone checks their email – most people several times a day! For ideas on how to improve your email marketing strategy, click here for “8 Reasons Parents Aren’t Reading Your Emails and What To Do About It.”

6. Share stories about your school’s successes

People love stories, and parents are no exception. They want more than the latest statistics about how great your school is – they want real examples of your program in action. Use testimonials and real-life examples to show how successful your educational programs are. This will give parents the information they need to make a decision to enroll their children in your school. Read more: Storytelling is Key to Forming Strong Connections with Parents

7. Create parent personas

Parent personas are based on a profile of your ideal target audience. They are used to focus your marketing activities to attract parents that are likely to enroll their children in your school. For more information on how to create a parent persona, click here: “How to Create Accurate Parent Personas that Work for Your School”. For more information on conducting a social media audience analysis, click here: “How to Conduct a Social Media Audience Audit for Your School”.

8. Video marketing

Video continues to be one of the best marketing strategies of our decade. If it isn’t already, video marketing should be central to your outreach and campaign efforts.

Video is a versatile tool that can be used throughout the entire parent enrollment journey. Want ideas for video marketing topics? Click here for “27 Video Marketing Ideas for School Marketers”.

9. Offer gated content

Gated content is used to generate leads by providing prospective parents with valuable information in exchange for their name, email address, and possibly other information such as the number and ages of school-age children.

Gated content, also called a content offer, is usually a downloadable ebook, whitepaper, webinar, or other assets that offers information parents will find valuable. The benefit of using gated content is to gather contact information from families so you can nurture your relationship with them in the future.

10. Adopt marketing automation

Marketing automation can be a very useful marketing tool by automating repetitive tasks such as emails and social media posts. Organizations that invest in marketing automation find an increase in enrollments and productivity. To learn more about marketing automation for schools, click here: “10 Benefits of Marketing Automation for School Marketing”.

11. Invest in paid advertising

Online paid advertising is commonly referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) ads. PPC ads, usually Google or Facebook Ads, can be a great way to drive traffic to a landing page. With Google Ads, schools can optimize for relevant keywords. Facebook Ads are effective due to the granular nature of audience targeting possible. Well-written ads address the needs of the family and encourage them to take action on a landing page.

A retargeting advertising campaign is usually one of the best uses of school marketing budget funds. These campaigns allow schools to display ads to users who may have visited the website or, at the very least, have searched for terms related to your school.

Marketing ideas for private schools may vary from small-scale SEO campaigns to large-scale initiatives. The key to success lies in consistently implementing your marketing plan. The marketing ideas listed above will help your school ensure you’re found by parents likely to enroll their child(ren) in your institution.

What other marketing ideas for private schools should be included in this list? Please comment below…

This post first appeared on SchneiderB.com.

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When you and I go to a website, we’ve only got one thing in mind: Find the answers to our questions.

It could be a product website where we are researching something we need to buy. It could be a church’s website where we’re looking for information on the next volunteering opportunity. It could be our local news site.

Some websites make it extremely easy to find the answers we need. Others make it incredibly difficult.

Easy website navigation can increase visitor loyalty to your education brand.

Why? Because visitors remember the great experience they had on your site!

You’re more likely to revisit a site that made things simple for you than to go back to a site where you couldn’t find simple answers to your questions.

So why isn’t it easy to simplify the navigation on your independent school website?

Because complexity is an inherent component of education. Your school district has lots of departments, teams, grade-levels, programs, events, community stakeholders, and objectives.

No matter what you do, you can’t make a school district less complicated than that. So making things easy-to-find for visitors from all of your marketing audiences is a big challenge.

To meet this challenge, there are basically two schools of thought on how to organize your independent school website.

Let’s talk about them, and then I’ll share with you my tried-and-true navigation formula for independent school websites.

Navigation by Department

This school of thought says that the navigation bar should feature the various departments of your school district.

With this way of thinking, you might see elements like “About Us,” “School News,” “School Board,” or “Academics.”

This strategy has a lot going for it.

It just makes sense that the user would select the department most likely to have the answer to their question. Also, if an internal user—like a student or faculty member—needs access to an internal resource, they’d simply choose the department responsible.

But this strategy has drawbacks.

Not Knowing Where to Go

What if the user doesn’t know which department is responsible for having the answer to their question? This happens more often than we’d like to think.

When you’re an insider, you just know where to go for answers. But your audience doesn’t always know what you know.

How would a visitor know who’s responsible for what? Where does the user go then?

Too Many Departments

If your school district is as complex as some of our clients’ educational organizations, listing every department can be nearly impossible to do.

This is where you’ll likely run into mega-menus that look a lot like department directories.

Here I’m using a university example, but if your independent school website looks like this, it may be time to reevaluate how you’re organizing your website navigation.

Navigation by Audience

The other school of thought says navigation should be organized by your marketing audience. The navigation bar might contain words like “Student,” “Parent,” or “Alumni.”

The idea is that it should be natural for a user to self-identify their marketing audience and start there. A visitor’s internal dialogue would sound like: “I’m a parent, so I’ll click here.”

The strength of this strategy is that it’s more intuitive for me to know which social group I belong to than to guess which department of your school would have the answers I’m looking for.

But problems arise when the user is supposed to self-identify.

• Group labels aren’t always clear. For example, the term “student” could mean prospective student, current student, returning student, or a transfer student.
• There are too many audiences to fit into the navigation. More than likely, your school has too many marketing audiences to place easily into the navigation bar.
• Users are often members of multiple audiences. They could be an alumnus, a donor, and a parent. Which link should they click on in your navigation bar?

Communicate Health is a web design agency for the health industry, but what they had to say about audience-based navigation applies for education marketing, too.

“At the end of the day, audience-based navigation just doesn’t represent how people think. Users typically come to [your] websites to complete a specific task or learn about a… topic, and that’s what’s on their minds — not which audience they belong to.”

For these reasons, audience-based navigation should usually be avoided if possible.

So what is the answer? How should you organize your independent school website navigation?

My Website Navigation Formula for independent school Websites

After many years of designing education websites, I’ve come up with a navigation formula that works extremely well.

5a + 2c + x = Primary Navigation

Your website has to contain the basics. For most traditional schools, that includes the five “A’s”:

• Admissions
• About Us
• Academics
• Athletics
• Advancement

These will make up the core of your content. Each area should show your distinctives and benefits and provide clear call-to-action on every page.

After the five “A’s” you’ll add the two “C’s”:

• Community
• Contact

The Community section will allow a student to understand what life on campus will be like. The Contact Us navigation will provide direct access to immediate contact information such as phone numbers, email addresses, address, map links, directions, and other relevant information such as hours.

The next part of the formula is the variable. Based upon your brand, distinctives, and other features, you may consider picking one of the following:

• Blog/News
• Faith
• Summer Programs
• Etc.

While you might not use these exact words, just know that the variable will form the alliteration for you to remember what is important. For example, if your variable is “Blog,” then the formula will look like this:

5a + 2c + B = Primary Navigation

You’ll also note that the formula is based upon eight primary navigation buttons. You should target somewhere between seven and nine for the primary navigation.

Making the Complex Simple

At its core, I think education is about making complex ideas easier for your audiences to understand. You can’t make everything simple, but you can make it easier for a user to grasp the concept.

This is what your education website should seek to achieve…

Making something as complex as navigating a independent school website simple and intuitive.

And if you need help with navigation or any other aspect of your website, we’re here with solutions. Feel free to reach out to us – we’re happy to help!

Featured image by jozefmicic via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/navigation-formula-independent-school-websites/

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Education marketers and development officers have collaborated on school fundraising since the beginning of private education. (We’re not sure when exactly this happened, but we’re pretty sure there was a banquet involved).

In this blog, we focus most of our attention on enrollment marketing for one simple reason.

When you have healthy enrollment numbers, not only is tuition revenue strong, but future enrollment numbers have a better chance as well since alumni tend to send their kids to their alma mater. Plus, your best donors tend to come from alumni.

From a messaging perspective, every campaign follows enrollment.

If you were a company, enrollment would be your flagship product. Everything else is an “accessory” or secondary purchase.

For example, if you have a theology school, the dean will probably want to turn your website into a ministry site with teachings and Bible study resources. While this is good, these resources are still a secondary option for those coming to your website.

The main reason people come to your website or other major marketing channels is to see if they want to enroll or send their child to your school.

Everything else is an exciting extra that makes the idea of enrolling even more tempting.

However, even though you need to keep your primary strategy centered on enrollment, your fundraising staff needs your help to make their end-of-year campaigns a success.

And truth be told, as an education marketer, you need them too.

School fundraising makes good enrollment marketing possible.

Funding is like a circle. It all starts when a student enrolls, but eventually that student becomes an alumnus and a potential donor.

This is why fundraising is sometimes considered a subdiscipline of marketing.

The enrollment cycle begins with a potential student, but your marketing strategy should not stop when they become a student. Your marketing should continue while they are students with the aim of creating student ambassadors.

Then, as they graduate, your marketing goals should change to create education brand loyalty and eventually seek to convert them to become a donor.

Thus, school fundraising campaigns are simply the marketing “follow through” you need to keep alumni coming back and supporting their alma mater.

Working with Advancement on School Fundraising

Each year, you’re probably flooded with design, layout, and distribution requests from your school fundraising department. They need donation pages, emails, and direct mail campaigns among other things created and launched to cultivate and solicit potential gifts.

Some private schools, colleges, and universities have enough resources to give their advancement teams graphics designers, web developers, and other creative professionals to be able to do everything within their team.

But for most schools, this simply is not the case.

Most schools depend on their school fundraising department to craft and implement the overall fundraising strategy, and they rely on the marketing team to provide all the creative and technical resources to launch the fundraising campaigns.

Marketing and advancement are two separate teams with distinct primary objectives who must work together on multiple projects throughout the year.

Here’s how to take your teamwork to the next level and improve your school fundraising.

1. Stay Close

As an education marketer, you might work with a lot of people from your school throughout the year, but there is a much closer collaboration between marketing and fundraising.

I’ve seen fundraising professionals come blustering into the marketing department with an urgent campaign that’s got to go out ASAP. Of course, this goes over like a lead balloon on an already over-stretched marketing team.

Your first reaction might be to tell them to take a chill pill and a number, but if you’ve gotten to know them, you might approach the situation differently.

Fundraising professionals often work according to a plan, but every now and then, an executive or board member descends from on high with a last-minute mandate.

That puts a lot of pressure on fundraising, which turns into high pressure marketing requests.

The best solution for this is to stay close. Build relationships with leaders in your school’s development team that go outside of fundraising campaigns.

Invite each other to overall strategy meetings so the other team can get a peek into what’s important for you, and vice versa.

It will help you facilitate requests from your advancement department if you understand their strategic objectives and the fundraising activities they’re trying to implement.

Good relationships become the grease that makes this relationship work well and improve your school fundraising.

2. Think like a fundraiser.

The second way to make your teamwork stronger is to take off your marketing hat and try to think like a fundraiser. This can be harder than it sounds.

The majority of the messaging marketers send is cultivating. Most of the messaging fundraisers will send at the end of the year is soliciting or converting.

This can sometimes make you feel like the content is too pushy.

But I encourage you to set aside your qualms and let them take the lead for the content.

If they are trained or have experience in fundraising, they should have been cultivating these gifts through phone calls, personal emails, and visits. To you, it may seem like you’re overstepping your bounds to ask for a gift, but they should have already laid the relational groundwork.

3. Follow the rules of sales copy.

As marketers, we love making our brand look beautiful, smart, and cutting edge. However, fundraising messaging needs to be raw, authentic, and heartfelt. It doesn’t always look beautiful.

But it doesn’t have to look great. It needs to have great results.

So think of your design and copy more like conversion or sales copy.

Stay away from fancy designs. Keep things personal as if the communication was coming from your friend instead of from a school or college.

You can do this in many ways:

• Keep your direct mail design focused on copy with large, easy-to-read fonts.
• Break up paragraphs into smaller, one to three line blocks.
• Don’t place intricate photos or graphics at the top of your emails. (When your friend sends you a message, do they put a logo or stock photo at the top?)
• Address each donor by name in email and direct mail copy by merging their names into the copy.
• Allow plenty of white space between paragraph blocks. This helps keep the eye moving deeper into the copy.

In fact, it wouldn’t hurt for you to attend a fundraising seminar or training workshop to learn a little of the reasoning behind the requests and revision notes your fundraising colleagues will be giving you this season.

Teamwork means better school fundraising.

The main thing you’ve got to understand is school fundraising (and marketing for that matter) is a team sport. Your advancement department can’t do it all on their own.

They need you.

And they need you to trust them to know what they’re doing and why. While fundraising might be a sub-discipline of marketing, it is a distinct job with a whole different set of skills and rules that apply.

Perhaps the best part of working together is that you’ll be rewarded with more money coming into your marketing budget as your fundraising colleagues succeed.

So, happy fundraising!

And if you need any help in your marketing and fundraising campaigns, we’re here for you with experienced marketing and fundraising professionals on board to bring solutions to your most pressing needs. Contact us today.

Featured image by Good Studio via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/improve-school-fundraising/

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DISCLAIMER: I do NOT get any money or other kind of benefit from writing this recommendation to use Zoom video conferencing. It’s a tool I use myself and recommend to all my clients. I want you to know about it too, in case you haven’t considered it for your enrollment process. 

Most people in the world of higher education have heard of Zoom video meetings. And in most cases, Zoom video meetings are used in the context of online learning or long-distance learning.

Zoom isn’t the first video meeting solution I’ve tried, but it’s the one I’ve stuck with for quite some time now. I like it for most of the same reasons that educators like using it for online classes.

• The video and audio quality is not only good, it’s stable – giving you a consistent experience from one call or class to the next.
• There are lots of collaboration features so participants can communicate with the meeting host and each other.
• It has good security features so you can feel safe no one’s listening in on your call.
• You can record your sessions in the cloud or on your computer.
• Anybody with a computer or phone can join the call. Mac, PC, or tablet – it doesn’t matter. Everyone can get in on the call without going through a complicated installation process.
• For schools, Zoom has great integrations with online learning environments like Moodle, Canvas, and Blackboard.

You probably already know that Zoom is fairly popular for higher education, but have you thought of using online video calls for your enrollment marketing?

The Advantage of Video

How often do you call prospective students in your enrollment process?

It’s common for enrollment officers to be on the phone every week following up with prospective students asking for more information. These phone calls are very important to help move prospective students to the next step in the enrollment cycle.

But imagine what those calls could be like if they were in person.

One-to-one interactions almost always produce better results.

They’re more personal and more nuanced.

In person, you can see if the prospective student is really paying attention. You can detect facial expressions and body language that clue you in to how the conversation is going.

Sometimes in person, you see things in their environment that tell you what they care about or want to be.

Students with athletic dreams often have sports memorabilia and collectibles. A student who considers their faith very important to them might have a Bible nearby.

All of these visual clues get lost when you’re just on the phone.

Also in a face-to-face meeting, you can communicate visually with more than body language.

In person, you can show PowerPoints, read through a brochure, present a video, or show examples of projects that your successful students have done. Practically speaking, when talking about education costs and financial aid, being in person helps all the parties to understand the numbers.

Unfortunately, you can’t afford to go out to every call you need to make from week to week.

Here’s where video calls can help bridge the gap.

They give you most of the same advantages as an in person meeting by giving you back the visual element of the face-to-face.

In video calls, you can see if your prospective student is following you or not.

Seeing this will help you know when to go back over a piece of information they didn’t understand rather than barreling forward with your pitch.

Also in video calls, you’ll be able to catch the visual clues behind them.

The clothes they’re wearing, the posters in their rooms, the decorations they have in the house – all of these are clues into what the student and their family care about.

In video calls, you can also use all the visual presentation tools that you would have in person, like videos, PowerPoints, brochures, etc.

Solution: Zoom Video Prospecting Calls

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that video calls are a powerful way to enhance your prospecting calls just like adding video to your email communications can boost your email response.

But why Zoom?

There are a ton of options out there when it comes to video conferencing solutions. Skype, BlueJeans, Adobe Connect, and GoToMeeting are just a few good ones out there.

But for me, it comes down to price, features, and stability.

Zoom comes with all the bells and whistles that you’d expect or need from a video conferencing solution, but it’s affordable and easy-to-use.

Here’s a quick rundown of the features I really like:

HD Video and Audio: Depending on your bandwidth (and that of your prospective student), your mileage will vary on this one. No video call solution can correct a slow signal.

That said, I’m very happy with the consistently high quality of the video and audio in my calls.

I’ve used other tools where I had to focus extremely hard to hear what the person was saying, and the video feed would often freeze.

With Zoom, this doesn’t happen nearly as often. Most of the time, calls are crisp and clear.

Call Recording: For me, this feature is indispensable. When I meet with my creative team, or with my clients, recording the call allows me to focus on what’s being said instead of worrying about what I might forget later.

This is invaluable if you’re on prospecting calls. You don’t have to type furious notes worrying about missing something later. Have fun, be in the moment, and make a transcript later.

Want a fast way to transcribe your calls and meetings?

Send the recording to a robot transcription service like Temi, and get a transcription back in about 30 minutes for an hour call.

Chrome, Outlook, and other Integrations: Another feature that’s been very helpful is the integrations Zoom has with Microsoft Outlook or Google Chrome.  With these integrations, you can schedule Zoom video meetings when entering meetings in your digital calendar. If you use these popular office apps, you’ll get a lot of use out of the Zoom Scheduler for Chrome or Outlook.

Screenshare: With screensharing, you can run a PowerPoint for your prospective students or their parents. You can choose to share your whole screen or simply the window that you want them to see, like your presentation, a PDF brochure, your college viewbook, a campus map, or a video.

Using screenshare for visual aids is very helpful when you get into the weeds about majors, financial aid, or academic requirements.

You can communicate a lot with body language on a Zoom call, but using these visual aids, you can take your calls to the next level.

Multiple Callers: Why not get the parents on the line? How about introducing a professor or dean from a specific department to the prospective student? You can do this by inviting multiple people to your Zoom call.

Zoom makes multiple person calls really, really easy.

No one has to have a certain kind of software or computer. They simply click on the link you send them, and they’re on the call. Even if they don’t have a computer or mobile device, they can jump on the call by calling the Zoom meeting phone number.

And when you’re on the call, the way Zoom arranges the video windows also makes it easy to know who’s talking so that you don’t over-talk or cross-talk each other.

Make Your Prospect Calls More Effective

Whether you use Zoom or not, you should really consider using video calls to reach your Gen Z prospective students.

Generation Z students are so new we don’t know much about them yet, but we do know that they highly value authenticity. While this just might be a common value of youth in every generation, you can leverage this preference for authentic interactions using video conference solutions like Zoom.

And when you do, let me know how it goes. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

For more tips and marketing solutions, feel free to contact us today!

We work exclusively with private, independent schools, colleges, and universities like yours to increase your enrollment success through better marketing strategies.

Featured image by Djile via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/zoom-education-marketing/

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As we’ve discussed before, one of your biggest distinctives is your campus. No matter if you are located in rolling hills or the busy streets of a big city, no other college or university has a campus quite like yours.

Unfortunately, not every prospective student can make it to your campus visit days, or to your campus at all before they decide to enroll.

However, education marketers can provide virtual campus tours to allow prospective students a chance to have a look around. And with some of today’s modern tools, like 360 photography, it gets your prospects awfully close to being there.

Of course, if you have the money, investing in an elegant tool like Brown University’s virtual campus tour will certainly do the trick.

Unfortunately for many private institutions, this kind of virtual experience could break the budget.

But fear not, my friend!

Cutting-edge digital marketing can be done on a shoestring budget, and as I’ll show you today, sometimes you can do it for free.

Google: Ubiquitous and Free

If there’s one company that’s marked the life of pretty much everyone, it would be Google. Besides the Google search tool, you’re probably familiar with Google’s organizational offerings like…

• Gmail
• Google Calendar
• Google Drive
• GSuite, Google’s white-label business solution for for profit and nonprofit organizations
• YouTube

One more tool I’m sure you use all the time is Google Maps.

At first glance, you might think Google Maps’ primary function is to spit out directions on the fastest route to the gym, but Google Maps is so much more than that to the average user.

Google Maps isn’t a map. It’s a search engine… that happens to have a map.

Sure, people use Google Maps as a way to get directions, but they use it most often to explore their local area.

People go to Google Maps first and foremost with a question, just like they would when they go to Google Search. They want to know if there’s a brick and mortar location that will serve a need or desire that they have.

They go to Google Maps to find places that would likely have the answer to their questions.

If I want to hang out with my friends, I ask Google Maps if there are any good coffee shops nearby. If I need gas, I ask Google Maps if there’s a gas station close by (gas prices included!).

And if I want to find a school within driving distance…

It’s almost a given that prospective students will use Google Maps as a way to explore their area for local colleges and universities during their college search. This makes it extremely important for you to have your school’s profile up and running with correct information on Google Maps!

So if you haven’t done so yet, add or edit your business information in Google Maps.

Encourage your students and faculty to leave positive reviews to increase your Google ratings.

Even if a prospective student found out about your school through another marketing channel, odds are that they will still look you up on Google Maps to either find where you’re located, get directions to visit, or check out your Google ratings.

But there’s another vital piece of information that prospective students will be looking for: What does your campus look like?

What’s it look like to live there and be a student?

Since Google Maps is so much more than a map, it can give your prospective students an answer through the photos in your profile, so make sure you are posting relevant and current photos often.

But you can also go much further and take students on a virtual campus tour right in Google Maps — and it won’t cost you any more than you’re paying now! (*ahem* It’s free.)

How to Set Up a Virtual Campus Tour in Google Maps

Let me walk you through how to set up a virtual campus tour with Google Maps just like Franklin College.

First, you’ll need to invest in a quality, yet affordable 360-degree camera like the Ricoh Theta S Digital to take the kinds of 360-degree photos that allow students to really explore the campus.

Go throughout the campus at certain locations taking pictures with the Ricoh Theta S Digital camera and then upload them to your business listing profile in Google Maps.

The camera is smart enough to match the geographical coordinates of your pictures to the exact place on Google Maps. When the user clicks on Google Maps’ street view icon (the little yellow man in the corner), all of the locations you shot with the camera will show up as blue dots on the screen.

When your user hovers over the blue dots, they get a preview of the pictures you took.

Then, when your user clicks on the photos, their screen switches to Google’s photo slider where they click to move the photo around for a full 360 degree experience.

Check out the YouTube video I created below to show you how it works in real time.

You can create these 360-degree photo experiences inside of your buildings, across your campus lawns, inside of dorms, or inside sports facilities. These can be both photo and video…so if you want to show off a dorm room with a narration, this is the tool.

You can make these 360 virtual campus tours available to prospective students who find you on the web in just one afternoon. You can even send prospective students to Google Maps for a virtual campus tour until you want to invest in a more professional solution (if you ever decide to go that route).

So what are you waiting for?

Go get your camera out and start building your free virtual campus tour!

Your Source for Education Marketing Solutions

At Caylor Solutions we’re committed to helping education marketers like you break through barriers to your marketing success. To get a free consultation with me or someone on my team, please get ahold of us today!

Featured image by georgejmclittle via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/how-to-publish-a-free-virtual-campus-tour-via-google-maps-education-marketing-hack/

The post How to Publish a Free Virtual Campus Tour with Google Maps appeared first on edSocialMedia.

Education marketing takes money. Everyone agrees on the need for a sufficient budget.

So why is going to the dentist a more pleasant experience than a budgeting meeting?

Marketing budgets can be a headache for both marketers and executives.

Executives wonder where all the money’s going – and marketers wonder where all the money’s going to come from for the next campaign.

There’s always a new tool, piece of equipment, or new marketing platform to buy. And there are a hundred different services promising unrealistic returns… if you just sign their long-term contract.

And while it’s true that if you put more money into some services – like Google Ads or social media advertising – you can boost some of your results, there is a point of diminishing returns.

A bigger marketing budget doesn’t fix everything.

Over and over, I’ve seen institutions dump more money into their PPC campaigns, print marketing, video marketing, or whatever, and they have little to nothing to show for it.

Almost every time there’s a gigantic marketing budget with paltry results, you can bet that the problem lies in the strategy and execution.

So before you go into that meeting to ask for a bigger marketing budget, ask yourself these questions.

Do I have a robust marketing plan in effect?

Every independent school, college, or university should have a robust marketing plan.

This plan should include an analysis of where you are in regards to marketing personas, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and brand authority. It should also have a breakdown of the various challenges to improving these critical marketing objectives.

Yet these are quite often the most neglected components of education marketing.

When you’re in the planning stage, nothing concrete is happening, yet.

Planning can be one of the most frustrating parts of the marketing process. Being in your head for days or weeks constantly reviewing data and mulling over possibilities can be overwhelming.

Lots of marketers just don’t like the hard work of strategy – and too many executives don’t have the patience to wait for their marketing department to come up with well-devised strategies.

This is completely understandable.

By its very nature, the time you spend strategizing is time you’re not executing.

But like Abraham Lincoln said, it’s better to spend time sharpening your ax before chopping down the tree.

Is My Marketing Plan Written Down?

The plan in your head won’t help anyone on your team. You need to write it down.

More than that, the plan in your head won’t help you, either.

If I’m honest, the “plans” I have in my head aren’t plans at all. They’re half-baked ideas that my subconscious is still working on.

Nothing wrong with that, but you’ve got to recognize that the ideas in your head aren’t a plan until they appear in a digital file or on paper.

In the process of clarification, all of your self-doubt will rear its ugly head.

But you’ve got to tell your inner critic to give it a rest until you’ve got it all out, and then you can refine it.

Plans help no one until they’re written.

Is My Marketing Plan Adopted by the Team?

Once your plan is written down and you’ve refined it to your liking, it’s time to pitch it to your superiors and the main leaders on your team.

Your written plan now needs to be adopted.

Consensus is the key element that you’ve got to generate around your plan. People have to buy into it.

You’ll need money for your marketing budget – and you need consensus around your written plan to achieve that.

In some organizations, this adoption process is baked in to the system. You can’t get a marketing budget approved without an adopted plan.

But in the world of private educational institutions, some organizations just don’t insist on these formalities. In this particular case, that’s not a good thing.

You need consensus to fund your marketing budget. You need consensus to get your team to execute well on your plan.

Pitching your plan and tweaking it to get as many people onboard with you as possible is crucial to getting your plan adopted and ready to execute.

Is My Marketing Plan Visible?

This one continues right from the last point. Once your plan is adopted by your superiors and team leaders, it’s time to distribute the plan to everyone who needs it.

I recommend sharing a Google Doc or Microsoft Word doc (using Microsoft’s OneDrive service) with everyone on your marketing team who needs to know where the ship is going.

This way, they can leave comments and discuss the implications of the plan all in one document.

Also, take certain sections of your plan and create helpful guides to post on the walls of your office spaces.

Make sure your goals and priority projects are highly visible on whiteboards, corkboards, or wherever you can post them.

Another helpful tip is to keep your progress on the plan visible.

Whether it’s through a fundraising thermometer, a KanBan Board, or some other indicator of progress, find a tool that will keep your team accountable and excited about their progress.

Visible plans are more likely to be executed.

Strategic Problems vs. Budgeting Problems

With all that said, lack of money can hinder your results.

There are times when the lack of funding truly cripples the efforts of a good marketing team.

However, more often than not money isn’t the problem! The problem is often in the strategy.

And most of the time, it’s not that your strategy is wrong.

It’s much more likely that your marketing plan isn’t clearly written out, or your team hasn’t adopted it, or it’s just not visible.

Need any help diagnosing a puzzling marketing issue in your private school, college, or university? We’d be happy to help.

Contact us today!

Feature image by denisismagilov on Adobe Stock
Lincoln quote image by leonidkos on Adobe Stock
Notes image by danijelala on Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/budget-vs-marketing-plan/

The post Where’s the Problem? Your Budget or Your Marketing Plan? appeared first on edSocialMedia.

In just one recent weekend, violent shootings erupted in a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas and a bar in Dayton, Ohio. In these two incidents, over thirty people died.

These are just a couple of incidents in a longer string of public shootings that have occurred this year (2019). Wikipedia keeps a list of mass shootings in the United States, and as of July 2019, the death toll is at 246 with 979 wounded.

That’s 1,225 victims of mass shootings… all in one year.

Out of the 248 mass shootings listed here, only two occurred on school campuses. Yet even with these statistics showing that schools are relatively safe, there is mounting concern among students and parents about safety on school campuses. 

It is a mistake to think that this concern about safety in public spaces doesn’t affect education marketers.

As I see it, there are two objectives for you and me as education marketers in light of these recent tragedies:

1. Help keep every student safe on campus.
2. Raise awareness of how safe the campus is so that families feel safe.

Keep students safe. Keep students and families feeling safe. Both are incredibly important.

Working with Campus Security

It might be strange to talk about campus security and marketing in the same blog post, but there are places where the two meet.

So, how does marketing help keep students safe? Surprisingly, in a lot more ways than you’d think.

Now, I need to say right up front that I am not a security professional. But I am an education marketer with a college-age son and three younger children in public schools.

Believe me, I think a lot about these things… just like every parent does.

For me, campus security isn’t just a secondary concern. It’s a personal one. That said, let’s go to the experts. 

A psychologist and sociologist have been conducting an insightful study on mass shooters as a part of a National Institute of Justice grant, and what they share in this article shows there’s a place for good marketing to contribute to student safety.

Campus Security Begins with Stress Management

In their article, Jillian Peterson and James Densley lay out some of their findings from their analysis on mass shootings in the United States since 1966. Their analysis reveals certain characteristics that seem to repeat themselves almost predictably. 

 “…more than 70% of campus shootings took place at the end of the school year – in April, May or June – a time that students report as being the most stressed.

Indeed, April stands out as a particularly deadly time of the year when it comes to campus mass shootings – the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre that claimed 32 lives, and the 2012 Oikos University shooting in Oakland, California, that killed seven and wounded three, both happened in April.”

At the risk of being over-simplistic, stress is an underlying factor in mass shootings on campus. 

You probably know firsthand what the stress of midterms and finals feels like. Everyone deals with it in their own way.

Thank God most students have developed healthy ways to manage stress, but these mass shootings reveal that there are some who just don’t come equipped to handle massive loads of pressure. This is where education marketers can help make a difference. 

Encouraging Campaigns

Consider launching stress management campaigns during midterms and finals weeks. I’m not talking about coddling overly sensitive students. We’re talking about giving healthy doses of encouragement during stressful moments where everyone could use a reassuring smile and the calming assurance that everything’s going to be okay.

Taking a multi-channel approach with email, social media, and environmental marketing campaigns would be exceptionally effective for this.

Not sold on this idea?

Consider the massive popularity of the wartime poster produced by the British Government in 1939. 

“Keep Calm and Carry On” was an encouragement campaign designed to keep the British people’s morale up during an unbelievably stressful time. Everyone needs encouragement during stressful times. This goes especially for those students who struggle with mental health issues or who don’t have a strong social support system. As education marketers, we can support  campus security’s efforts to keep students safe by administering shots of encouragement and levity during high-stress periods on our campuses.

Campus Security and Mental Health Are Connected

Another link between the mass shootings on campuses in this study shows that almost every one of the mass shooters dealt with some kind of mental health problem.

“All of the university mass shooters in our study were suicidal prior to the shooting and had a history of mental illness.”

It’s not easy to see how this has anything to do with education marketing but stay with me here. 

“Large universities need strategies to reach out and connect with vulnerable students.”

Education marketers can play an effective role in helping students connect with whatever mental health resources your campus has available. 
Keeping students abreast of the numerous services available to them is one of the unending challenges of education marketing.

But when it comes to mental health, stress, and campus security, it becomes even more important that education marketers go the extra mile to show students where to go when they are experiencing…

• Uncontrollable Anxiety
• Suicidal Thoughts
• Dark or Deviant Feelings
• Intense, Unnatural Pressure to Perform

Students can’t take advantage of counseling services, group therapies, support groups, or whatever form of support you have if they don’t know about them.

So consider launching public service announcements showing students where to go when they’re suffering mentally or emotionally.

Publish campaigns that help destigmatize mental health problems.

For example, depression is a rampant mental problem in the United States. Students struggling with depression shouldn’t feel ashamed to seek help. A campus marketing campaign can help students feel good about seeking help rather than stuffing it all inside.

Campus Security as a Marketing Tool

Education marketers should proudly announce the hard work of their campus security professionals to prospective students and their families. 

• Has your administration invested in a new campus surveillance system?
• Have you installed new panic buttons across campus? 
• Are your campus security personnel hosting personal safety courses or seminars?
• Does your campus security offer cross-campus rides for single students late at night?

Touch base with your campus security team to hear about what they’re doing to keep students safe. Then, get the news out across all of your marketing channels.

Student safety is a major concern of parents. It’s one of the questions they’re asking that your marketing message needs to answer.

Also, consider teaming up with campus security and designate a month or week of the year to campus security awareness. 

Make sure that you market the event to both students and parents so that you can build brand trust by being the campus where students are safe. I know campus security isn’t really in your job description. But safety is everyone’s concern.

Plus, campus security is an incredibly useful marketing tool to motivate parents to bring their students to your school.

If you have any questions, or would like some help planning or executing a future marketing initiative, get in touch. We’re here to help, and there is no obligation.

This post was originally published at https://www.caylor-solutions.com/campus-security-your-new-marketing-partner/.

The post Campus Security: Your Ally in Marketing appeared first on edSocialMedia.

It’s that time of year again. Students are ready to move back on campus with school starting up in just a few short days.

Whether you work in Admissions, Advancement, Student Services, Marketing or other campus offices, the fall semester brings critical ways to improve your education brand. It’s also a great time to strengthen relationships with students, families, alumni and friends of the university, college, or independent K12 school.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at five key events taking place the first semester and how you should be viewing them from a marketing perspective.

#1 Move In

First-time freshmen are at an emotional high coming into move-in day; a mix of nerves and excitement for both students and families alike.

This day is also one of the few in the school year where you’ll have new students, returning students, parents, professors, and staff all converging to work together on the same day.

Students may even bring along their young Gen Z siblings. It’s a chance for you to provide a truly “wow” experience for all your marketing audiences.

How do you accomplish this?

First, think of move-in day (and all the others I’m going to mention later in this post) as the assets they are.

When you’re involved in the preparation and organization of campus events, it can be difficult to view it as an asset. It can even feel like a burden because of the pressure and stress packed into one day in the year.

However, it’s also a wonderful opportunity to celebrate new adventures on your campus.

If the different teams from your campus will work together to make this day special for both incoming students and returning students, buzz will be positive from the get-go to kickoff your school year.

Move-in day is great for photo ops and hashtags

Parents will most certainly be recording video and taking photos of their students as they move into a new campus. Therefore, I recommend using move-in day hashtags for your social media channels. This will allow everyone involved to be participating in the story for the day.

If your team has not yet established hashtags for your education marketing strategy and events, it’s time to brainstorm short tags you can use to label the event.

Between now and move-in day, prepare ways for parents and students to continue strengthening their bond with your university.

Set up photo-ops throughout campus – inside the dorms, outside the dorms, etc. Perhaps even set up a scavenger hunt for your students to complete and tag themselves all over campus.

This is a great way to show the world your campus through images on social media!

Bonus Tip: Download our FREE ebook, “#Hashtags: Your Social Media Secret Weapon”.

#2 New Student Orientation

For my friends working in student retention, new student orientation kicks off the retention cycle before school even begins.

How does your campus encourage new students to buy in right away?

Engage them in volunteerism

Perhaps it’s through a community service project. It’s been said that Gen Z students are “hyper aware” of the world around them. They are driven to serve and then to share their service on social media.

As part of new student orientation, why not gather your students and launch them into the community to engage in volunteerism?

You serve a personal purpose for these students who are said to volunteer more than any other group, and again, you’ll be setting them up to take images of these service projects and post to social media.

Make them feel included

Did you know that Gen Z teens have been said to feel lonely?

This may come as a surprise since this generation is also the one most digitally connected to the world. However, personal relationships can be hard to come by for these teens.

Moving into a new place without Mom and Dad can feel quite intimidating. So, how is your school reassuring students they’ll be well taken care of and connected?

One way is to set up mentorships with older students on campus. Another is to create multiple residence hall events in order to allow students to get to know others in their hall.

The point is, your staff should be proactive about making sure students don’t slip through cracks. Building relationships with them immediately will help their success and your retention rates.

#3 Fall Visit Days

High school students begin seriously considering colleges as early as their freshman year.

Visiting those colleges is a critical step in narrowing down the field of possibilities.

If your college makes the list for them to visit, you better put your best foot forward.

Students are encouraged to visit colleges and universities during the fall semester due to nice weather and the high energy a new school year brings. Particularly for high school seniors, fall semester visits can be the final look before making a college decision.

Therefore, rolling out the red carpet for these students can make all the difference.

The A-List for Campus Visits

Before a student even steps foot on your campus, you need to begin anticipating the needs, questions, and feelings your students and families will have.

Clear up anything that may cause confusion for someone visiting for the first time:

• Will we need to pay for parking?
• Do we have to buy lunch?
• Will we know where to go once we arrive?

Once the student  arrives, acknowledge them.

Something as simple as putting their name on a message board on campus to welcome them can go a long way.

Spoiling them with a little school swag and allowing them to experience “VIP” meetings with faculty, coaches, choral directors and other staff will personalize their experience even further.

Keep your prospective student and family attentive and attracted.

You truly do only get one chance to make a good first impression. Keep the schedule moving for the student so there isn’t much “dead time” between activities.

Make sure your campus is in tip-top shape… particularly the welcome center, as it’s the first place they’ll see upon arrival.

Finally, have answers for these students.

They’re visiting in order to see if spending the next four years at your campus is right for them. They will have many questions. Be prepared with answers; from financial aid, to dorms, to academics, to athletics, to food.

#4 Wooing your Alumni: Homecoming

The fall semester will also bring your alumni back to campus for Homecoming.

Sell the benefit to your alumni about why they should attend. Remind them they can reconnect with old friends, mentors and professors from their time at your school and see updates and changes to campus.

And, of course, they should come to have some fun!

Special events as part of Homecoming

Be sure to promote the special events coming as part of Homecoming. These things might include parades, banquets, picnics, friendly competitions, and even football games.

Homecoming should be about your alumni – not about you.

Make sure they know how valued they are by accommodating to various personalities and needs to remain connected to your education brand.

Keep in mind many of your alumni will now have children.

Make sure you have something fun to engage the kids. In addition, pass out something from your school those kids can take home and display – such as a poster.

I recommend using Facebook Live or YouTube to accomplish this.

The goal, of course, would be for your alumni and friends of the university to share these livestreams on their own personal social channels.

#5 Christmastime’s A-Comin’

I am not sure when you read this if it will make you have feelings of happiness or fear, but we’re less than five months away from Christmas Day. Which means we’re only four months from the kickoff of the Christmas season, which traditionally begins after Thanksgiving.

What can your college, university or independent K12 school do and provide to your current students, prospective students, families, donors, alumni and friends to celebrate the holiday season?

It’s time to begin thinking about these things now. Maybe even yesterday.

Perhaps your school wants to orchestrate a Christmas giveaway. Or, maybe coordinate a banquet to celebrate the holiday season and invite the community in.

Digital marketing at this time of year will also be your friend.

Use content creation, email marketing, social media ads, and targeted PPC campaigns to your advantage this season.

Consider getting help to promote your campus events.

Sometimes you simply don’t have the manpower to accomplish all the things I’ve recommended in this post. Sometimes it makes more sense to hire a marketing agency to help you manage these events and create quality content marketing.

A partnership with an agency can help you provide consistent results. For honest solutions to your marketing needs, contact us today.

Featured image by Georgerudy via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/back-to-school-event-marketing/

The post Back to School: 5 Events to Plan for in the Upcoming Months appeared first on edSocialMedia.

As an education marketing agency, we advise schools to keep their websites, blogs, and social media channels full of fresh content because there are so many benefits to content marketing. Among other things, publishing new content helps…

• Build your brand,
• Endear your site to Google’s algorithm, and
• Generate new prospective-student leads.

But updates to your school website DO NOT automatically mean content marketing success!

There are hundreds of regularly updated school websites out there that produce abysmal results.

Here are typical ways poorly performing websites like to post “fresh” content:

• Dynamic calendar pages with events being updated often
• Blogs stuffed with school announcements like the latest policies, events, and school sports information
• Twitter feed widget in the sidebars

All of these tactics do keep the website full of new information — but new information is not the same as fresh, engaging content.

To a prospective student, parent, or donor, all of these updates can become noise, causing them to bounce off the site and look somewhere else for answers.

Filtering Content for Your Audience

By nature, schools are communities bustling with relationships, initiatives, events, policies, and ideas.

As a result, there’s a plethora of topics a school could publish on their website.

This makes it difficult to discern what an education marketer should post on their website and what should be communicated internally through intranets, student portals, or internal-facing social media groups.

There are a thousand possible things you could share with your audience through your school’s blog — but not everything is going to entice them to begin their student journey (or donor journey) with your education brand.

So how do you know which pieces of content are going to make your school website fresh and engaging for your audience?

Let’s talk about that.

Fresh Content Trait 1: “Fresh” does not necessarily mean “current.”

When it comes to fruits, vegetables, and meats, freshness is a time-bound quality. If the fruit is old, it’s not fresh.

But with content, freshness is not bound to time.

Think about the evergreen content you should have on your school website. Although it stays forever on your website, it should always feel fresh to site visitors who are discovering your education brand for the first time.

Like good music or classic works of art, content can be fresh and engaging no matter how old it is.

“Fresh” and “current” are not always the same thing.

The opposite is also true. Current content doesn’t always feel fresh to prospective students or parents.

Here’s an extreme example of how current doesn’t always translate into engaging content: let’s say you put a weather widget on your homepage.

Up to the minute, live weather reporting on your school website — you can’t get more current than that!

But more than likely it will not engage prospective students or parents. It’s not fresh content for them. It’s meaningless data, more noise they’re going to drown out with all the other meaningless marketing content bombarding them every day.

Lesson #1: Current announcements and similar information are not necessarily fresh content for your target audience.

Fresh Content Trait 2: It has little to do with you.

When a prospective student or parent goes on a web search, college search, or just browses your site from a brochure they received from their guidance counselor, they’re not there because they care about you.

They are on your school website because they care about their own student journey, and they want to know if your school is the right next step along the way.

If you’re the school president, dean, or another staff member, you’ll love hearing about the latest awards, accomplishments, and recognition your school is receiving.

This kind of content is “fresh” to you because it’s all about your organization’s journey, and you’re a part of that journey.

But all the accolades which validate the work of your school’s staff and faculty mean little to your target audience. That’s why accolades are not fresh, engaging content…

…unless you can show your audience convincingly how this award directly helps them along their student journey.

Does this award mean more scholarship funds will be available? Does your spot on some top ten list mean the research projects students can participate in will be more prestigious, which will look great for a student’s future career?

Lesson #2: Awards, accomplishments, and accolades may or may not be fresh content for your target audience. Keep the 80/20 rule: 80% of content should be all about serving your audience’s needs and use the remaining 20% to call them to action or talk about your school.

Fresh Content Trait 3: It answers questions your audience is asking right now.

When a prospective student or parent goes to the Internet, they’re going there to ask specific questions.

Search engines are designed to help users find answers to the questions (a.k.a. “search terms”) they type in.

If you publish content frequently that answers the questions your audience has, search engines like Google will help them find you.

And when they find you, your content will be fresh and engaging because it is answering a question they currently have.

Content is fresh or stale based on how current the question is.

A timely answer is not an answer that’s new — it’s an answer the questioner has just found to their latest question.

Like a kid who’s just discovered how cool Back to the Future movies are, the answer may be in reality old news.

But for them, it’s going to be brand new information.

Lesson #3: Answering current questions your audience has will make your school website content fresh and engaging.

Fresh Content Trait 4:  Fresh school website content resonates emotionally.

People do not choose schools logically. If they did, they’d all choose your school, right?

Or, they’d all choose the most economical option they could find. But fortunately for them and for you, prospective students do not approach their decision this way.

Prospective students choose to enroll primarily because the education brand sparks an emotional response in them.

Then, they back up their gut choice with facts that support what they already decided they wanted. This is when information on financial aid, career development, and administrative details become critical.

But until the prospective student has made the emotional decision to enroll, those facts have little value for your audience.

To keep your school website content fresh, publish content that resonates with their emotions.

• Feature student stories with which your audience will identify.
• Write more about the challenges, fears, and dreams your audience has before introducing a program or initiative that would address those concerns.
• Publish photos and videos with imagery that inspires your audience.
• Use website design techniques that engage your audience aesthetically and compel them to action.

Lesson #4: Fresh content resonates emotionally with your audience, so don’t be afraid to dive into the emotional reasons that are bringing your audience to your school website.

School Websites Built to Perform

It’s tempting to throw every new piece of information onto your website. Google favors updated websites, and creating fresh, engaging content can drain resources, so why not?

Because you need your website to perform.

School websites do not exist to win awards, post the latest news, or sport the latest in Internet technology. (Although they can certainly do all of those things!)

School websites exist to fill your enrollment pipeline with qualified prospective student and parent leads and to communicate the overall brand of the school.

Therefore, all content you create and publish to your school’s website should focus on both attracting and converting the target audience into believers in the brand, and in turn, full-time students at your school.

Resist the temptation to publish an announcement just because it’s a new piece of information.

Does your website need a fresh, new look?

If it’s been too long since you’ve published quality, engaging content on your school website, it may be time for a fresh, new look.

Give us a call if you need to jumpstart your inbound content marketing for your school website. Your first consultation is absolutely free, and there’s no obligation.

Featured image by olly via Adobe Stock
Bored woman image by Scott Griessel via Adobe Stock
Unhappy and happy faces image by Marek via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/4-fresh-content-traits-that-can-improve-your-school-website/

The post Four Fresh Content Traits that Can Improve Your School Website appeared first on edSocialMedia.

First, let me say that contracts are good things.

I use contracts with all my clients. When done right, they are an incredibly useful business relationship tool.

Contracts help all parties involved know what the business relationship is all about, who’s responsible for what, and how much it will cost each member of the relationship.

Transparent, easy-to-understand, and flexible. Those are the ingredients of a good business contract.

Oh. And short.

Education marketing contracts should keep the time of the engagement short.

Short-term marketing contracts are much better for independent schools, colleges, and universities. 

A good marketing contract should not commit your school to work with any agency longer than six months at a time, generally speaking.

Unfortunately, I see far too many education institutions still falling for sales pitches asking them to sign multi-year marketing contracts.

Honestly, this gets under my skin.

I’m in business to make a living, but I truly care for my clients — and for schools in general.

I, too, am a believer in the power of education.

I’m also a believer in the need for diversity of educational choices, which is why I enjoy working with private education institutions so much.

So let me share why you should seriously reconsider signing any long term marketing contracts.

The Problem with Long Term Contracts

In my opinion, there are only a few human contracts that should be long term. Marriage is one of them, but marketing contracts certainly don’t make the list!

Why?

Life changes, but long term marketing contracts don’t.

It’s only been three months, and you’re really excited about your education marketing agency.

And the feeling’s mutual! Your education marketing agency loves you, too.

It’s a honeymoon stage, and everything’s going well.

That’s when your agency comes to you asking for a long term marketing contract.

Flushed with your recent success with them – and solidly funded by a recent generous donation – you sign a two-year commitment.

Six months later…

Things happen and funds have to be diverted. Your marketing budget is one of the first to be frozen.

You go to your marketing agency to talk about changing things, but you’re stuck!

Life changed for your school. But your long term marketing contract won’t budge.

In fact, in that moment, you realize that there is a clause in the contract stating that if you terminate the contract early, your school will suffer a significant “kill fee.”

Long term marketing contracts sound amazing when you’re in the honeymoon stage.

But no one can plan for everything, no matter how good of a lawyer it was who wrote the thing.

Long term marketing contracts are unfair.

Personally, I think this is the most disappointing part about long term marketing contracts.

By nature, business relationships are open.

As an agency owner, I always need to be finding new clients. And as a marketer at an independent school, college, or university, you should always be shopping for the best option for your school.

It’s not disloyalty. It’s business.

Come to find out, this arrangement works out very well.

The more clients Caylor Solutions has, the more expertise we gain that we can put to good use for you. Because we have a diverse portfolio of current and past clients, there are few challenges that we haven’t tackled.

And because we know you have a choice of which marketing agency you work with, we’re constantly innovating and improving in order to win your business over and over again and build a lasting relationship.

We have a powerful incentive to keep you happy!

But long term marketing contracts destroy this effective balance of incentives.

If they have you locked in a long term commitment, what incentive does your marketing agency have to keep you happy?

They’ve got you locked into a decisively unfair arrangement.

With a long term marketing contract, you can’t shop for new marketing agency partners, but your agency is allowed to continue onboarding new clients.

Too often as agencies gain new clients, the old clients become… old.

You’re no longer the priority. They’ve got new friends now, and you’re left with a lousy long term contract.

Most problems can be fixed in a year or less.

Normally, when you hire a marketing agency, it’s because something is really wrong.

Something in your strategy isn’t working. Perhaps you know what to do, but you lack the expertise to execute your strategy well.

That’s when bringing in a marketing agency is of the most value.

And to be honest, most of these problems can be fixed within a year or less.

This is when most marketing agencies come asking for a long-term marketing contract.

They know you’re happy with the results you’re seeing, and they want to lock you in.

But did they mention you might not see such incredible results over the long haul? Your results might begin to taper off as things begin to normalize.

For example, if your marketing suffered from bad messaging, you can turn it around in six to twelve months with the help of an experienced marketing agency like Caylor Solutions.

Once you get your messaging fixed, you’ll immediately see an uptick in all your marketing metrics.

But now you’ve got a new baseline by which to measure your progress. At this point, growth happens incrementally.

It’s important to have a seasoned marketing partner to help keep your marketing quality and frequency consistent. 

But if you have a long term marketing contract, your marketing agency is tempted to coast on their initial success rather than work hard when those results inevitably slow down.

You don’t want your marketing partner to get complacent.

You need them to consistently give it their best and not rely solely on the quick wins at the beginning to sustain the quality of their work.

You need your marketing partner to stick with you after the quick wins, but you don’t want to get stuck in a long term marketing contract.

So how do you make this work?

Recurring Short Contracts

There are a lot of problems with long term marketing contracts – but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work with a marketing agency long term!

As you work with a marketing partner over time, they get to know your brand even better. They also get to understand your marketing strategies and preferences better through the years.

Agencies are like professional trainers who keep you accountable to and excited about your marketing strategy and goals. But unlike professional trainers, they can also do the work for you!

Too many schools hire a marketing agency to fix their problem but then fail to keep their marketing efforts strong when the contract is over.

Then, when they lose all the momentum they had, they find themselves back at square one.

So I recommend ongoing, short-term marketing contracts.

Once you finish a preliminary project with a marketing agency, and you want to continue working with them, don’t sign a long term marketing contract!

Instead, go project by project or keep your contracts between six and twelve months long.

If your marketing agency is amazing, you should continue with them. Just keep the contract periods to a reasonable timeframe.

But if signing new contracts all the time is too much work, here’s another idea.

Consider a monthly retainer agreement.

Monthly retainers are best when you have monthly marketing projects, like creating quality content marketing, and you want to hire your marketing agency to do it.

The beauty of this arrangement is that you can agree on a set price per month, a solid scope of work, and then continue working together every month until one of you decides to end the agreement in writing (and within a reasonable amount of time).

Consistent cost. Consistent results. No long term commitment.

With recurring short term contracts or monthly retainer agreements, you get the benefits of a long term relationship without the risks of a long term marketing contract.

For honest solutions like what you read above, contact us today.

Featured image by pathdoc via Adobe Stock

This post was originally published at: https://www.caylor-solutions.com/long-term-marketing-contract/

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