From Word of Mouth to the Web

The marketing landscape has changed significantly in the past couple of decades. We have moved from a traditional approach of advertising our schools to a focus on inbound marketing.

The Web has brought new opportunities for storytelling and reaching our prospective parents through paid search, lead magnets, social media and more.

However, what has remained consistent is word of mouth continues to be the number one way that prospective parents learn about your school.

During the upcoming VirCon7 on October 19, I will present a workshop entitled, “From Word of Mouth to the Web: Effective Marketing Strategies for your School.”

Let me share with you some of my content from this upcoming virtual workshop to encourage you to register.

Word of Mouth is Your Core Marketing Strategy

Since word of mouth is the number one way that parents hear about your school, it should be the core of your marketing strategy. However, we often focus on traditional, outbound or web-based, inbound strategies. While Inbound marketing strategies are critical to your strategy, it is essential for you to develop a word of mouth marketing plan that inspires your parents to share their story with their friends. It’s more than just hoping that this happens. You actually have to be intentional about it.

Intentionally Use Your Parents as Ambassadors

While parents will share word of mouth in the community on their own, it is important for you to develop a program to inspire this. Sometimes I find that school leaders focus on developing a program that only links ambassadors to new parents as mentors. While this can be an effective strategy, I believe that your ambassadors should be focused on sharing their story. Developing your ambassador program should be an intentional part of your strategy to reach your community through your parents. In my workshop, I will discuss how you can implement this strategy. This is what I refer to as “WOMbound Marketing.”

Web-based Storytelling Will Inspire Word of Mouth

The Web also plays a critical role in your marketing strategy. It is where you can tell the story of your school 24/7. However, we typically don’t take a strategic approach to online storytelling. An effective storytelling strategy will help to inspire more word of mouth and this will encourage your parents to talk even more. You will find that the Web can actually be utilized to inspire more word of mouth for your school.

Click here to read this article on the Enrollment Catalyst website.