How do you push prospective parents towards enrollment? It’s all in the presentation. You’ve got to make a positive first impression, and that impression starts with your website.
Why is your website so important?
Most parents start their research online first before visiting or calling. Here are a couple of real-world scenarios:
a) The prospective parent hears about your school via word of mouth. Perhaps one of their friends (who happens to have a child enrolled in your Montessori school) has recommended you. Persuaded by their friend’s excitement, they search for your website online to decide if you’re the right choice for their family.
b) The prospective parent is a recipient of your marketing, either through direct mail, social media marketing, search engine marketing, etc. They’ve never heard of a Montessori school before. They’re interested in learning more about the method and your school so they track down your website.
As you can see, all roads lead to your website. In this day and age, everyone researches online, whether that’s for shoes, houses, or, in this case, schools.
What impression will your website make on these curious, prospective families? Does your website provide an adequate introduction to the method? Does it highlight all of the reasons why a prospective family should choose your school? Does it get them past the curiosity stage and push them towards enrollment?
You may not realize that your website can do all of that, but it definitely can. Your website is not just a repository of facts about your school, it’s also your number one marketing tool. As I said, all roads lead to your website– that includes all marketing efforts. If you create a Facebook ad, you’ll link the ad back to your website. If your parents are talking about your school to others, they’ll refer to your website.
Because your website is the central hub of your marketing, it has to be optimized and focused on getting prospective parents to enroll in your school. Let’s talk about how to do just that. Here’s how to optimize your website to woo prospective parents:
Create a Professional Site
You need a professional website for your Montessori school. In other words, don’t go with free. And in other, other words, don’t use a parent or student volunteer to create your website. Unless they can produce a website that’s polished and professional, it’s probably best to hire a professional to do it.
Remember, your website is the most important marketing tool you have. You don’t want to give off the false impression that you don’t care– and that’s easy to do when you have a cringeworthy website that’s built on a free website platform (like Wix or Weebly).
Free doesn’t equal professional. It screams “we’re behind the times”. And it whispers “we have a really tight budget since we can’t invest in web design”. This gives off the wrong signals to prospective parents. A budget-strapped school won’t be able to properly invest in their child’s education.
So, the biggest takeaway here is to hire a professional web designer to create a site that’s functional, and effective at pulling parents in and pushing them towards enrollment.
Your website doesn’t need to be flashy to do the job correctly. It just needs the following:
Simple navigation – The menu bar should be readily accessible and be easy to understand.
Fast loading speed – The average attention span is nine seconds, but your website pages need to be faster than that. Your pages should load within three seconds or less.
Name, address, and phone number on each page – Don’t force parents to hunt down your contact information– display it prominently on every page (in the header or footer). This will also improve your local search engine optimization (SEO).
Include the Following Pages on Your Site
Now, let’s dig a little deeper and talk about the pages that should always be included on your website.
About Us – On this page, you’ll introduce prospective parents to your school. Discuss when your school was established, what your mission is, and why. Be sure to include photos and bios of your staff and teachers. Also, show photos of your students at work and play.
About the Montessori Method – On another page, explain the Montessori Method. Although it’s been around for over 100 years now, there are still quite a few parents who aren’t familiar with it.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – What questions do you get asked all the time? Compile these questions and list them on a dedicated FAQ page. This page should be linked in the menu bar at the top of the page, in your footer, and on your contact page. Questions to include are:
> What is the Montessori Method? (Give a blurb here and then link back to the dedicated “About the Montessori Method” page.)
> What curriculum do you follow?
> Why don’t you give grades?
> How much is your tuition? (Give a blurb here but be sure to link back to your admissions page)
Admissions – On this page, explain your admissions process. Discuss the particulars of your tuition and financial policy, if you offer scholarships (and who qualifies), and how much you require for a deposit.
Contact Us – Last, but certainly not least, include a dedicated “Contact Us” page. Here, you’ll share your contact information, including name, location (along with a map), and how to reach you via phone, email, and social media. Provide your hours of operation, too. You should also link back to your FAQ page.
Don’t forget to include a call to action on each page of your website. I recommend either having a pop-up (it’s in-your-face, but it works), or including the call to action within your site’s header or footer. The call to action may be to “Download our free brochure” or “Schedule an appointment to tour our school”. Choose an action that gets the visitor to the next step in your enrollment process.
[content_upgrade cu_id=”19194″]Here’s a list of which pages to include on your website.[content_upgrade_button]Click Here[/content_upgrade_button][/content_upgrade]
Your Site Needs to Be Mobile-Friendly
Another non-negotiable for your site is mobile-readiness. Your site should look just as good on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets as it does on desktop computers. Here’s why:
Over 50% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. So, if your website is not optimized for viewing on smaller screens, you could be frustrating a lot of prospective visitors.
One of the biggest offenders with a non-mobile-friendly site? Forcing your visitors to zoom in to incredibly small text in order to read it. No one wants to pinch to zoom your website on their mobile devices. It makes for a clunky and unfriendly visitor experience. Instead, you want visitors to linger on your website– even when viewing on mobile devices– without feeling hassled.
Mobile friendly is also search engine friendly. Google doesn’t promote sites that aren’t mobile-friendly on their search engine. So, if you want your site to get found via mobile search, it needs to look good on mobile devices.
Mobile-readiness is now a standard practice but not everyone is onboard just yet, and I’d say about 40% of the websites I visit are not mobile-friendly. Make sure that you discuss mobile-readiness with your website designer and ask specifically that your site is mobile-friendly.
Focus on Email Marketing
In addition to educating prospective families on your website, invite them to sign up to your email list. Here, you have ongoing permission to market to prospective parents, and what’s better, you can do it right in their inbox. Through email, you can continue to educate families on how and why the Montessori method works, and why they should choose your school for their child.
Email marketing sounds like a lot of work, but it’s actually not that complicated once you know what to do.
First thing first, sign up for an email marketing service provider. Here, you can start off with a beginner-friendly, easy to use service like ConvertKit.
Next, plan out a schedule for your newsletters. I recommend sending out a newsletter once a month for your general list. However, for prospective parents, you should create a series of automated emails that push them towards enrollment.
An example of a three-email series:
1) Thanks for your interest in our school– here’s what makes us special (reintroduce yourself, explain the Montessori method, discuss your school’s mission).
2) Share testimonials from current parents. It would also be a great idea to include video testimonials, if possible.
3) Ask them to enroll their child(ren) in your school. Discuss registration dates, fees, policies, and include another testimonial for good measure.
You can create these three emails ahead of time and save them to your email marketing service. Then, whenever a visitor from your website signs up to learn more about your school, they’ll be automatically enrolled to receive this three-email series.
Include Online Forms
Welcome to the 21st century. These days, you don’t have to ask enrolling families to download then print out then hand deliver or fax back to you their enrollment forms. You can embed digital forms right on your website.
Parents who want to sign up for your school can do so on your website without any extra steps involved. This benefits you in two important ways:
Digital forms reduce the amount of paperwork for both your parents and your staff. Bonus points for less paperwork to get lost in the shuffle.
By using Hubbli’s digital forms on your website, you can streamline the enrollment process. All the provided information is neatly and automatically organized into a spreadsheet and is easy to recall.
Because you can use Hubbli’s digital forms on any device, consider implementing it in person at your school, too. For example, during open houses, or when parents stop by and want to join your school, invite them to enroll via a tablet. You can set the tablet’s home page to your digital enrollment form.
Final Thoughts
Ideally, you should have four times the amount of inquiries about your school than you have spots to fill. That 4:1 ratio will safeguard you from desperation, where you’re just accepting any and every family who applies (even those who do not have the potential for success in your Montessori program), just so that you can make payroll.
Use the above tips to fine tune your most important marketing tool– your website.
[content_upgrade cu_id=”19194″]Don’t forget to download your list of which pages to include on your website.[content_upgrade_button]Click Here[/content_upgrade_button][/content_upgrade]