Students, parents, and even a few teachers all anticipate the end of the school year and the official start of summer. Bring on the long, sunny days and the lazy afternoons on the beach!
But hang on there, friend.
Summer is the most important time to boost enrollment numbers for your school.
After all, parents are more likely to enroll their child in a new school before the start of the upcoming school year than pull them out of their current school mid-year and transfer them to your school.
So while current students are busy disconnecting from school, you’ll need to work on connecting to future students and their parents.
But how are you supposed to focus on marketing and increasing your enrollment numbers when your administrative team is either understaffed or working limited hours during the summer months?
It’s easy: you automate your digital workload.
By taking advantage of autoresponders and staying connected with your school community, you’ll have an easygoing summer and boost enrollment numbers without breaking a sweat.
We’ll show you exactly how to do this in today’s article.
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What’s an Autoresponder and Why Does My School Need One?
You know how you always create an out-of-office reply for your emails when you go on vacation?
This simple activity is an example of an autoresponder; it’s an email that automatically delivers based on certain criteria that you set up.
So in this example, your email client has been programmed to reply with your chosen message anytime an email is received while you’re away.
If you think autoresponders are only useful for telling your contacts that you’re not answering their emails, get ready to be amazed.
Autoresponders can be programmed to send important information about your school to current and future parents during the summer. And you don’t even have to be in the office to make this happen.
If you’re already using an email service such as MailChimp, you already have access to the autoresponder tool.
Here are a few of the most common types of autoresponder events your school could automate:
- When someone joins your email list you can trigger a welcome email to thank them and let them know what’s in store moving forward
- Date reminders can be set to deliver days or weeks prior to important due dates such as registration or sports physical deadlines
- Open/unread emails won’t disappear in your parents’ inbox if you create a rule that re-sends emails that remain unread for more than a certain period of time
You can even create a series of emails and have them sent out at predetermined times.
For example, let’s say that you wrote seven emails about what it’s like to be a new student at your school. When someone signs up for this information on your website, they’ll receive a new email every day for one week and learn everything about life at your school on their own time.
It’s like having a personalized school tour right in the comfort of your potential student or parent’s home.
Brainstorm a few ideas for emails to go out to your segmented lists of parents. Try to keep the topics general so they appeal to as many of your parents as possible, but also create a few that are specific to each grade, club, or sports team.
In addition to the email ideas that you come up with, create emails for these next enrollment boosting events, too.
Give Parents an Incentive to Enroll Early and Tell Their Friends
You want to count on your existing parents to enroll their children in your school the following year, but as the old saying goes, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
To start the summer enrollment plan off right, sweeten the pot for current parents to enroll and register early. The less time you have to worry about attracting existing parents, the more time you can focus your outreach on potential parents.
Before the school year ends, give parents an incentive to enroll/register before the actual deadline. Think of something useful, such as a discount on registration fees, an extra uniform shirt, volunteer credits, basketball tickets, etc.
If you want to take the incentive program a step further, take a cue from the business world and offer your existing parents rewards when they refer a friend to your school. Every time a new parent completes the enrollment process, a nice little gift or discount will be given to both parents as a reward.
This will definitely boost your word-of-mouth enrollment strategy. Don’t forget to send out reminder emails with your autoresponder!
Consider Holding (Fun) Summer Classes
No one wants to go to summer school, but having actual fun at school during the summer is a totally different story.
Think about holding fun classes for children of all ages—such as painting, dance, computer programming, gardening, book club, etc.—at least once a week at your school. Make classes open to current and non-enrolled students so new kids have a chance to “preview” your school and gush to their parents about how great it is.
You’ll also give parents a break for a couple of hours, which is always appreciated during the summer when kids are around all the time. Plus, this gives you a constant stream of activities to promote on your social media channels.
Speaking of which…
Keep Up With Your Social Media Plan
Don’t give your social media accounts the cold shoulder during the summer. You want to remain relevant in your followers’ lives, so keep up with your regular posting schedule.
You may not know what to post during the summer since school’s not in session, but this is the perfect opportunity to share some of the lesser-known facts and aspects about the school year.
Think about sharing:
- Interesting historical facts about your school on Throwback Thursdays (#TBT)
- Special academic or athletic achievements
- Profile pieces on current students achieving greatness
- Candid teacher interviews and quotes
Remember, all of these posts can be created before the school year ends. All you have to do is schedule them to publish automatically on certain days and you’ll have a rolling social media machine working hard for your school.
Active social media accounts not only keep followers entertained, informed, and engaged, but they also build your school’s authority. Parents want to see modern, technology-embracing school teams that create valuable content.
Plus, when your content is shared by your followers, outsiders will have a better perspective on what your school’s like just by scrolling through all your social media posts.
Send Out Summer Newsletters
You’re probably used to sending out newsletters every month or semester at your school, but do you continue this practice during the summer?
Sending out summer newsletters is a great way to stay connected with parents when you’re unable to physically see them regularly.
And thanks to your autoresponder feature, you can create your summer newsletter well in advance of summer’s reign. This means parents can stay informed while they’re checking emails on the beach or on vacation and know exactly what’s happening.
Queue up at least one newsletter per month that your school is not in session. Similar to your social media plan, think about information you don’t normally have time to cover during the hectic and jam-packed school year. Take this time to discuss programs parents may not know about, introduce new faculty members, talk about curriculum changes, or highlight important school year events.
And if you need help, Hubbli makes creating school newsletters as easy as sending an email.
You can choose from 7 different email templates that you can customize with your school’s colors, images, and media content. Using the Newsletter dashboard, you can even check on metrics such as sent, opened, bounced, and waiting statistics to monitor how your newsletters are reaching parents.
After you schedule these out, upload a downloadable copy of your newsletter to your website. Make sure you have a dedicated section for school newsletters for parents who don’t want to sift through their emails to find important information.
Featuring these newsletters on your website also attracts potential parents. When you constantly update your site and post new content, you’ll rank higher in search results.
Post links to these newsletters on your social media platforms and watch how many current parents check them out and share them with future parents of your school.
Boosting enrollment numbers isn’t about hitting the pavement—it’s about scheduling content to run and hitting the set-it-and-forget-it button.
When you create valuable content that’s helpful for parents, that content will be shared by your followers and reach a new audience of parents who can’t wait to learn about your school. Give them updated information by making your newsletters, enrollment process, and school calendar easy to find on your website.
Create a free email series about your school for new subscribers to your email list. And consider holding summer classes to make parents and kids happy.
You can automate the majority of these tasks today and continue to relax poolside this summer.
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