Posters and brochures in high traffic areas is great. How are you measuring results? The high traffic areas may have a lot of prospective students or none at all. As you know, not everyone is a candidate for career school. All schools probably need better community outreach programs. You'll know you are doing well when you have one person out in the field 80% of the time and when you have a long list of employer and prospective employer contacts. And increased jobs and names of hiring decision makers. A board of governors or advisory board is great. You still need someone to spear head all initiatives. Thanks, Susan
We have been using mainly posters and brochures in terms of visuals posting them in areas that have high traffic or congregation of people. TV and radio we are using on a small scale. With TV we have made use of community bulletin, and radio we are using to market to non english speaking prospects to promote mainly English as a Second Language.
We could work on building stronger relationships with businesses & corporation conducting needs assessments and then ensuring our programs are catering to those common needs. We have a website however we can utilize it more to our advantage by tracking the hits, updating more often, promoting the site more on the visuals.
We have a board ogf governors, think we can better utilize them by ensuring there is diversity of members with expertise needed by the school, use their influences in the community, make their reports pulic to create transparancy and interest, ensure they are known by our students, and faculty and get a chance to interact with them
Good idea to understand the costs for all marketing endeavors. But more important is to always measure what is working. Internet marketing is usually the least expensive and many schools count on the internet and their website for students. School Advisory Boards can be a great source of all kinds of information. The key is to choose the right participants and keep in touch with them regularly. Thanks, Susan
Posting a catalog does provide the prospective student a lot of information. There are pros and cons to doing that. The right advertising is effective and not expensive. But it takes a lot of work to measure quantity and quality of leads that are generated. But well worth it. Thanks, Susan
Posting your catalog on line is a great resource. I agree that advertising can be very expensive and time consuming.
We are not currently using radio or TV. Our flyers are our visuals. We need to investigate the cost of radio, TV, billboards etc. Internet marketing is a great reources. we receive many responses from our on-line inquiry form. We can utilize our school advisory board by meeting more frequently to get adivice, ideas, job leads ans students.
Hi Robert, TV and radio is expensive and might not be the best way to market. We focus on internet and website marketing. Lots of value. Sounds like you are using your Advisory Board effectively. We find it is important to meet face to face and then have frequent phone conference calls and emailing to keep everyone involved and keep their advise flowing. Thanks, Susna
Currently we are not using TV or radio to promote our institute. We do not have a budget to cover those costs since we are in the beginning stages of developing the institute.
One thing that I am very interested in is radio advertisement. I will have to go and price advertisement slots on the radio.
I think internet marketing is something that will have good return. The internet has become a large roll in so many people that it is a great way to reach out to a lot of people.
To effectively utilize the Advisory Board we hold several meetings in order to brainstorm new ideas and evaluate the current marketing efforts to see what must be changed.
Hi Christopher
You bring up a lot of great points. One is that TV and radio are not for every school. And both are quite expensive. Also it is important to measure which methods give you the best results and return on investment. Also that it is important to focus on just a few marketing strategies at a time to ensure you are implementing them effectively. So it was great that you bring up the point of spreading too thin. Referrals are still the best way to fill classes. It takes a customer care state of mind throughout your school. If every faculty and staff member focuses on being sure that every student has an exceptional day, you will be able to count on referrals. Your use of the internet sounds great. Keep in mind social networking and texting too! Thanks, Susan
We've tried a variety of combinations and felt over time that the TV and radio are less cost effective than either internet leads and referrals. There are so many avenues you can pursue that the issue is prioritizing which give us the best ROI. We can get spread too thin very quickly and the overall result we want which is the lowest cost per start is impacted. Getting referrals up has been the number one priority. In this we focus attention on current students, alumni and advisory boards. Each referral is free vs the time and effort for many of these other ways to attract students. The internet has been the key driver of getting out the information of our schools and we post our catalog online for all to download and see, we also have our tuition fees in this so we are seen as open and trustworthy.
Hi Zara
Thanks for sharing great information that every school can imlement. Focusing on Internet marketing and public relations usually targets your best leads and costs the least. Helps build up referral business as well - the really best kind. We really like your formula for utilizing Advisory Boards. Not only do you benefit, but AB members feel like they are doing something wothwhile, feel of value, and are more likely to think of valuable ideas that you can use. And they are likely to stay involved. Great and thanks, Susan
Our school uses all of the above applications.
Our strategy is to manage marketing money in a way of using specific days for aggressive (TV, Radio, newspapers, visuals) advertising and rest of the time passive ads.
internet marketing today plays the most vital role in our public relations.
We started utilizing and seeing results already with the Advisory Boards: in order to most effectively utilize the AB we need to involve the board the following:
-collect their concerns
-ask for advice
-ask for their support and assistance in certain matters
-ask for acting on our behalf
-consultation advice
-additional ways to promoting our school
