Thinking Outside of the Box
What are some creative or "out of the box" solutions you have implemented to effectively market your programs while working with limited resources?
We have found that direct emails that at least look like they were made for the one person are the most effective in terms of old leads replying. We have a weekly newsletter and some different template emails that go out, but the ones that look "real" get responded to. It is more time consuming but you get more conversion out of them. All the emails request a time to talk or a call of action.
We are a very small school with limited funds so we try to attend every high school career day and local workforce job fairs. We have found that the "take one" works very good and have one on the outside of the door to the school. Also advertising in the local newsletter that is placed around town in waiting areas like tire stores, restaurants, etc.
We set up booths at cultural shows by ethnic groups.
Social media and community involvement are the best solutions for keeping low costs and maximizing exposure. In a four month span, I was able to increase FB likes by over 10K, all with engaging and original content.
We attend trade shows and visit with people in the industry. We also send out mass emails to past, current and prospective students.
While working with limited resources, we do a lot of "door to door marketing" with distributing flyers amongst local businesses such as doctor's offices and other healthcare facilities. This seems to be very helpful, as well as specific facilities who allow us to come in during their employee's shift change and set up a table with information to distribute. By creating a personal relationship (face-to-face), it's nice to answer specific questions and encourage them to come to an Information Session on campus.
We have contacted former students of a program that our parent company has. The week long program is on the same subject area that our Associates Degree program covers--so these students would be prime candidates as prospective students for the college.
In fact--we have had several of these students apply to the Degree program.
The worst outcome to a bad lead flow scenario is to be the victim of the situation. Going out of the box allows one to consider more options to control start results. I have used non-traditional programs to augment lead flow when times were tough. These sources produced leads year round and at critical or slow times of the year.
Because we are a relatively small school, we have to take advantage of 'creative marketing tactics' since we are working with limited resources.
One of the things that our school does to get the word out there is to hand deliver flyers about our training programs to the community. We deliver flyers to non-profits, stores with community bulletin boards in there, health care providers (assisted/ independent living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, doctors offices) and so forth. This allows us to get the word out there without spending too much money.
We also utilize social media sites, and the internet to increase our brand awareness as well as attending networking events and trade shows.
We have set up displays at Independence Day celebrations in a local town park. Since we are a faith based school, we often set up display tables with brochures and flyers in churches and at teen youth camps. In addition, we invite businesses to come to campus and set up tables for our students and faculty during orientation days in order to foster good community relationships.
To effectively market our programs with limited resources, we attend as many career fairs in the area as possible. We also use direct mail, which is a very cost effective way to market ourselves.
We have partnered with local businesses. For example, we have a display of our school in a local bank and in return, we allow the bank to come in and set up a table periodically offering their services to the students on campus.
Jack - have you started any cross channel attribution to track the impact of offline media on online?
I am not going to get to deep into my CREATUVE marketing details due to our direct competition but due to the high costs of print advertising a very focused online social media plan has shown the lowest CPL then the previously mentioned. At our institution, our budget for print media is limited right off the bat and there is no social media budget. However, with the right online management tools, per-written and planned social messages combined with the optimum time to engage with our prospect students and leading them through to our reps will prove to be (and will increase over time) and will out shine traditional tv and print advertising.
We have hosted events on campus to draw in prospects:
-Open House
-Workshops
-Open Mic Nights
We have also gone to businesses in the area which have tuition reimbursement and left behind materials as well as spoken with on site managers to promote our school.
Our team also enjoys "hitting the streets" and placing leave behinds (take-ones)at surrounding restaurants venues. If there is a concert or public event, team members will take leave behinds.
Offering complimentary services to the community
Out of the box solutions we have enacted is calling old leads, getting exposure at career fairs and other community events.
Actually, the module listed them! We have also done door hangers in certain successful lead generating areas, but that is a tricky tactic as at times can be against the law. We followed the law and restricted our distribution, so those of you considering this route, be careful and check with your local laws first.
We have found success in branding more than leads by most of these tactics, but getting our name out there is very important as well.
I would suggest spending time on your school's social media sites. This stuff can work organically and lead directly to enrollments. Try to get leads to "like" on Facebook or subscribe to Twitter feeds. Then make sure you are delivering items of interest that create a vibe of relevance with prospectives - like when students win an award or an alumnus scores a good job...
