7 Ways to Increase Student Enrollment in Schools
Student enrollment is what enables your private school to gain revenue and profit. When you were still in the phase of starting a school business, of course, you had strategies to make your school’s student enrollment consistent. But, if your goal now is to increase your school’s student enrollment aside from just maintaining it, we can help you with that. So, spend a few minutes of your time here with us. We’ll show you seven practical and smart ways to increase student enrollment in your school.
7 Ways to Increase Student Enrollment in Schools
Think Like a Parent
In increasing student enrollment, you can start by improving the facilities, curriculum, and policies of your school. If you do that, you have to think like a parent. Try to analyze what parents want for their children’s education. In this case, you’ll have to step into the shoes of the students’ parents.
If you can enhance your school’s services and guidelines based on the parents’ needs for their children (the students), many of them will consider your school. After their careful assessment, there’s a likely chance they’ll enroll their children to your school for the upcoming school year.
In selling the enrollment offers of a school, the target market should always be the parents, not the students. Why? Well, that because it’s the parents’ decisions which school they want their children to attend. Plus, they’re the ones paying for the quotation or tuition fee for their children’s education. So, basically, it’s the students’ parents who can generate revenue for your school.
Give Your School a Strong Online Presence
If you haven’t yet included establishing an online presence on your school’s business plan, now is the time to do it. Building a website and creating a social media account for your school are the best methods. In general, being active online is one of the primary marketing strategies that almost every business uses.
For one, building a website for your school can help boost its popularity in the online community, particularly on search engines. Your school’s website should have informative content, such as ads of your enrollment offers and blogs. Although building a website will cost you some money from your school’s budget, it’ll pay off once it gains visitors.
Another method is creating a social media account. Well, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Social media has always been an effective platform for promoting businesses. By announcing enrollment schedules and offers on social media, many people will definitely know about them. Posts on social media can quickly spread in the online community like wildfire. Moreover, marketing your school on social media is totally free—no need to get funding or gather a budget.
Put Your School on the Map, Literally
The map that we meant by this is Google Maps. If you haven’t registered your school’s location on Google Maps, do it now. Register your school as a business establishment. When your school’s location is on Google Maps, it’ll be easier for parents and students to find it. People in your city or state can simply type “schools near me” on Google’s search box, and they’ll know the exact location of your school instantly. Therefore, if some parents are interested in enrolling their kids in your school, they can easily visit your campus for inquiries.
Registering your school on Google Maps will only take a few steps. It’s also free and doesn’t require you to sign a contract. But, you have to comply with Google’s checklist of agreement terms.
Study the Strategies of Other Schools
Knowing how other schools increase their student enrollment can help you increase yours. If you see that other schools’ strategies are working well for them, you can copy them. There’s no nothing ethically wrong about it. It’s just business. However, instead of merely copying other school’s strategies, it would be better to surpass them. Try to come up with a competitive edge that can attract more enrollees to your school. Promote the distinction and benefits that your school offers that other schools don’t have.
For this matter, you’ll need the support of your school’s marketing team and administrators. Use a meeting minutes document to record your discussions with them about outmaneuvering the strategies of other schools.
Use Testimonials
According to a study by the Strategic Factory, companies that use customer testimonials for marketing typically generate 62% more revenue than usual. Well, there’s a good reason why that’s the case. A study from Nielsen can support Strategic Factory’s findings. Nielsen’s research implies that 70% of people trust the feedback of other people about a brand.
With those in mind, using testimonials to attract enrollees to your school will most likely work. You can use the positive feedback of current and alumni students about your school and use them as a marketing ploy. If there are parents who gave positive feedback to your school before, those would be the better choice.
Upgrade Your School’s Enrollment Process
If your school has an upgraded and faster enrollment process, of course, parents will likely enroll their children to your school. A lot of schools today have their enrollment process online, specifically on their official website. And yes, it helped them gain enrollees to some degree. So, why not make the same approach? There are plenty of digital tools that can automate your school’s enrollment process. That’ll certainly make things more convenient for students and their parents. The traditional way of processing student enrollment through pen and paper should be a thing of the past.
Do a Customer Satisfaction Survey After Every School Year
Increasing student enrollment in your school is a long process. Admittedly, it could even take a few years to achieve. In every school year that passes, integrating improvements to your school’s systems is essential in increasing enrollment. Now the question is what sort of enhancements your school should make? Well, you can find answers to that question by conducting a customer satisfaction survey annually.
What the parents and students say about your school can help you generate ideas in improving it. In other words, their feedback can help you devise an action plan to innovate the facilities and services of your school. So, if you can successfully make improvements for the next school year, more parents might consider letting their children attend your school. By doing satisfaction surveys yearly, ultimately, your school’s student enrollment will reach the level where you want it to be.
The seven ways to increase student enrollment might seem a lot to digest, but you can execute them slowly. Achieving this type of objective is not something that you have to rush. As mentioned earlier, increasing student enrollment is a long process. In time, your school will become a second home to many students in your community.