Promoting your school is essential for connecting with potential students and families. Marketing efforts can help you reach new audiences to expand your student body. With many schools dedicating more time to marketing, knowing how to promote your charter school can help you direct your efforts efficiently.
4 Ways to Promote Your Charter School
Promotional campaigns can help schools reach their goals, from efficiently targeting interested families to building a stronger online presence. Digital marketing has transformed how promotions function and how you can best capture your audience’s attention. These tips can help you navigate your next marketing campaign to optimize your time and effort.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
Understanding your target audience and how to reach them can help you more purposefully direct your efforts in marketing for your charter school. Many businesses discover they have several audiences, allowing them to make more specialized content directed at each market segment.
You can identify your target audience and market segments by thinking of people’s purpose for researching and investing in your school. As a charter school, your primary audience will be potential and existing students and families. Potential students who are interested in enrolling need information to help them make informed decisions. While current students already know what makes your school great, you can use your marketing to remind them of what you offer and inform them of new developments.
You can also outline what your ideal student and family look like:
- What are their demographics?
- What attributes, skills, and values do students need to possess to succeed at your school?
- What are their interests?
These details can help you better understand your target audience and how to reach them with your marketing efforts.
You should also consider their internet habits and patterns. How do students access the internet? Are families researching for younger children, or are older students taking the initiative? Do they prefer blogs, vlogs, or social media posts?
2. Outline Your Unique Selling Points
Your unique selling points (USP) are your school’s defining factors that set it apart from your competition. As a charter school, you are competing with other public and private institutions. Understanding and marketing what makes your school special can attract students and families looking for a specific school experience, culture, program, or quality.
Charter schools have many compelling features that differentiate them from public and private alternatives. Unlike private schools, they are tuition-free and require no entry tests to apply. Although they are a type of public school, charter schools often offer more specialized programs or qualified teachers, increasing the quality of education. Highlighting these aspects to interested families can help them discover if a charter school is the right fit for them and their students.
Talking to your current students and families is another great way to learn what makes your school special. Ask them what they love about the school, teachers, and classes. They might highlight something you haven’t considered but keeps students and families returning each fall.
3. Open Your Campus
Your campus can be a great way to promote your school. When students can walk around and see it for themselves, it’s easier for them to imagine attending classes and making friends. Families can assess how well your school fits their safety standards and values for themselves. As admission and enrollment season approaches, offer plenty of events at your school:
- Tours: Tours can bring students and families through the campus and highlight your USPs. You can use them to emphasize what your school has to offer, especially if you have specialized facilities or recent renovations. Additionally, students can judge if they like the classroom size and work environment better than they can with pictures or videos.
- Open houses: Open houses enable students and families to explore your school for themselves. You can set up teachers and staff around the facilities where they can talk with students and families. Students interested in specific subjects, disciplines, or programs can speak with the people involved to see if it’s a good fit for them.
- Forums: Your students and staff have experience and expertise when it comes to your school. A panel of students, teachers, administrators, or PTA members can invite potential students and families to learn more about your school from the people involved. After the discussion, attendees can ask questions or even meet members of your school community.
- Club fairs: Your extracurriculars can draw in students with specific passions. A club fair can gather all your school organizations in one place, so students can talk with them about what they do with student and staff representatives. Social life is essential for student retention, and clubs and organizations can help students feel connected on campus.
Consider publishing a public calendar on your website with open events that interested students and families can attend. Add sports games, competitions, concerts, art shows, and other activities your students and teachers are doing. Inviting your target audience to these events can give them a chance to observe school culture and values at work in an unofficial setting.
4. Build a Google My Business
While many families and students will use your school’s campus to gather information, most people start with online research. Developing a strong online presence can help you present your target audience with the best representation of your school while answering all their questions.
When building your online presence, you’ll need to focus on all levels of knowledge. Starting at the bottom, students and families need to know the basic information about your school, including its name, address, and contact information.
Google My Business is a Google feature that creates a panel on the side of the search results when users look up a business. While Google can automatically create these, you can gain control over the display by verifying your school. Once you have control, you can ensure the information is accurate and choose the panel’s photos, blog posts, and other essential details. A Google My Business panel also helps your school come up in local searches, helping you reach more people.
Streamline Admissions and Enrollment With Ravenna
You will have many other essential functions your administrators need to manage while you market your charter school. As your promotions draw students to your school, maintain their interest and trust by simplifying and streamlining admissions and student management with Ravenna.
We designed our software solutions for private and independent schools like yours. You can strengthen your marketing further with customized solutions that let you add logos to forms and portals. Our platforms help boost efficiency for these essential school processes so you can focus on delivering better promotional material to your target audience.
