Just like traditional businesses, schools have their own stories to share, and developing a marketing plan can not only help you to engage with parents, but also make the wider community aware of the work that you do as well.
If your school is new to the world of marketing and would like to start raising its profile, we’ve put together five key tips for you to keep in mind. Read on to find out more.
1. Establish your brand
Before you start communicating with the wider school community, it’s important to develop the image and messaging that you want to present. This means establishing what your tone of voice will be (for example will you be friendly or authoritative?), creating the logo which will be used across all of your marketing materials, and ensuring that you are always consistent too. Whether your marketing plan includes social media, print marketing or email marketing, it’s important that your brand and messaging is always portrayed in the same way in order to achieve maximum impact.
2. Don’t be afraid of social media
Social media provides schools with a great way of keeping parents and the local community informed – it is definitely not something to be afraid of! Instead of worrying about receiving negative comments, focus on the benefits instead. For example, it can help to build relationships, allow your school to share its news, and generate positive PR in return. Social media is also a very cost effective marketing channel as it is free to create profiles on the most popular networks like Facebook and Twitter, and it only takes a couple of hours a week to ensure that the profiles are regularly updated too.
3. Share your story
Schools have lots of stories to share, and this is where developing relationships with local education journalists can prove very beneficial. The press love human interest stories, something that your school will have in abundance! By sharing your school’s successes and the achievements of your students it will help to build your local profile, and a positive image and reputation in turn – something which is especially important during exam results time.
4. Communication is key
Email newsletters provide a great opportunity to keep parents updated with your school’s news and goings on, and they are much easier to create than you may think, thanks to platforms like MailChimp. When it comes to email newsletters, we recommend that you aim to send one once a month, and you can also share them across your social media channels and on your website in order to ensure maximum reach.
5. Regularly update your website
It’s important to have a news section on your website in order to keep your school community regularly updated with your latest news and developments. It provides a great way to build relationships with the local community, local journalists can also use it as a source for potential stories, and it’s good for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) too as it can help your website to move up the rankings on search engines like Google.
If you would like some help with your school’s marketing plan, then you’ve come to the right place because at Local Voice Media, we’re the experts! Find out more about our range of school marketing services on our Education page, or get in touch with the team via our Contact Us page to discuss your requirements. We look forward to speaking to you soon!