When you make the decision to hire a marketing agency, you do it with the understanding and expectation that they are going to work hard to fill your pipeline. They’re running digital ads, evaluating campaign performance, providing lead nurturing strategies, optimizing landing pages, and tracking inquiries. But without access to your admission and enrollment data, they're essentially flying blind, optimizing based on in-platform data like clicks and conversion rates.

If your agency doesn't know which inquiries converted to applicants, which applicants enrolled, and where families dropped off along the way, they can't accurately measure ROI and fully optimize your marketing campaigns and strategies.

Here's why closing that data loop makes all the difference, and how to do it safely.

Traditionally, independent schools cite that their number-one source of leads is “word of mouth”. Today, word of mouth is no longer just neighbors talking; it encompasses your digital footprint and what people are saying online. Before a prospective family schedules a campus tour or fills out an inquiry form, they are vetting your school by searching your website, school directories, and your social media presence.

Knowing your school needs reviews is one thing, but knowing how and when to ask for them is another. Here are tips to intentionally solicit high-impact reviews for your private school.

Too often, schools and organizations pour their valuable marketing dollars into search and social ads, only to direct valuable traffic to a cluttered homepage.

If you want to maximize your return on investment, the secret lies in the landing page. A landing page is a webpage created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. Unlike your website, which encourages exploration, a landing page is designed with a single goal in mind: conversion.

Here are three reasons landing pages are essential to your digital advertising strategy and how you can leverage them to boost your lead-generation efforts.

Independent school marketers work extremely hard to get qualified prospects, or “leads,” into their pipeline. Whether you’ve purchased lists, launched a digital marketing campaign, or planned an on-ground admissions trip, building a lead funnel is a huge investment. That is why keeping those leads engaged and moving through the funnel by way of email marketing is a critical tactic for schools.

According to data by Nutshell, it takes an average of three to four emails before getting a response from a lead—but with those long admission- and marketing-team to-do lists, sending each lead regular communication can be a challenge.

Here’s how your school can develop an email marketing strategy to nurture leads—for FREE!, maximize your efforts, and ensure prospects take those next steps to visit, apply, and enroll.

You may be one of the many schools wondering what happened to Google Reviews. Many organizations, including schools, are experiencing a range of issues as it relates to users being able to review a business. This poses a challenge for schools that use Google Reviews as a way to manage their brand and communicate with prospective and current families.

So what happened to Google reviews for schools?

Is your school dealing with a persnickety review or low star rating? It can be challenging to keep up with various ways in which prospective families are searching for, and learning about your school online while understanding which of those ratings really matter. For better or worse, the reality is that online reviews are part of the equation for every stage of the funnel -- from the initial discovery and inquiry, to deciding whether to visit, apply, and ultimately enroll -- key considerations are being made by adults who rely on the internet for a large source of information. 

Over the past few months, Enroll Media Group has had the good fortune to participate in monthly programs hosted by The Communicators Club (TCC) in our backyard of Central Massachusetts. TCC offers ongoing programming and professional development opportunities for marketers, communicators, and storytellers, while simultaneously providing a unique chance to network with other companies, organizations, and individuals along the way.

To kick off the new year, we attended the most recent TCC program featuring Hilary McCarthy, Public Relations Director at Clearpoint Agency. During this month’s TCC session, Hilary shared the top 5 trends in Public Relations to keep in mind as we embark on new goals and projects ahead in 2019.

Are you interested in how your school or organization can stay ahead of the rapidly changing world of communicating via press releases, paid campaigns, websites, traditional advertising, and more? Are you curious about the evolving needs of PR, and what skills are necessary to introduce your organization through powerful storytelling? Read on for the top 5 trends in PR, and a few anecdotes from Hilary’s fantastic presentation.

When it comes to successful enrollment marketing for K-12 schools, I often hear admissions officers say, “If you can just get them to visit the school, we will dazzle them from there.” Since getting families to campus is half the battle, target marketing for an open house is a must-do for independent schools. But in this ever-changing digital landscape, it’s becoming harder to know who to market to, what to say, and how to measure the highest return on investment.

Here are 3 common marketing tactics to avoid when marketing your open house this year.

All too often, schools focus on a number of selling points in marketing collateral that might be true – but don’t adequately describe the institution or what it stands for. Just ask yourself: "How many times have I heard about a premier independent school with personalized attention, strong academics, hands-on learning, and a diverse community?”