With schools popping out from every angle it’s easy to get drowned out in the noise. On some of the busier streets you can find anything from 3 to 8 schools all competing for the same students, a real marketing nightmare for school admins. How do you disassociate your school and its services from the rest of the pack offering the exact same services? Thankfully, we have a few insightful tips that should help make your school easier to find for parents.
1. Join an online directory of schools
Put your school on the map, literary. These directories are a good way to give your school exposure and get rated along with other schools in similar fields. They may feature schools from a particular state or all across the federation. For parents with a specific category in mind they provide neatly categorized types of schools ranging from federal boarding houses to private day schools. An excellent example of an online directory is heyschools.ng, they provide info about hundreds of schools sorted alphabetically, according to states, school fees and other criteria.
2. Invest in a website
Read: 8 Things You Should Know Before Launching Your School Website
A website has become a necessary obligation for the schools of today. Please if you’re reading this and you don’t have one, put down your mouse, turn off your computer and call up a web designer right now. In case you haven’t noticed we’re living in the future and a website should be your online identity, your personal I.D card to the thousands of people that can’t make it to, wherever it is your school is located. The volume of people that visit your site every day should be motivation enough for you and trust us when we say they will be judging you based on what your site looks like, its quality and content.
3. Create a social media account
This is the clincher, because there are such few schools that have a social presence this is your opportunity to stand out. If you found this post through social media, then congrats! you are already one step on the right track.
The social airwaves is a marketers dream come true, reach millions of people for free. No sign up fees, no hidden costs no limit on the volume of content you can put out on a daily. Add up your parents and teachers on your schools account and tweet excursions, awards and fun activities. This allows your school to always stay relevant and informed, capitalize on the latest trends to air your views and get people talking…… about your school.
It’s become a necessity for some of the bigger schools to adopt social media into their daily operations because it gives them a certain degree of control about their image and how that image is being portrayed to the people that matter most to them, parent. Take a look at GreenSprings School Lagos or Olashore.
If you take anything away from this write up it should be setting up your school’s social media account. Sometimes parents don’t take their kids to the best schools, they take their kids to the best schools they know about. When you make your school more accessible online, it opens ups your admissions to a much larger demographic.
The beauty of the World Wide Web is the unlimited opportunities it presents to us all, if used appropriately it can give your school an edge over other schools within your environment. Technology as a tool can only enhance what is already present; it is your job to research and experiment with these new tools and understand how they can help you reach your goals.
Recommended: Why Your School Should be On Social media
