1 The 7 I Approach to Attracting Students. The Institute of School and Parish Development, www.ispd.com
Identify:
Your mission and your vision
The qualities that will make you known
Your market: Internal and External
Your "customers"
Your 4 P's (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)
Inform:
Internal and External
Database importance
Use all mediums of communication
Move from "paper to people"
Effectiveness of mail-phone-person to person
Invite:
Personally
True connections
To meaningful events/activities
On campus
Begin/build the relationship
Involve:
Interviews
Planning sessions
Research
Tours
Bring a Friend Days
On Site Activities
Implement:
The plans
The processes
The strategies
The wisdom of research
Invest:
Strong sense of ownership
Belonging and engagement
Financial investment
Time, talent and wisdom
Partner for life
Resources
Improve:
Continuous quality improvement
"Quit blaming people and fix the process"
Defining quality
Team approach
Commendations and recommendations
Affirmation
. Enrollment Management Action for August: Low-cost and easy!
Strategically use parish lawn fetes, sports tournaments, picnics, etc to market your school. Request permission from your local parishes (those without other schools directly on their own property) to set-up a table for your school recruitment team.
Use balloons in school colors to attract attention to your booth.
Run a Free raffle for a Back-to-School backpack stuffed with basic supplies. Entering the raffle should require families filling out a form with name, address, phone, email and names and ages of their children/grandchildren. This will help you capture names for recruitment purposes
Advertise this Free raffle on signs at entrance to event etc. to drive foot traffic to your table.
Have friendly outgoing people man the booth. If possible also have one or two out-going kids, in school shirt, on every shift to help hand out info and answer questions.
Keep posters and banners short on words and long on photos of bright engaged kids in your school and at your activities. Make sure your website is posted.
Have brochures or info sheets available for take home.
Same backpack can be used at several events to keep down cost, just let those inquiring know that drawing will be xxxxxx date. Consider posting winner’s name on your website. This can help to drive traffic to your site. They need NOT be present to win.
Follow-up! After each event, follow-up with those who provided contact info. within three to seven days of event. Send them recruitment info with a cover letter from principal thanking them for stopping at your booth or table. Later, give them a low-key call. Make sure they are warmly invited to tour school.
2.Fill those open seats! Your Enrollment Management suggestion for August. Plan NOW!
Per the suggestion of a local professional PR/Advertising firm: Rent a portable sign for the month to promote your school on your school’s or your parish’s busiest corner. Local signage opens conversations and gives results. Get people into your school, even if only for a mini-tour during summer cleaning. Let people in the neighborhood and all passer-bys know that you are open and ready to enroll students. Change the slogan or highlight info every week to keep interest high.
If there are other schools in your area, explore group rentals. Multiple rentals can often bring the cost down by $25 or $50 per sign per month to approximately only $100/month. I checked with a few vendors and many will consider groups as, for ex. all the campuses in a given town, city or region. (No one I found covered all or even most of WNY. It may be best to go with more local vendors.) Perhaps someone in your community owns such a sign and will loan it to the school for a month.
Remember to keep signs simple, NOT too wordy and to include your phone number and website address. Good luck!
Note- Our 2008 Oishei Foundation funded study shows that city parents repeatedly cited “Caring teachers” as their highest priority.
Also, let it be known that your school is open to ALL children. We learned that many non-Catholic families are interested in a Gospel Values based education, but believe that they cannot send their children to our schools unless they are Catholic. Let’s dispel that myth! We welcome all God’s children.
tips from Karin Krasavec - Lenz
CSDP Powerpoint Presentation