INCREASING ENROLLMENT

THROUGH INBOUND MARKETING

Ralph Cochran Director of Advancement and Stewardship www.linkedin.com/in/ralphcochran www.linkedin.com/in/ralphcochran/

www.linkedin.com/in/ralphcochran/

Inbound Marketing can bring the right

students running to your school!

Why should you care about Inbound marketing?

How will Inbound Marketing impact your school?

Grammar and Logic of Enrollment Growth

Grammar and Logic of Inbound Marketing

Where to start in the jungle of inbound marketing?

Is your enrollment growth flat?

Are you fishing for new students in the right pond?

Use Inbound Marketing Strategy to find the

next big catch of prospective students!

Growth in enrollment brings

financial strength to a school.

BRIDGE THE ANNUAL BUDGET “GAP”

BY ENROLLMENT GROWTH

Stable Growing Enrollment

• Results in Cash Reserves for Rainy days such as recent recession

• Protecting mission and vision by limiting temptations to compromise and water down school with non-mission appropriate students

• Example: Christian School admitting non-Christian Foreign Exchange students

• Most banks allow you to borrow money based on enrollment not donations to calculate Debt Cover Ratios(DCR)

• Don’t let the “gap” rule you year after year through the need to meet the goals of the annual fund.

Remember our starting point!

Faithfulness is the answer to enrollment growth

not the latest marketing tactics.

INBOUND MARKETING DONE WELL

INCREASES PROSPECTS

130

344

# Prospects

CASE STUDY:ANNAPOLIS CHRISTIAN ACADEMY

2012/2013 2013/2014(Projection for Fall 2013)

Grammar for Dashboard of Enrollment

• PROSPECT FUNNEL

• # Suspects(Search), # Prospects/Inquiries, # Visits,

• APPLICANT FUNNEL

• # Applicants, # Tested, # Interviewed, # Accepted, # Enrolled

• RETENTION FUNNEL

• # Likely to return, # unlikely to return, # 50/50 to return, # not returning

• CONVERSION RATES

• Prospect to Enrolled % (aprox. 20%)

• Visits to Enrolled % (aprox.30%)

• Applicants to Enrolled % (aprox.50%)

• Many variations of above

The math of Enrollment growth

• If you have 200 students and lose 20(not seniors) you

need 20 new students to have a net growth of 0%.

• If you want to have a 10% growth you need 220 students

which means you need 40 new students.

• You need to have enough prospects in your prospect

funnel to reach that goal of 40 new students.

No prospects = now growth or worse.

How many prospects do you

need to obtain 40 students?

• Answer:

It Depends on your historical conversion rates

• Example School Answer:

• 20% Conversion Rate from Prospect to Enrolled

• Result is 200 Prospects/Inquiries needed to obtain 40 Students

• Problem:

Most schools do not track the data so they don’t know the

story of their data.

Inspect what you Expect or you cannot expect any

change.

Enrollment Growth Secrets

Fill funnel and inspect/manage

prospects at every level

Are you fishing for new students in the right pond?

Using Inbound Marketing

to Fill the Funnel with prospects

WHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING?

Sharing is caring and inbound marketing is about creating and sharing content

with the world. By creating content specifically designed to appeal to your dream customers, inbound marketing attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more.

• Make marketing people love.

• By publishing the right content in the right place at the right time, your marketing becomes relevant and helpful to your customers, not interruptive. Now that’s marketing people can love.

Definition and graphics from Hubspot, Inc.

Inbound vs. Traditional Marketing

TRADITIONAL INBOUND

Interruption Relational/Listening

Pushing Pulling

Print, Radio, Direct Mail Blog, White Papers, Guides, Search

Engine Optimization (SEO),

Engaging Content

Sales Cycle

“Customer does X for business”

Buying Cycle

“Business educates, and nurtures

with content for Customer”

One Way Two Way

Buying Prospect’s Attention Earning Prospect’s Attention

Building Websites Building Communities

Inbound Marketing Methodology The best way to turn strangers into customers and promoters of your school.

Graphic from Hubspot

INBOUND MARKETING DONE WELL

INCREASES PROSPECTS

130

75

228

344

120

263

# Prospects # Applicants # Students

CASE STUDY:ANNAPOLIS CHRISTIAN ACADEMY

2012/2013 2013/2014(Projection for Fall 2013)

Grammar of Inbound Marketing

• Content Creation

• S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimization)

• Keyword Optimization (Long Tail Keywords)

• BLOG

• Landing Pages

• C.T.A.’s (Call to Actions)

• S.E.R.P. (Search Engine Result Page)

• Paid Search (Google AdWords, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook)

• E-Guides, E-books, Forms,

• Analytics, Conversion Rates, etc….

• TIP GET HUBSPOT CERTIFIED FREE HUBSPOT CERTIFICATION TRAINING

How we do Inbound and Traditional Marketing

at Annapolis Christian Academy.

• SIMPLICITY AND CLARITY

• BUILD AROUND BUYING PERSONAS

• INTEGRATE TRADITIONAL AND INBOUND MARKETING TACTICS • Direct Mail Example – Google Re-marketing

• WEBSITE DESIGN • 85% PROSPECT FOCUSED

• 15% CURRENT PARENT FOCUSED

• FOCUS ON CONTENT THAT MEETS PROSPECTS WHERE THEY ARE BASED ON BUYING PERSONAS

How we do Inbound Marketing at

Annapolis Christian Academy.

What Are Buyer

Personas?

Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They are based on real data about customer demographics and online behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns. Hubspot Slides

?

How Are Buyer

Personas Created?

Buyer personas are created through research, surveys, and interviews of

your target audience. That includes a mix of customers – both “good” and

“bad” -- prospects, and those outside of your contact database who might

align with your target audience. You’ll collect data that is both qualitative

and quantitative to paint a picture of who your ideal customer is, what they

value, and how your solution fits into their daily lives.

?

Annapolis Buyer Persona Overview

Goal: To create content that attracts and pulls certain buyer personas to the school. Use of Parent guides, Tips, Student profiles, and other material helps educate and nurture prospects to become leads, visit the school, apply, and enroll.

Affluent Alexis BACKGROUND: • Wealthy Housewife • College graduate who worked for several years

after college before getting married and leaving the workforce

• Married with 2 children (10 and 7) • Nominal Christian who takes the kids to a

fashionable mega-church (with good childcare!) about once a month

DEMOGRAPHICS: • Skews female • Age 30-45 • Single HH Income: $250,000+ • Accustomed to urban lifestyle; always has the latest

phone w/ data plan, tablet PC, SUV, etc.

IDENTIFIERS: • Calm demeanor • High expectations • Somewhat disconnected from processes; cares

about results.

Affluent Alexis GOALS:

• Ensure her children receive the very best

• Liaise for her very busy husband

CHALLENGES:

• Keeping a tight schedule

• Keeping up with her kids

• Understanding high philosophical, theological, and pedagogical jargon

HOW WE HELP:

• Provide top-quality education for her children

• Offer excellent communication about school events and her children’s individual needs through multiple technological venues: email, Facebook, website, Blackbaud, flyers, etc.

Affluent Alexis LESS-THAN-REAL QUOTES:

• “It’s tough getting the kids ready in the morning, keeping up with their assignments, and managing to stay presentable.”

• “I don’t have time to get everything done in each day.”

• “I’ve had to deal with so many disappointments when it comes to others.”

COMMON OBJECTIONS:

• I’m worried your teachers, administrators, facilities, and communications won’t be adequate for my and my children’s needs.

• I don’t want to have to add any extra work to my already busy life to learn any academic lingo in order to understand your communications.

A WALK THROUGH:

HOW WE GET A PROSPECT WITH

INBOUND MARKETING

• BLOG CONTENT ABOUT SELECTING A PRESCHOOL

• HEADMASTER AND PRINCIPAL

• CREATE BOOKLETS/GUIDES USING BLOG CONTENT

• PARENT’s GUIDE TO SELECTING A PRESCHOOL IN CORPUS

CHRISTI

• HAVE LANDING PAGES FOR EACH CALL TO ACTION

• GOOGLE AdWords – CUSTOM LANDING PAGE FOR

EACH KEYWORD OPTIMIZIED AD. See example…

• Do not waste money by sending them to your homepage

Paid Search Strategy: Keyword “Christian Preschool Corpus Christi”

Keyword Optimized Local

Google Ad for Christian

Preschool in Corpus Christi

LANDING PAGE FROM

GOOGLE AD

Integrating Traditional

with Inbound Marketing

• DIRECT MAIL CAMPAIGN VIA POSTCARD MANIA

• 4 Post Cards Mailings 12,000-15,000 each

• Focus on giving away content and getting Contact info

• POSTCARD DESIGN FOCUS ON BUYER PERSONAS • Each Postcard’s design has different focus on different buyer

personas.

• Preschool emphasis vs. Upper school emphasis

• CALL TRACKING AND RECORDING

• GOOGLE RE-MARKETING • Display ads appear to follow visitors when they leave our homepage

due to cookies

• Results: Nearly 4000 suspects who visited our website are seeing our display ads in places like CNN.com, Washington Post, etc..

Notice Call to Actions: They meet different prospects in

their buying cycle. Some at Top of Funnel – Download Guide, Others at Bottom of Funnel RSVP to Visit

Google Re-Marketing Service

WHERE DO YOU START WITH AN

INBOUND MARKETING PLAN? STEP 1

CREATE BUYING PERSONAS BY YOURSELF AND WITH A TEAM – 2-4 PERSONAS

– Email me for a template

STEP 2 BUILD A CONTENT CREATION STRATEGY TIED TO BUYER PERSONAS

STEP 3 CREATE A BLOG

– Commit to 2 Blog post per Week (Use Staff)

– Stockpile Content

– Wordpress, Hubspot, etc…

– Build Content around Buyer Personas

– Don’t Talk over their heads.

STEP 4 KEYWORD OPTIMIZATION FOR CONTENT AND WEBSITE

WHERE DO YOU START WITH AN

INBOUND MARKETING PLAN? PART 2

STEP 5- ADD LANDING PAGES AND CALLS TO ACTIONS TO WEBSITE

STEP 6- Use GOOGLE AdWords- Add it to your budget – Use landing pages for Google Adwords not homepage

STEP 7- Plan an IDEAL BUDGET – View Marketing as an Investment – 3-4 Tuitions per 100 students for Marketing

– The smaller the school and the more they need to grow the higher the proportion for the marketing budget. Estimate a school of 200 students needs a $35,000 marketing expense budget for both Inbound and Traditional Marketing.

– Costs: Hubspot Software, Google AdWords, Database Software for Prospects and applicants tracking (RenWeb, Blacbaud, Salesforce.com, etc..) Long Term - Consider switching to Hubspot or other Social Media Friendly Website company

May God Bless your faith-fullness

as you go fishing for prospects!

FUTURE WEBINAR

AND LINKEDIN GROUP

• Post Card Mania is going to offer a Webinar for Integrating Traditional with Inbound Marketing on August 5th.

• Linked In Group – Enrollment Growth through Inbound Marketing Strategies for Classical Christian Schools

• http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=5076092&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

• Email me for details @ RalphCochran99@gmail.com