When I am listening to the challenges of private school admission officers in recruiting full-pay families, I conclude that the greatest determining factor in a private school’s success is around the leadership of the head of school. The leadership skills and abilities of the director of admission or marketing makes a difference too, but it is the head’s leadership that ensure that the right admission team is assembled, the resources are available and the community understands their responsibilities in the recruitment process..
This leads to five measurements that can be used to prove the head supports full-pay family recruitment or not. Rate them on a scale from 1 – 5 to see how you as a head of school fares. Or use them to serve as a tool for others to evaluate how much the head supports full-pay family recruitment.
- Does the head ensure the quality of the student experience?
- Does your school have a uniqueness that defines your brand?
- Does the enrollment office have adequate resources to pursue an effective marketing strategy to matriculate enough full-pay families?
- Are the employees supporting the work to enroll and re-enroll students?
- Have the right people been hired to do the marketing, communications, and sales work?
Does the head ensure the quality of the student experience?
When the quality of the student experience isn’t high compared to the price families are paying, it affects both the enrollment and re-enrollment of full-pay families. Private schools need families who are euphoric about the experience. When families are not feeling this way, word-of-mouth doesn’t work as effectively as it should. Heads of school need to ensure that there is a consistent, excellent experience. Although a “very good” experience may support a low attrition, it is not enough to create euphoric families and a strong word of mouth. The experience needs to be excellent to match your price that is so much higher than other educational options.
Does your school have a uniqueness that defines your brand?
The private school’s uniqueness is a sign of expertise and brand strength. Parents will pay more for the expert. When the school program is only “vanilla” or a “high quality of vanilla” in the eyes of your prospects, convincing full-pay families to buy at the private school’s price level becomes difficult and presents a greater challenge in small full-pay or strong public school markets.
Do the admission or marketing offices have adequate resources to pursue an effective strategy to matriculate enough full-pay families?
Marketing, communication, and/or admission offices, sometimes one in the same, need to be adequately funded. When this is not the case, the admission office spends most later in the admission funnel while families are on campus. Less time is available for implementing strategies pre-inquiry stage or making the myriad of touchpoints necessary to ensure recruitment success. Without adequate resources, the marketing and communications office can only provide a superficial, school-centric approach to their work which is inadequate in a competitive market. A customer-centric approach has to be executed throughout the process. This includes more contacts with families and a marketing and communication strategy that focuses on the customer’s motivation for giving up their free public school option. This takes a different level of expertise from the person running the program and additional resources.
Are the employees supporting the work to enroll and re-enroll students?
It takes a team approach to convince full-pay families to pay a private school’s tuition. Full-pay parents have high expectations and greater educational choices beyond the average consumer. In order to be the most effective, employees need to buy in to the idea that the school needs to provide a high quality service for its students and emulate that in the admission process so prospects will have a good sense of what they are getting for their money. Oftentimes, employees are disengaged from this thinking, even for providing service to returning families. The expectations for employees need to be set by the leadership – head of school, division heads, and directors of admission and communication – to ensure the team approach is taken.
Have the right people been hired to do the marketing, communications, and selling work?
Among the employees noted above are the people responsible for the marketing, communication, and selling work. They need the right skills and leadership abilities to be able to effectively do the job. In an effort to save money, frequently, the head of school will hire friendly educators who don’t know enough about marketing, communication, and selling operations. This leads to ineffective and inefficient approaches to recruiting full-pay families.
If private schools want to have the right impact on the successful recruitment of full-pay families, these five elements need to be part of the ideology of the school marketing plan and its success is in the hands of the head. How would the head of school be rated on these measurements at your school?
Consider adding the Five Pillars program to your teams training. It is an extremely helpful program to provide skills to those responsible for marketing their school and ensuring the successful recruitment of full-pay families. It will help the head and the enrollment management professionals to set up the right strategies for success. Finally, for the enrollment management professional, this program will ensure that you are a strong link in the full-pay recruitment process.