What Should New Admission Professionals Know in Order to Excel in Marketing Their School?
This week I will participate on the faculty of the SSAT Admission Training Institute (ATI). The focus of this program is for new admission professionals with zero to three years experience.
Each ATI faculty member serves as an advisor and shapes five sessions around the needs of the participants in their group. Drawing from my twelve years of involvement with ATI and my experience as a consultant for individuals and schools, I have come up with a list of questions that are pertinent for new admission professionals to understand in order to excel in marketing their school.
During my five sessions, I answer questions as the participants or I bring up topics related to the answers. By using this technique, the participants learn the key elements of what they need to know, how to apply it to their own real situations, and also have fun trying to complete the list of questions before the end of my five sessions with them. Here are the questions:
- What are the differences between the admission funnel and the conversion experience concepts?
- What are the differences between marketing, communications, and sales?
- Do your prospective families buy differently than you would if purchasing an item with a lofty pricetag? Explain your answer.
- Is the buyer the consumer?
- WITPTBSFTC?
- What are the three communication delivery formats?
- Is there a difference in the marketing execution to a prospective student versus that of the potentially re-enrolling student? Explain your answer.
- What is The Five Pillars paradigm?
- Is there a correlation between applicant demand creation and the amount of resources needed to produce this demand? Explain your answer.
- What is the purpose of financial aid?
- What makes the school a business?
- Is the head of school a major player in the successful enrollment of full-pay families? Explain your answer.
How did you do?
During the ATI, twenty- two different sessions will be offered. New admission professionals will participate in seven of these sessions as well as five small group advisory sessions. The five advisory sessions are taught by the same advisor with twelve to fifteen new admission professionals in each group. For more information on the ATI agenda, please visit this link: http://www.admission.org/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/13_ATI_Program__for_web.pdf