The Schools Blog

Advertising spaces in the school to parents

The most regular issue raised in correspondence to me relates to recruiting pupils and students to schools.  One recent issue involved a primary school without space for a nursery unit finding its number drop because parents prefer to sign up for the school with a nursery unit (irrespective of any other consideration).  Another involved a secondary school opening a new sixth form unit, and wanting to tell parents about this to get the numbers is the sixth right up.

Obviously in all such cases as this, other schools are not going to be helpful, since they are keen to fill their own quotas.  So the question is raised, what is the most cost effective method of advertising an availability of spaces directly to parents.

“Cost effective” is the key phrase here - there are many systems that can work, but some are going to cost more than others.

Some schools have tried using mailing lists of parents, but the big problem with these is that many of them are based on assumption.   What the list developers might do is take the electoral roll lists of houses with 17 year olds in, and assume that many of them will also have a 15 year old, who might be going to the sixth form.   Another approach takes postcodes where families with young children live, and mail all of them - knowing that perhaps one house in 3 has a young child.

This is all a bit hit and miss, and so is rather expensive.   The alternative however is more complex, although over time generates a much better response rate.

First, the school sets up a PR operation, ensuring that a significant news story reaches the local media each month, where possible relating the educational news of the day to work in the school.    Each press release includes the fact that any parent wanting information on places in the school should email a particular address.

Second, those emails are then gathered together and everyone is mailed every two or three weeks with a new piece of information about the school, about education, about the curriculum etc.  The point here is that each item emailed does not have to be an advert for the school - it just comes from the school.  In this way your school’s name is in front of the parent all the time - while other schools’ names are not.

Thus your school becomes the heart of education information, and parents start to take note of what you say, rather than the gossip at the school gate or at the middle-class dinner party.  As a result application levels go up.

I do hear people say some times that “parents would object if we emailed them every 2 weeks” - but the fact is, if you conclude the message with details of how to unsubscribe from the list, these people will be able to find their way out - and all our experience in running such services is that most parents who have bothered to contact the school in the first place want information - they want to know more - and that is what you are telling them.

Of course much depends on how well the pieces are written - but when the style is right, this approach can work very well indeed.  It doesn’t have the immediate punch of a mailshot, but its costs over time are far less, and its results over time are far better.

This article first appeared in the PR and Marketing edition of Education Management News - a free publication.  If you would like to receive this publication once or twice a week just email PR@schools.co.uk and write the word SUBSCRIBE in capital letters in the subject line.  Alternatively you can read more about the service and other news services we run by clicking here