Marketing
The numbers game
Maintaining and even increasing the school roll is vital to securing your school’s future. Stephen Martin-Scott talks to two bursars about the effective changes that they have introduced to boost their pupil numbers
Every year, many schools spend £20-30,000, sometimes more, on advertising for new pupils. The analysis that goes into how effectively this is spent is often limited. Few schools apply the same rigour in making this investment compared with, say, evaluating photocopiers which cost much less.
It is important that schools keep their name in front of parent prospects and a key route will be through advertising. But these prospects are increasingly difficult to reach in a cost-effective manner. The importance of handling the parents who to ring up or email a school is communication that often does not gain the management attention that it deserves.
“Royal Wolverhampton School is in a very competitive local market”, says bursar Devis Penn. “I was keen to make sure that every enquiry we received was dealt with in the most effective way. I arranged for a “mystery shopper” to visit us. It showed that our systems, while seeming to address the process effectively, did not meet the mystery shopper’s expectations. So we undertook an admissions review to evaluate the whole process, from first parental enquiry to signing up their child.”
What is the issue?
At St Margaret’s School, Bushey, the issues were a little different. This thriving 400+ single sex girl’s school had previously been suffering from declining numbers.
Supported by a commercially-aware chair of governors, the school’s bursar, Neville de Lord, wanted to know whether this was the result of a general decline in enthusiasm for single-sex education, or whether it was something to do with the way the school presented itself.
“With enviable GCSE and A-Level results year in, year out, we had happy, high-achieving girls. What I needed to know was whether we were missing a trick somewhere in the way we presented ourselves, which begins with our advertising and our admissions. There was little point spending thousands of pounds in advertising if we weren’t doing all we could to communicate in an effective, friendly manner with each expensively-acquired enquiring parent.”
Like Royal Wolverhampton School, St Margaret’s School undertook an admissions review. “Having a fresh pair of eyes was immensely helpful. Not only was it valuable to address our communications which, as in most schools, had evolved rather than had been designed from first principles, it was looking at ‘givens’ such as the tour, that was really helpful”, said Neville de Lord.
Devis Penn agreed: “After we had considered our review, we made a number of changes to our tour. It ended up taking a little longer, but it meant that parents gained a better understanding of the school and its facilities, but not necessarily by following the route taken by both pupils and staff – and by tour guides. Also, lighting and furniture are usually taken for granted, yet the review showed that in the waiting area for parents, for example, we could make useful changes without incurring huge costs. This area has been relocated and parents now sit in a more comfortable area, without being bothered by the hurly-burly of an often noisy reception. And while they wait they can now enjoy the pupils’ artwork on the walls.”
Friendly approach
Neville de Lord discovered that “we did not keep in touch with parent prospects as frequently or in as amiable a manner as we ought. Parents do not expect to be approached in a manner that suggests that you think that they should feel privileged to be dealing with you! Equally, we were surprised by how re-designing our manual enquiry form made a real difference to the effectiveness of data collection. We now get more data which, with our recently updated software, means we are able to improve our prospect communication and analysis of the data.”
The whole process from reviewing the data captured on initial contact, to considering what is sent out, how often re-contact should be made, is only the start. How easily prospects can park their cars, how welcome they are made on arrival, and the usefulness of the tour are just as vital. Having a well-designed prospectus and an easily navigable website are important, but unless the rest of the process is handled effectively, much of the money invested in advertising will be wasted.
Stephen Martin-Scott is managing partner of The School Marketing Partnership. He can be contacted on 01823 334560 or by email through www.schoolsmarketing.com
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