These ideas are all taken from my experience as a marketing manager and / or campus director for an international media production vocational school. Below is a starting-point-list of ideas, topics, areas, and advertising channels to consider when marketing your trade or vocational school. Some cost money, others cost only time.
One of the key points is that you construct a diverse marketing mix that combines solid student lead generation techniques with more traditional advertising awareness so that you get a balance between targeted enrollments and building long-term public awareness of your school.
Potential Employers. I’ve opened a few schools now, and we were most effective when we were very aggressive in reaching out to the industry first (before opening the campus or recruiting students). You MUST get to know the actual people who will be hiring your graduates. Don’t forget that they not only hire, but they meet and interact with tons of people interested in the trade (especially if its a trade that is prone to internships), and therefore can give you lots of word of mouth referrals. Have an open house just for potential employers, expand your advisory board to get their input, etc. Interact with the industry employers.
Career / Education Counselors. All types and kinds MUST be on your allies. Send brochures, have special open house days just for guidance counselors, meet with them one on one –whatever you have to do to help career counselors understand your vocational / trade school as much as possible. The more they understand your programs, courses, and classes, the more likely they’ll refer students to you. Go beyond just high school as well: there are many professional education advisors (including organizations supporting their industry) that you can access.
Career / College Websites. I’m sure you already know about this channel. Don’t overlook it. They spend A LOT of money on Google Ads, Yahoo and Bing PPC search marketing, so that they can get in the top 2 or 3 for every search, every vocation, and every location. Why? Because they charge $30-40 per lead that they successfully capture for their clients. But take advantage of their conversion knowledge. You pay them for their marketing and visit to conversion expertise, so that you can focus on closing the deal. Give it a try if you haven’t yet done so. Use school search websites for lead bursts when you need them, for open house pushes, etc. The good ones are cost per lead, not click or impression, so they are an effective way to manage the number of leads your admissions team is handling at any given moment. They’re great tools to almost guarantee you’ll get more leads (and when you have enough leads for admissions to handle pause the campaigns.)
Pay Per Click campaigns (smart ones with good landing pages and a solid admissions system. Read more about search engine marketing).
Do You Know Where Your Graduates Are? I’ve gotten more new students from happy graduates than I can shake a course catalog at. Seriously. You have to track graduates and their employment for regulation and accreditation anyway, so why not take the extra step to not just track, but offer post-graduation connections: alumni meetings, special event gatherings for graduates, extra training seminars for graduates, etc. so that your graduates stay involved with your school. The effort will pay you back 10 fold.
Webcast Seminars. If you have a decent-sized email list, inquiry lead mailing list, and social network, then you can help keep them engaged and ultimately convert to students by webcasting your seminars (“special” seminars) and invite them to participate.
CRM system. I cannot overstate how important it is to have a good system to track and communicate with your leads. Every single time we’ve put in a custom CRM solution schools have converted more students. Every time.
Teach at Open House Days, Don’t Just Inform. Students (and their parents) attend a school open house because they want to know what they’ll learn, how they can pay for it, and “get a taste” of what it will be like to be a student. There should be demonstrations happening all over your campus. Your best teachers giving seminars, and activity all over the place. It’s like a giant class audit day where prospective students and parents get the school “Experience” not just the information they can read in a course brochure or catalog.
Student Events = Happy Students = Good Word of Mouth. When I got my first campus director job, my mentor at the time mentioned the “cool school” that was in Vienna. It had a wait list, constantly, because it was the cool place to go. An excellent program AND fun. That aspect is vital. I know it’s hard when there’s always pressure to cut costs and improve efficiency, but the more events and gatherings and… well, anything you can do to help build your school into a community, the better you’re word of mouth will become. Remember: your students are INSIDE the target demo. The likelihood that people they know from 1 to 3 degrees of separation will also be interested in your kind of school is guaranteed. Events, student services, etc. that are designed to keep students happy is marketing just as much as student services.
