All You Need to Know About Montessori School Marketing

Beyond billboards, pamphlets, and bumper stickers, there is much more you can do to market your Montessori school and provide exposure so that your message can reach to prospective parents. In today’s date, it is simply not enough to build a great Montessori school to attract parents. The earning capacity and value of such an establishment generally depends on two things: the quality of education and how well you market your school to your prospective customers.

Unfortunately, great marketing requires a lot more efforts than just hanging a sign board saying, “Admissions Open”, on your front gate and hoping for the best. It is understandable for an educator to find it difficult and confusing to pick out the most suitable marketing tools and techniques to market their Montessori school and attract prospective customers to your educational program.

Why Opt for Online Marketing to Improve your Montessori Enrollments

A majority of educators rely on the traditional marketing techniques, such as advertisements, banners, pamphlets, bumper stickers, and others, to increase the number of enrollments. However, times have changed, and so have the habits of people on how they search for businesses and schools for their children. Gone are the days when a simple sign board with a phone number used to work like a charm. Today’s parents have embraced the different online trends and supporting technology with open arms and are fully aware of how to use it to their advantage and convenience.

We live in a digital era where everything can be done with a computer and internet connection. People have grown accustomed to using online resources to get information and make important decisions. The same is the case with parents searching for good schools offering robust educational programs to enroll their children. The online world has opened a whole host of opportunities for educators to easily market their Montessori school and spread the word around among their target market.

About 80 percent of parents today belong to the millennial generation – those born between 1981 and 2000 – and the majority of these parents are “wired”. According to a survey by eMarketer.com:

• 94% of millennials use the internet
• 83% of millennials view digital videos
• 81% of millennials use social media
• 87% of millennials have a cell phone
• 67% of millennials have a smartphone
• 76% of millennials use Facebook
• 41% of millennials don’t have a landline phone

Whenever a millennial has a question, they will immediately pull out their smartphone, go on Google, and search for it to get answers. If you ask them to contact someone, they are likely to send a text message instead of calling or sending an email. So if you think having a sign with your school’s number on it can attract potential parents, you are probably missing out on a huge portion of your prospective enrollment population.

What can you Do to Market Your Montessori School?

There are thousands of studies and researches supporting the effectiveness of marketing in enhancing the number of customers a business can attract, and same goes with Montessori schooling. However, effective marketing requires creating the perfect mix of tactics and techniques to increase the brand footprint of your Montessori schooling system.

Here we have shared a few marketing channels that can work wonders to improve the enrollment figures of your Montessori school.

1. Make a School Website

The first step to start your Montessori schooling marketing is to establish your online presence by creating a website. Unlike a few years ago, if you don’t have a website, it means that your school doesn’t exist to a major chunk of your target market. You can hire a competent web designer to work with you and design website that seamlessly captures the entire theme your school.

Make sure to add attractive, child-friendly imagery and real testimonials and reviews of satisfied parents to build credibility. If possible, make a video of your school and show its environment to give parents an idea of what would it be like for their children to study there. You may include a few interviews of satisfied parents as well.

2. Establish a Presence on Social Media

Social media has become deeply rooted in our lives. It has been found that 73 percent of adults who use the internet are on one or more social media sites. Considering this fact, it makes sense to establish a presence of your school on social media, in addition to your website. Be sure to make a separate page or profile for your Montessori school. Invite parents to join that page or profile, and request them to leave positive reviews and share it with their friends and family.

To keep your social media page “alive”, regularly post educational and thought-provoking images and text-based status. You should also post about the upcoming events, and share pictures and videos of the recent events.

3. Word of Mouth Marketing

One of the most powerful ways of marketing is word of mouth marketing that can dramatically increase the number of enrollments for your Montessori school. The concept is quite simple – people trust the word of other people rather than businesses bragging about their services. That is why it is very important for you to encourage current parents to spread the word about your school in their personal networks.

A great way to do so is by starting a referral program. You can provide the incentive of reducing fees for a single or a couple of months or paying the parents hard cash to motivate them in asking their friends and family to enroll their children in your school. You can be creative and come up with a different referral program or any other way to encourage parents to put in a good word for your Montessori school as well.

Conclusion

The backbone of any nation depends on two important things – education and economy. And it won’t be wrong to say that without education, there is no hope for the economy to flourish. Education should be given importance from the very basic level, where children are just starting to learn things and develop their personality and character accordingly. Montessori schooling builds the foundation of children, and if you are providing quality educational services, you need to get your school on the market for parents to enroll their kids and benefit from your offerings by using different online marketing tools and techniques.