Avatar: Get Specific with Your Marketing and Save Money

Congratulations! We’re excited that you’re taking the first step toward marketing your Montessori school to attract more families and increase student enrollment.

Before you can really dive in, there are a few critical questions to consider: :

• How can you reach the right audience?

• Is your advertising budget being used to connect with parents searching for schools for their young children?

• Does your marketing plan include an avatar?
• Do you know what an avatar is in terms of marketing?

As you can see, avatars play an important role in the success of your digital marketing. So, let’s take a moment to explain what, exactly, an avatar is and why you need one (or two).

What is an avatar and why should you build one?

The short answer to this question is:
Your ideal “customer” (i.e. family), and, so you can connect with them — a bunch of them.

Think of an avatar as your ideal prospect, client, customer, parent. The more specific you are, the better you’ll be able to reach them and deliver your important message. It’s safe to say most Montessori schools seek parents and guardians of children who will fully embrace the Montessori method and lifestyle. But we need to get much more specific to find your unique family fit.

Their needs are specific, and when you’re able to hone in on these desires, you seek out families who are well-matched for your school. You both benefit. After all is said and done, you gain a new student, and the family (your avatar) finds the best educational experience for their little one. The right avatar can potentially lead you to many of these win-win situations, increasing your enrollment with each one.

Who is your ideal family?

Of course, you want to attract parents and guardians who believe in or are curious about, the Montessori philosophy — families who are searching for a less traditional method of early education for their kids. A deliberate avatar allows you to identify the specific characteristics of your ideal parents. It helps you understand these parents’ desires, questions, fears, concerns, and motivations.

To create your avatar, first think of a list of questions to help you gather relevant information. Remember, you are crafting your ideal family here. If you could custom create them, what would they look like?

• Where do they live?
• How old are they?
• How old are their children?
• Are they married?
• What is their profession?
• What is their household income?
• What are their religious/political views?
• What are their personal interests?
• What are their favorite websites?
• What are their family goals?
• What do they care about?
• What are their obstacles?
• What are their problems?
• What values are they committed to?

Your list of questions may at first appear marginally invasive, but outlining detailed information about your ideal families’ beliefs, philosophies, hopes, and life goals can ultimately lead them to your proverbial doorstep — your school website, of course.

The reason you want to define your audience so thoroughly is so you can target your specific audience, thus spend your advertising budget as wisely as possible. See the connection?

You can throw a bunch of your advertising budget at the entire online community and hope some of it lands in the laps of your ideal parents, or, you can do a little work up front and be absolutely sure that each dollar spent goes to qualified prospects.

Why you need to understand their fears, too.

Once you understand your ideal parents’ hopes, dreams, and aspirations, you need to understand their fears and hesitations, too. Why? So you can provide a solution for them to overcome their concerns. So you can reassure them that when they choose to send their tiny humans your school, they no longer have to worry about those issues.

What concerns parents of Montessori children the most? Is it tuition? Is it preparedness for future educational experiences? Is it socialization? Is it your facility? Is it qualified teachers?

Once you identify these areas of uncertainty in your avatar, you can address them in your marketing.

If you identify “qualified teachers” as a major concern for prospective parents, you can let them know about the rigorous training each of your instructors completes. Or, how the director of your school hand-selects each and every staff member to ensure that only the highest quality educators are teaching your children.

Where should you begin?

We know this whole avatar creation might be a lot to digest, especially because your expertise lies in offering an outstanding Montessori education to your community, not in marketing.

We understand the challenge, and happily note that we at Nido Marketing, are avatar experts, and when you partner with us, we’ll help you through the hard parts.

Join the free membership community to gain access to our forum so our helpful Montessori digital marketing team, along with other members of Montessori schools around the country, can share knowledge and ideas.

It’s free to sign up!