Montessori Digital Marketing Fundamentals Part One: Building Your Foundation

Like most Montessorians, you want to help your school grow and reach its full potential.

With that goal in mind, some of your biggest objectives are reaching more prospective parents, increasing enrollment, and maintaining a full tour schedule so you can be ready to welcome new students as others graduate.

Now for the good news:

You can achieve all of this and more with a good digital marketing strategy—as long as that strategy is built on a solid foundation.

Nido Marketing has proven repeatedly that all it takes is a little time and energy up front to turn your digital marketing plan into a well-oiled machine that works its own to bring in new leads, set up tours, and keep your school thriving.

That way, all you have to do is focus on providing the best Montessori education possible for your students, parents, and community.

Sound good? Let’s get started.

Your digital marketing foundation is made up of three essential elements:

1. Your avatar
2. Your one-liner
3. Your website and online listings

Your avatar is your ideal audience—the person or people to whom you are speaking.

For Montessori schools, this means parents. However, because different types of parents have different needs and concerns, you should always develop multiple avatars to ensure you reach each of your desired segments.

For example, a married couple with a 1-year-old will have very different needs and concerns than a single mom with an 8-year-old. That means you will need to “talk” to each group differently when planning your marketing strategy, just as if you were speaking to them in person.

To help you start brainstorming your different avatars and honing your messaging for each, Nido Marketing created a handy worksheet with a few important characteristics to think about.

You can download a copy of the worksheet here.

When filling it out, focus on these important questions for each avatar:

• What do they want?
• What problem do they have?
• What is your solution to that problem?
• Why is your school specifically suited to solve that problem?
• What does their life look like after you have solved their problem?

Thinking about these questions, you can begin to see the real value of digital marketing for your Montessori school: the ability to pinpoint a specific audience segment based on their problem or concern and clearly demonstrate how you provide a solution (and how amazing their life will be once you do).

Once you have identified your avatars, it’s time to come up with your one-liner.

This is a short but attention-grabbing statement about who you are, what you do, and why. In other words, this is your elevator pitch, so it has to be good. Not only that, but it has to be clear enough so that people can understand it and repeat it.

How do you come up with a good one-liner?

Start with a brainstorming session using the problem à solution à success equation.

For example, many parents understand traditional education may not always be the best option but are unsure what other options are out there (the problem).

You emphasize that the Montessori Method is a child-centered education approach based on scientific observations from birth to adulthood (the solution).

So, your one-liner (the success) goes something like, “Through the authentic application of the Montessori Method, children develop into highly capable and responsible adults prepared for success in the real world.”

Focusing your one-liner on your audience and their unique needs and concerns leads to engagement, which in turn leads to conversions.

The final step in developing a solid foundation is your website and online listings.

The goal of your Montessori website is similar to that of any other business: to convert visitors.

You have a specific action you want visitors to do, such as schedule a tour or fill out a form for more information, and your website needs to be able to steer them toward that goal.

If it doesn’t, there are a few things you can do right now to optimize your site.

Each of the following tips has been proven to increase engagement and conversion on websites, so if you can implement even just a few you are guaranteed to see a difference.

State exactly what you do as your header.

For example, “We are an authentic Montessori school in [location].”

State why the visitor needs what you have to offer and how it will benefit them.

For example, “We help children become responsible and engaged members of society that have a positive impact on the world.”

Place a direct call to action (CTA) button in your header and in the top right.

Your CTA provides very specific direction regarding the action you want visitors to take and moves the process along for parents who are ready to take the next step. “SCHEDULE A TOUR” and “REQUEST INFORMATION” are good examples.

Show images of happy children and parents in a Montessori environment.

Photos of children engaged in play and interacting with their peers and teachers in a positive way is powerful imagery that further enhances engagement and helps parents envision the benefits of enrollment for their child.

Give visitors a simple, three- to four-step plan.

Take your whole process and divide it into simple steps, such as schedule a tour, complete the enrollment form, feel confident knowing your child is thriving in a unique educational environment. Then, spotlight those steps on your website in a way that is clear and concise.

Feeling a little lost? Not to worry.

Nido Marketing is available if you have questions about any of these tips or if you would like us to review your current website and offer suggestions.

And last but not least, let’s talk about your local listings.

Just like your website, your listings are your online presence. Why are they so important?

Your listings reinforce your legitimacy to search engines, which verify your information from one site or source to the next. The reward is often higher website rankings—which we don’t have to tell you are very good for your Montessori school.

We recommend focusing on these four big platforms:

• Google My Business
• Facebook
• GreatSchools
• Yelp
• Apple Maps (which actually pulls from Yelp)

For second plane members and above, Nido Marketing offers step-by-step courses on how to “claim” each of these listings. Be sure to look for them in the Courses section of the Nido Marketing Members site.

Let’s do a quick recap about creating a digital marketing foundation for your Montessori school.

• Three essential elements of a solid foundation are your avatar, your one-liner, and your website and local listings.
• Your avatar is your audience, or the people to whom you’re speaking.
• Your one-liner is what you want to say.
• Your website and local listings are where you will say it.

It is important to carefully consider and develop each of these elements before progressing with your digital marketing strategy, and Nido Marketing can help answer any questions as you walk through the process.

As the only agency created exclusively for Montessorians by Montessorians, we’ve put in the hard work to nail down exactly what makes a great digital marketing foundation for Montessori schools.

Call or email us today to learn more.