How Nido Marketing’s Complete Plan Helped The Montessori School of Lake Forest Reach Their Marketing Goals

Key Insights

• The power of a great school website
• Device compatibility
• ADA compliance
• Website content
• Photography
• Customer support
• Automations
• Montessori CRM
  
• The power of the Complete Marketing Plan

About The Montessori School of Lake Forest

The Montessori School of Lake Forest (MSLF) celebrates each child’s individuality and helps them discover how they can best contribute to the world and culture. 

The Montessori School of Lake Forest has many rooftops and long hallways. When the school was designed in Illinois in 1989, discussions between members of the board, faculty, and students led to creating “a house within a school”. Specifically designed from the viewpoint of a child, and according to Dr. Montessori’s philosophy, the “miniature home” of each classroom includes an exterior patio and garden. The school’s long hallways signify the sidewalk that leads the child into their prepared home-like classroom environment.

The rooftops of the Montessori School of Lake Forest symbolize the importance of the unity of our faculty, staff, and families. The Montessori philosophy lends itself as well to the whole school as it does to the classroom. Today, the MSLF is a pillar of its local community and serves many families and children. Nido Marketing is proud to partner with a school offering such high quality programs and improving their local community. 

Why Nido Marketing?

When MSLF reached out to us, they wanted to improve their overall digital marketing strategy and school website. Their aim was to start growing their enrollment by reaching the right prospective families, improving their methods of communication, and developing a website that represented their school. 

Nido Marketing began their partnership with MSLF in February of 2022 and it has been wonderful to launch their new school website, run ads, and get MSLF staff integrated with the Montessori CRM. Since working with us, their communication and enrollment process has become streamlined and easier to manage, their website has significantly improved, and their enrollment has taken off through the use of effective digital ads. 

The Power of a Great School Website

As digital marketers, we understand that effective digital marketing begins with a great website. Your school website is the foundation of your overall digital marketing strategy. We are passionate about helping our clients build the best website possible because we want them to stand out and inspire more parents to learn about and love Montessori. This is why we work closely with schools to help them achieve a website that:

• Looks modern, updated, and beautiful
• Has a design and automations that make it easy for visitors to interact 
• Includes calls to action and lead generators
• Has informative and relevant content 
• Helps build credibility online
• Includes high resolution images and graphics
• Is ADA compliant
• Is compatible across devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops)

We included all of these features on MSLF's new website. Since it was first launched, it has helped them reach new families, and grow their overall enrollment. 

The school's we partner with can choose from a variety of different Montessori website themes. The development team works closely with each school to customize their website and make sure their vision comes to life. Nido Marketing has unique marketing expertise in the Montessori space. We understand what content will help optimize your website and what designs lead to interested parents so that each school can achieve their goal of growing their enrollment. 

Built in forms and automations will make it easy for parents to schedule a tour or request more information at their convenience. Each website we design will be compatible and easy to navigate on any device, so busy parents can request a tour from their smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Accessibility and being easy to reach shows that a school is professional and connects well with today's parents!

Speaking of accessibility, all of the websites that Nido Marketing designed can be made ADA compliant at no additional cost. ADA compliance is short for the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design. What that means is that all electronic information and technology—i.e, your website—must be accessible to those with disabilities. This opens up your website to more prospective families and lets your community know that your school is a place for inclusivity. 

Want a website that is well designed, ADA compliant, and will help you grow enrollment? Learn more about our Website Services here!

Montessori Website Content

Being strategic about what content you include on your school website is an important factor in digital marketing. When a school partners with Nido Marketing to build a new website, we provide much of the website content. It is up to the individual client as to how they wish to utilize this content. We provide blogs, program information, social media posting, and more. As part of our complete plan, MSLF has access to all of our Content Services. 

The goal of content on a Montessori school website is to:

• Educate families on what Montessori is and its unique benefits 
• Persuade them to engage and start a conversion (request more information or a tour)
• Explain how your services and programs work
• Provide relevant and timely information that parents want to know

We help schools with content because we understand it is one of the more time consuming elements of a digital marketing plan. It can be challenging to find time to produce weekly blogs, update your program information, and make sure that the copywriting on your website stands out from the rest. 

Photography: Sharing Your Beautiful Montessori Environments

MSLF wanted to take full advantage of our marketing services, so they signed up for our full marketing package with our annual plan. By doing this, they received a free photography session with our Montessori photographer for free. We will send our experienced photographer out to their school to photograph their classrooms, materials, students, and staff so that they can build up a professional photo library. Nido Marketing takes care of everything with our Montessori photography service:

• Arranging and scheduling your photo shoot.
• Photo release forms for your families.
• A questionnaire to communicate what you’d like the photographer to focus on.
• A series of social posts that use your new images.
• A photo library for your school.

Photographs are highly valuable assets to any business. MSLF can use their professional photos for advertisements, brochures, their website, social media, and more for years to come. 

If your school is interested in a FREE photography session, you can sign up for the annual plan with Nido Marketing! Learn more here.

Customer Support

A major perk of working with Nido Marketing is that all of our clients will be paired with one of our Client Success Managers. Our Client Success Managers are there to answer questions, help clients with onboarding and using our software, and to be a point of communication between the client and the web development, graphic design, and ad management teams. We want all of our clients to have a point of contact who understands their unique case, is familiar with their needs, and that they can call on anytime to speak to one-on-one. 

"We have been so pleased with the support and work to transition our website, and for the implementation of the CRM for managing our admissions traffic. There are also resources that we haven’t even yet scratched the surface on yet! Paula has been wonderful to work with, and we are grateful to her for her help to refine our website and our process."

-Teresa Pavelich, Administrative Director at MSLF

When MSLF partnered with Nido Marketing, they worked closely with our Client Success Manager, Paula Arcila Duvaltier. Paula took the time to learn about MSLF, understand their needs, goals, and vision, and be there to help them understand how to make the most of the services they singed up for. When MSLF needed assistance, or just wanted a check in, they could reach Paula via email, or schedule a call with her. 

We truly believe this creates a completely unique experience for our clients. They will never have to talk to a bot, or get their questions answered from a different employee every time they need assistance. Instead, our clients will have an experienced point of contact who is there whenever they need support. 

"I have had the opportunity to work closely with Teresa and Hope from Montessori School of Lake Forest to ensure they received the support they needed in creating their new website and getting used to our Montessori CRM. I was able to answer their questions and work with them one on one. I love working with clients directly as I can get to know their specific needs and be there whenever they need help. It has always been a pleasure working with Teresa and Hope."

-Paula Arcila Duvaltier, Client Success Manager at Nido Marketing

Montessori CRM: Your Website & Automations Made Easy

We have enough knowledge of the Montessori space to understand that the best use of time for administrators is not to spend hours in front of a computer entering every inquiry manually and keeping track of every parent that shows interest one by one. That time could be better spent connecting with families in the school community, making sure your staff needs are met, and staying on top of events, operations, and any situations that may arise throughout the day. This is why using a CRM (Client Relationship Manager) and automations can be a game changer for schools. It allows you to track your admissions at a glance and easily keep track of all your prospective and current families. 

When we began working with MSLF, we wanted them to have a website powered by a CRM that could help them track all of their leads and develop a streamlined admissions process. Every inquiry that comes in through their school website will be available for them to access and respond to automatically using our Montessori CRM. Paula worked closely with the team at MSLF to make sure they understood how to use the software, how they could customize different forms for their school website, and market to prospective families via email or SMS.  

MSLF can do so much more with our Montessori CRM such as: 

With the use of the Nido Marketing Montessori CRM, MSLF was able to include forms on their website such as the one pictured above. All the leads that come in from the forms are processed in the CRM. This makes tracking so much easier and quicker. No more spreadsheets, manual inputting, or searching through email for leads. This is a huge time saver for schools that allows the administration and admissions team to see where leads are coming from and how far along they are in the admissions process. 

Do you want to learn more about how a Montessori CRM can help your school's admission process? Click here to learn more!

All the Marketing You Need: The Nido Marketing Complete Plan

MSLF is a Complete Plan client with Nido Marketing. This means they get access to all of our marketing services and a membership to our resource exchange website, Montessori Thrive. 

Our full service plan includes access to:

• A Montessori Website
• Montessori CRM
• Unlimited Graphic Design
• Google Ads Management
• Socials Ad Management
• Montessori Content

With this plan, we are able to cover all the digital marketing bases for MSLF.

• With our ad management services, we are able to advise MSLF on ad budget and help them run digital ads that target the right families and get them the best return on investment possible. 
• With content, we are able to optimize their website, utilize the best graphics and photos possible, and provide copy that is going to help them communicate with prospective families. 
• With our CRM, we have helped them simplify and automate their admissions process and keep track of all their leads and contacts
• With our Montessori Website design, we have given them a stronger foundation for their overall digital marketing efforts and helped them build the most important asset in their digital marketing strategy. 

Everything has really come together wonderfully for MSLF. When we help schools with their marketing, we know that they will have more time to serve and dedicate themselves to the families within their community. That's why we love what we do!

We hope to have a continued partnership with MSLF in the future and continue to help them grow their school and reach more prospective families. Thank you to MSLF for all that you do for Montessori and for future generations!

Want to be our next success story? Schedule a FREE marketing consultation today & start your Montessori marketing journey!