Create a Yearly Plan for Marketing Outreach

When it comes to increasing enrollment and strengthening community engagement, many schools ask the same question: How do we stay consistently visible without burning out our team? The answer lies in a well-planned communication calendar that aligns marketing efforts with the school year’s natural rhythm.

In our recent Frogtummy Working Group, we focused on exactly that: creating a yearly marketing outreach plan that distinguishes between potential families and current families, while maximizing communication impact throughout the year. Here’s what we learned.

How to get families to read communications?

• Keep it clean and simple
  Less is more. Keep communication as short as possible while still getting the message across. Use a newsletter template with bold paragraph headers and highlight time sensitive information.
• Use text messaging when necessary
  Send information via text message when time sensitive or of high importance.
  
• Check to see how communication looks
  Send messages to yourself to check for accuracy and make sure they are easy to read. Most families read their email on a mobile device so check to see how messages look on mobile as well.
• Keep messages short
  Consider breaking messages up and sending separately to shorten the length of the message. Some schools send a bi-weekly newsletter.
• Send newsletters as JPGs
  When sending your newsletter via email & text, show the newsletter "inline" as a JPG (in addition to attaching as a PDF and viewing on a website). A JPG can be scanned quickly without opening a file or visiting a website.

How to make communication to families personal?

• For potential families, hold in-person events throughout the year
  Whenever possible, invite new families into your school. Ideas from schools include:
  • School Tours
  • Enrollment Interest Meetings - One school holds these monthly with two Directors and they have been well attended.
  • New Family Events - This would include orientations, Accepted Family Welcome events, summer BBQs, etc.
• For new families, check in and get feedback
  Reach out to new families in the Spring and see how their students are doing. Follow-up by having them come in to record parent/student testimonials.
• For current families, remember they still need nurturing 
  Current families should have an easy way to communicate with the school. Use two-way communication to help nurture relationships with current families.