Finding The Perfect Match: Recruitment and Marketing

Marketing Idea - Hold a Seminar

Why Montessori Schools Should Cooperate, Not Compete

Organize A Word Of Mouth Campaign To Promote Your School

Marketing Idea - Hold a Seminar

When we think of seminars, we tend to think of them as opportunities for professional development. They are a place to see old friends, learn new things, and check out new products or ideas. But have you considered hosting your own seminar as a way to build your school's enrollment?

What if you partnered with your local Chamber of Commerce to offer a seminar to parents?

You could host a School Fair, bringing together schools from all over your community in a large venue, such as a civic auditorium or large school gymnasia. As the organizing school, you get the prime location and your school will be listed as one of the sponsors. You might even consider setting up a demonstration classroom right there in the front of the auditorium where people will walk right by all day long.

Another idea is a seminar on how to choose an effective early childhood program, or ways for parents to stay involved. You could invite current parents and those who are not yet customers attend.

You can invite guest speakers, and add on topics that you think will appeal to parents.

It wouldn't have to be long - an hour or two in the evening, or perhaps on a Saturday, perhaps at a local conference center. The best part is, the publicity for the seminar promotes you and your school, building credibility and awareness in your local community.

Why Montessori Schools Should Cooperate, Not Compete

Competition may seem an inevitable element of doing business to some extent, that's inescapable. But don't overlook the value of cooperation, even with other businesses that, on the surface, may seem to you like fight-to-the-death competitors. You may be pleasantly surprised how happily and profitably you can coexist.Are you really competing?

The first step in considering the possibility of cooperating with other Montessori schools is to examine in detail in what ways your schools are exactly the same, and in where they are different. No two schools are the same. Each offers a distinct atmosphere, school culture, programs, and facilities. If you look closely enough, you may discover that you have more things that make each of you distinct than the same.

Parents don’t know the difference, that’s true. However, its easy enough for each school to set itself apart, highlighting the features that make it distinctive. Each will tend to appeal to some families and not to others. Price, size of the school, age levels offered, commitments for volunteer activities and fund raising that are expected, the character of the campus, and the ‘feel’ of the school community life are as important as your location and the cost of each school’s tuition once you move past the first glance.

But why should you cooperate with your competition? Simple. They really aren’t the competition!!!! Each of you is a Montessori school, struggling to put forward the case for Montessori when the overwhelming majority of schools are traditional, the form of education with which most parents are familiar and comfortable.

Few Montessori schools have large budgets for advertising and public relations. All schools would probably do well to make a much more serious financial investment in marketing to ensure that the phones are ringing off the hook!

But when you and the other Montessori schools in your community work together, instead of separately, your combined ability to promote common themes and benefits that Montessori offers will be much greater than you can accomplish working alone. The goal is not to share the pie evenly, but to end up with a much bigger piece of the pie for everyone!

Schools can cooperate in any number of ways.

They can combine forces to hire a professional marketing team to develop a combined campaign using direct mail, radio, cable tv and print ads. You might want to consider turning to Montessori specific marketing experts like GoMontessori (www.gomontessori.com) over a local firm in your community. It usually will save you money and ends up being just as effective.

On another level, instead of subtly badmouthing one another, schools can consciously refer customers to the other Montessori school in the community that might better fit their needs or preferences. Just make certain that this kindness goes both ways.

Organizing a Word-of-Mouth Campaign For Your School

A Word of Mouth Campaign is an organized set of coordinated activities designed to reach a particular objective.

Schools often sense that most new families learn about them from friends and coworkers. And when you look over the list of things schools can do, you may be tempted to say that you are already doing many of them.

But a Word of Mouth Campaign is different: it is planned and coordinated.

While every school does some of the right things at times, they rarely do them consistently or with enough intensity to create a measurable affect on the calls coming in to your office.

Creating a word of mouth explosion cannot be done haphazardly. It demands a major commitment.

First become clear about how to best describe what makes your school special and different: your programs, facilities, people, and the benefits that it gives to its children and families. Find a way to describe your school in a way that people can easily understand, find compelling and persuasive, and that they can explain to others in simple words is essential. Montessori schools tend to find this very difficult.

Stimulate and collect testimonials about how wonderful your school is from present parents, parents of your graduates, and any outside ìexpertsî that you can find (doctors, the city major, etc.). Teach your staff how to collect testimonials and work them into brochures, ads, and newsletters.

ìTell a friendî programs: Motivate your present families to bring in new families through reward programs. Provide them with support materials, brochures, copies of the school newsletter, school open houses and other special events, a strong school website for customers who want to get their friends to try the product.

Seek out and find ways to encourage highly visible community leaders to place their children in your school: community leaders, physicians, public school administrators, athletes, and other celebrities. Montessori schools tend to be reluctant to openly approach them, and almost relish their schoolís isolation from socially prominent people in their community. Sadly, people who are well known and high regarded can open many doors for your school. Without selling out your values, consider actively seeking these people out.

Canned word of mouth messages ó Leading schools often incorporate direct testimonials about the positive affect the school has had on their children. They weave these messages into brochures, print ads, radio, cable TV, and on their websites.

Community Wide Parenting Education Programs: By sponsoring a year-round series of classes on raising children, schools can bring prospective families, present families, and their staff together in a very positive forum, allowing people to get to know your school and spread a positive message out into the community.

Email discussion groups: More schools are establishing open email discussion groups through free services such as www.yahoogroups.com. By encouraging free communication, the school can monitor what folks have to say and can respond to criticism and attempt to deflect inaccurate and unfair information.

Parent Forums: Parent forums are typically monthly meetings in which parents gather to explore a topic of mutual interest about children and their schooling.

Advisory Councils: By holding open monthly community meetings in which parents can give the schoolís administration and board honest feedback, schools can create a positive vehicle to not only respond to inaccurate information or unfair criticism, but to positively solicit responsible parent input.

Use email broadcasting to regularly communicate with your families and get them to circulate information to the people that they know both within and outside of the school.

Give Them Something Positive To Talk About: If you want parents to talk about your school, give them something meaningful to talk about ó every day! Look for and share stories about things going on in your school that provide evidence of how well your children are doing and how terrific your school really is.

Send in stories and photos about your school to Tomorrowís Child. Donít forget your local newspapers too! Parents love to see their childrenís photos (their photos too!) in print.

Get your school accredited! Increasingly, parents want to know which Montessori schools are accredited. The concept has caught on, at least in larger communities. Just belonging to an organization is no longer enough. Remember, accreditation is the one external and objective vote of confidence that most parents understand. Many groups offer some form of accreditation to child care centers and schools. In addition to the International Montessori Council School Accreditation program, international Montessori school accreditation is offered by the American Montessori Society, the Association Montessori Internationale, and the independent Montessori School Accreditation Council (set up by the National Center for Montessori Education). Several national Montessori organizations, such as the Canadian Council of Montessori Administrators and the Montessori Association of New Zealand, also offer accreditation as well.