Best School Marketing Strategies To Increase Student Enrollment and Donations
Great things happen in your school every day, but the media isn’t covering them.
Why? Because success stories don’t tell themselves, and journalists don’t know what they don’t know.
It is crucial to maintain a regular media presence to attract the students and staff best aligned with your school’s mission. The same applies to attracting high-dollar donors.
The good news is that the right strategy can make your school brand featured frequently in the feature and ultimately become the “go-to” organization for education stories.
While there are many different strategies you can implement, the following sections will help you choose the right ones for marketing your school to the media much sooner than later. And, It might not be as hard as you think.
The Top School Marketing Strategy Best Practice: Media Relations
Have you noticed that certain schools seem to be in the news more than others? In such cases, there are a few things at play. The first is that someone is telling editors and reporters what’s happening inside the building, and in some cases, beyond. The second is that those schools have a reputation for delivering good stories, starting their events on time, and having dedicated communications personnel to serve as the media contact. Communication specialists should be those responsible for crafting press releases, steering content marketing, and managing social media platforms.
Trust is a big factor when it comes to the media. It is built event by event and story by story. The press expects press releases to be factual and error-free, as they will rely on that information for what they share in print and on air.
And since news stations often send in a single camera person to take footage of an event, they expect activities to start as indicated on the press release. It costs the media money to cover a story, and so organizations that start late without giving the station sufficient notice could find themselves blacklisted.
The Relationship Factor
Gaining consistent media coverage requires:
- Creative Story Telling
- Regular communication with reporters
- Understanding deadlines and preferences
- Building trust over time by delivering the story you promise
- Starting events on time
- Providing reliable and timely responses
Digital Marketing: Social Media Posts and More to Build the School Brand
School marketing campaigns need to include creative tactics for leveraging digital platforms within their marketing channels. Platforms include the school’s website, email marketing, and social media accounts.
Social media marketing is one of the best ways to significantly increase visibility to prospective parents and students and highly qualified applicants. Marketers can use all kinds of student activities to create engaging content for social media, including videos, blog posts, and live events. Regularly updating a blog and online newsletter to current families can tie perfectly into the social media strategy through the use of hyperlinks as well as drive traffic back to the school website.
Search Engine Optimization: A School Marketing Plan “Must-Have”
School marketers need to take creative approaches to capturing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for websites and landing pages. Consistent storytelling is key; schools should highlight interesting programs, student achievements, and community involvement. Those and other topics need to be expressed in a way that will be picked up by search engine algorithms. To achieve that goal with every piece of written content, marketers need to use advanced software like NeuronWriter to optimize the content.
Enrollment Marketing: Advertising through Social Media Ads
Although our focus in this blog is on generating free publicity and organic traffic through traditional news outlets and online platforms, we’d be remiss if we failed to mention paid digital advertising on social media. Running ads through social media platforms can help get your school’s name out to prospective students and parents as well as increase engagement on your various platforms. Google ads have proven to substantially help school marketing efforts increase enrollment and attract highly qualified staff.
Include Students to Drive Effective Marketing Campaigns
The most powerful approach is to involve students as much as possible for school enrollment marketing campaigns. Establishing a student-run newspaper, video production team, or social media club can provide valuable hands-on experience while generating authentic content that resonates with their peers, the public, and the press. This engagement builds school spirit and can create a sense of ownership among students, making them more likely to share their experiences with others. Word-of-mouth marketing remains the most powerful asset.
Remember, most newsworthy moments at your school happen while you’re busy managing daily operations. Without dedicated time and expertise to package these stories effectively, your students’ achievements might remain untold. The media landscape is competitive, and journalists receive countless pitches daily. Getting consistent, positive coverage requires more than just having good news—it needs strategic communication, relationship building, and dedicated resources to make your stories stand out.
Professionals who understand how to bridge the gap between educational achievements and newsworthy stories often distinguish schools that make headlines from those that don’t. After all, remarkable achievements deserve remarkable coverage—but they need the right expertise to make it happen.
If you don’t have the time to add the tasks of creating content, building media relations, and checking in on your school’s social media platforms, we can help. Talk to a publicist today about how to market your school to increase enrollments, attract highly qualified applicants, and become positioned to gain new philanthropic relationships. Contact Sylvia Marketing & Public Relations today at 215-817-3095 or results@sylviamarketing.com.