Part 3 – Tips for Increasing Enrollment at your Montessori School

September 5, 2018 // by Luke Middendorf

This is part three of our three-part series: Tips for increasing enrollment at your Montessori school. The final installment looks at using marketing strategies to answer prospective parents’ questions—the critical first step in attracting new students.

Click on any topic below to be taken to that section.

Part 1: Tips for increasing enrollment at your Montessori school

Part 2

Part 3 – Tips for Increasing Enrollment at your Montessori school

Content Marketing
Video Storytelling
Email Newsletter
Building a Database

The strategies in Part 3 focus on educating parents. Because Montessori differs from the standard techniques used by public schools, it is important to thoroughly understand and respond to the questions and concerns that parents unfamiliar with Montessori will have about the Montessori Method.

Before we delve into each strategy, let’s think about one of the most common questions.

How is Montessori different than the standard education system?

If your website doesn’t clearly answer this question, parents may never give your school a second look. Although entire books have been written on the subject, the following four key strategies can guide your content decisions ensuring your site answers how the Montessori Method is uniquely different.

The following strategies help each other grow over time. They aren’t meant to simply be completed in sequential order, rather they should all grow together over time.

Content Marketing

All website content should be directed to a specific audience. In this case, your audience is prospective parents. That means blog posts, whitepapers, eBooks, videos, podcasts, Infographics, etc. should be created with that audience in mind.

Blog posts form the foundation for content marketing. There is an endless amount of content that can be created. We work with our clients to create an editorial calendar to publish quality posts on a schedule designed to increase reader interest. Here are a few examples of posts that help answer the central question, How is Montessori different…?:

Deciding Which Montessori Preschool is Right For You
Why Students Should Teach and Teachers Guide
A Montessori Teacher’s Role in the Classroom
A Parent’s Role in a Montessori Environment
A Typical Day in a Montessori School

Use content in as many ways as possible. Some of the subjects are closely related and can be combined into whitepapers or eBooks. For example, your school could publish a Montessori Parent’s Guide and include all of the above posts. Other examples of repurposing content include using statistics to develop an Infographic or using content as outlines for videos, webinars, or podcasts.

There is power in referencing other credible sources in your posts and content. For examples, see the Appendix below for some excellent videos that give voice to the merits of a Montessori education.

The goal of content marketing is to attract an audience. Consider topics that have a broader appeal such as

Fall Activities to Teach your Children about Nature
Building Fine Motor Skills in Preschool
Fun Activities to get your Elementary Student Interested in Writing.

It’s important to include relevant graphics as a part of your content marketing strategy. Blog articles with graphics typically receive more views. We connect with pictures much more quickly than we do with text. The lead photo used in your content should visually convey the theme. Graphics used within your content should support or visually translate the information presented.

“Vision trumps all other senses” – John Medina, Brain Rules

Video Storytelling

We’ve recommended to many of our Montessori clients that they work with a professional videographer to produce a video that showcases their schools, teachers, and unique differentiators. For prospective parents, seeing is believing. Video can instantly bring your school’s culture to life and establish its credibility.

While you can create your own video content to share on social media, having at least one high-quality, professional video on your website immediately sets you apart from your competition.

You can get started by repurposing your blog posts for a video series. Each blog topic could be used to create 3-5 minute videos that are helpful to parents while establishing you as an expert in the area of education.

“In a 2018 HubSpot survey, 54% of consumers wanted to see more video content from a brand or business they support.”

For ideas, see the Appendix below for videos that do a good job of promoting the Montessori Method.

Email Marketing

The power of email marketing is that you own it and have complete control. You decide what content to send out, who should receive that content, and how it can be customized or segmented. You don’t have to depend on search engines or social media sites to deliver your message.

Any content you’ve created can be used for an email newsletter. Always consider your audience when creating the email message.

Are you sending the newsletter to a list of prospective parents or to parents of enrolled students? If the former, you may want to craft an opening message that is welcoming and invites them to learn more about the Montessori method. Just be sure to include content in your newsletter that supports your opening message.

If you are sending your email newsletter to parents that already have children enrolled at your school, you will want to make sure your message continues to invite them to engage while keeping them updated on school events.

Be sure to review all newsletter content through your audience’s eyes and consider

Is it valuable information?
Is it relevant?

EVERY newsletter must contain relevant and valuable information. Think about your own experience. How often have you hit unsubscribe when a newsletter contains low-quality or irrelevant content?

“Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%.” -Hubspot

Building a Database

Building a database is the process of capturing names and email addresses so that you can proactively reach out to prospective parents. Every time you interact with someone, it’s important to think about how you will continue to interact with them in the future.

To begin, request email addresses from every new parent you meet.

Your content should also aide in collecting this information by utilizing customized calls-to-actions. Whitepapers and eBooks should always require an email address before they can be downloaded. Videos should encourage viewers to subscribe and sign up for an email newsletter.

Conclusion

Incorporating content marketing, video storytelling, email marketing, and building a database are effective strategies to attract prospective parents to your Montessori school. Every parent who is researching schools is looking for one or more key differences in education that will help their child succeed.

Contact us today for help determining if your website and content strategies are helping increase enrollment at your Montessori school.

Appendix
Informative Videos to Help Educate Prospective Parents

These videos are great for parents that want a basic understanding of how Montessori is unique. How it fosters a love for learning, creativity and critical thinking.

Montessori Kindergarten – https://youtu.be/8euBZVO0p_E
Montessori Elementary – https://youtu.be/IbKMR7fLqI0

Here’s an example of one of the most famous presentations about education and the need for fostering creativity. While it’s not Montessori specific, it’s directly in line with the principles of Montessori and could used to make a case for the Montessori Method.

Stephan Curry is one of the most well liked and well-respected athletes across all professional sports. This video does a great job of showcasing what Montessori means to him and how it played a role in his success and character development.

Stephan Curry – https://youtu.be/Pb8kUvKcVTw

Here are some compelling explanations of Montessori from the TED stage

TEDx – https://youtu.be/EG3XeNti3Cw
TEDx – https://youtu.be/mcgtI_bC4sY

The “Effective 7” Must-Have Website Trust Signals

August 21, 2018 // by Tabitha Middendorf

Have you ever met someone or walked into a place and suddenly…feel – a little uncomfortable? Maybe you couldn’t quite find the right words to describe that feeling, but you just knew something did not seem quite right? That gut reaction was your intuition telling you to be wary. Intuition is an immediate insight formed on past similar experiences. Have you ever had this feeling about a website? A social media page? An email??? Consciously or subconsciously, your intuition guides your ability to trust what you are seeing and reading online.

A 2018 study by Harvard Business Review found that online consumers rely more on intuition than on logic and rule-based processes (deliberation) for decisions involving risk. This research “offers an explanation as to why things like aesthetics, professionalism, and other implicit clues matter for building online trust” (HBR, 2018). To be successful, you must overcome some challenges inherent to online marketing.

Consider this. In the consumer products world, statistics show only 1%-4% conversion rates for online purchases compared to 20%-40% offline retail (HBR, 2018). Because humans look for both verbal and nonverbal cues to create trust, the lack of direct personal contact is a likely factor. In the service industry where lives are directly affected, trust is even more critical. Therefore, the first goal of your website should be to establish trust with your prospective customer. Without it, the relationship ends.

Fortunately, building trust doesn’t require magic. The following example of two Montessori schools in Cleveland, Ohio will show you how to incorporate 7 strategies into your website to immediately and intuitively inspire trust.

The “Effective 7” Website Trust Signals

1. Secure your website.

With Chrome’s browser recent update, your website may now be a hindrance to attracting customers. If you haven’t installed a security certificate on your domain, you run the risk of losing potential customers even as you read this post. Do it today.

Question: What if my site is purely informational; do I still need an SSL certificate?

Answer: Yes, an SSL certificate helps your website gain the trust of visitors, helps promote credibility, and helps your ranking in Google.

2. Make it easy for visitors to contact you.

If you have ever landed on a website and struggled to find a phone number, then you already understand the frustration. If a visitor wants to call or contact you for more information, then your website should make it easy for them to do just that: contact you. Placing your phone number in your website’s header and including a map showing your location either in the footer or on your Contact Us page, makes for a frustration-free visitor experience.

Consider these two examples

Both schools utilize a “Contact” link which takes a visitor to a contact form. However, if we look closer at their contact forms Ratner’s contact form is above the fold, uses reCAPTCHA protection and is clean and simple in design; thus minimizing the opportunity for a visitor to click off the form. Whereas, Ruffing’s contact form seems to take a back burner to the other more prominent links and to the Google map at the top. If a visitor wants to complete the form, they might have to scroll down to finish the form before hitting the “send” button.

In the photo above, Ratner’s Contact form is above the fold and clearly displays the address and phone number at the top. The form takes center stage on this page.

By contrast, in the above image Ruffing’s contact form is in the left column and seems to take a back seat to the other elements on the page.

3. Use authentic photos of facilities, executives and/or staff.

Having photos of your business, service and/or staff help visitors relate to your brand. Both Ratner Montessori and Ruffing Montessori include messages from the Heads of School; and, photos of the schools, students, and staff. Each of these elements serves to foster trust with their visitors.

Ratner Montessori’s menu organization (image below) is organized around their visitor experience. The navigation menu on the right is sequenced in the order a visitor might want to explore: Welcome from the Head of School, Faculty, and Staff, Board of Trustees, Beyond Ratner, Employment Opportunities, About Montessori, and then finally Mission and Core Values.

4. List and display accreditations, licenses, professional recognitions, association memberships, and certifications.

If your business is accredited by the Better Business Bureau, is a member of the local chamber of commerce, or has any other professional memberships, these should be listed on your website. Details matter in building trust. Ratner loses a possible engagement opportunity when the “Read More” button under key metrics directs visitors to an Events Calendar instead of a page that substantiates their numbers. Whereas, Ruffing Montessori does a great job of listing their accreditations. Our only recommendation would be to list “Recent Accolades” in descending order. Ratner Montessori lists key metrics; however their link to “Read More” goes to an events calendar. As a visitor, this would be confusing as I would be expecting to read more about their teacher/student ratio, their accreditations, and so on.

5. Ensure your website is mobile friendly and includes links to social sites and testimonials.

With approximately 67% of consumers owning and using a mobile device to search and shop, you want your website to be responsive and resize to fit on a smartphone. If your website is not mobile friendly, you are losing potential customers. If your website is responsive but is a convoluted mess of information and not streamlined or designed for mobile use, you are likely losing potential customers. According to socPub, 57% of users report that they will not recommend a business if the mobile website is poorly designed. This aligns with HBR’s findings on the role aesthetics plays in building trust.

Another way to boost credibility is to have links to your business’ major social sites such as a verified Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram account, and Google My Business page. Having social sites established and regularly updated demonstrates that your business is active and communicates with its user base. It also easily allows your customers to leave a review for your business! In the example below, Ratner Montessori has links to three social profiles, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; whereas, Ruffing Montessori doesn’t appear to be on social media.

Although it wasn’t apparent on their website, Ruffing Montessori does have a Facebook page with 24 reviews for a rating of 4.8 out of 5. If we were advising Ruffing Montessori, we would have them verify their Facebook page and create a link to it from their website.

6. Create great first impressions.

Look at the images below. Visually, which website creates a better first impression? Although they both use main photos, they differ in design and mood. Ratner Montessori’s photos and website design overall is more professional. It is organized and uses white space. When making decisions for their children’s education, however, parents look to other cues to understand the environment. Images speak volumes. The banner of sliding photos shows Ratner’s children smiling and happy. Visually, it seems to set the expectation for the culture of the school. Ruffing’s background photo sets a different tone. It shows a child who seems to be focused and deep in concentration. Although both images depict positive situations, Ratner’s image slider prominently highlights happy children and may elicit a different gut reaction than Ruffing’s serious student.

First impressions matter. Ratner Montessori (left) is streamlined and organized. Photos of smiling children help establish their brand.

First impressions are also formed in the details. Disclaimers, cookies, and privacy policies should be clear and easy to find. Be sure to scan your website for any broken links. Broken links simply serve to frustrate a potential customer. No one wants to click on an image or hyperlinked text only to be told that the page or destination doesn’t exist.

7. Build easy conversion paths.

When thinking about your website menu structure, you want to consider how many clicks it will take for the desired action to be completed. For example, every page on Ratner Montessori’s website is one click away. They are not using submenus. With Ruffing Montessori’s website, it takes more than one click to learn more about their art program. When it comes to design, you want the desired conversion path to be as easy and direct as possible within one or two clicks. Anything more and you may lose potential leads and inadvertently create a negative experience.

Every page is one click away.

Use these “Effective 7” website elements to build intuitive trust — convert your visitors to customers

Effective website design starts with your trust signals. The above 7 trust signals, when combined with a clean, logical design will help create an enjoyable user experience that directly serves the needs and wants of YOUR customer.

We’re very good at this. If you have any questions about our 7 trust signals, or if you aren’t getting the results you need from your online marketing efforts, please contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you.

Industrial Baking Equipment Supply Company Partner’s With WSI for SEO

August 14, 2018 // by Luke Middendorf

Artisan Capital Partners, an industrial baking equipment supplier, has partnered with WSI to implement an SEO program to deliver their message to a greater audience. Artisan Capital Partner aims to create liquidity events for companies from industrial bakery assets. Industrial baking equipment is capital intensive to install and requires specific skills to resell. Artisan Capital Partners help companies identify the value of their equipment, assist in dismantling, then refurbish and resell the equipment. Their experience and strategic partnerships help to maximize value, simplify the process, and reduce the risk to bakeries. As a buyer and seller of industrial baking equipment, Artisan Capital Partners also provides a quality secondary market, allowing other companies to access baking production line equipment at a high value.

WSI’s custom SEO program aims to improve website performance and long-term search engine rankings. This started with on-page optimization, including an audit of the website’s SEO optimization, keyword research and selection, and developing SEO optimized pages. This work is followed by an ongoing link building program including off-site blog and social media creation and syndication. After discussing business goals with Artisan Capital Partners and completing the website audit and extensive keyword research, the following 3 SEO page themes were developed:

WSI will continue SEO efforts to elevate Artisan Capital Partners search engine page ranks and lead captures onsite. This work will include keyword optimized blogs and social media content development that highlight Artisan Capital Partners benefits. This content will assist to create direct and indirect traffic to the site to boost the page rank. These blogs will be posted on Weebly, WordPress and Blogger.

This work has already begun to be tracked and website performance benchmarks well-characterized. WSI is encouraged by initial results and excited to be part of the growth of Artisan Capital Partners.

Webinar Recording: How to Build a Competitive Analysis for Your Business

August 13, 2018 // by Luke Middendorf

Webinar Intro:

The content below is an excerpt from the webinar posted above. In the webinar, we compared two different Montessori schools so that we could provide a clear example of how we start to build a competitive analysis.

How to Build a Competitive Analysis for Your Business

The goal of a competitive analysis is to identify your competitors’ weaknesses and strengths to see how your business compares to theirs. This will show you the areas in your digital marketing strategy that need improvement, which can help you reshape your strategy to stay ahead of the competition.

Our competitive analysis process is fairly in-depth, so instead of walking you through the entire process, we’ll go over the most important elements with which you can get started right away.

Our Competitive Analysis Process

When working with a client, the first thing we do is schedule a discovery call. This helps us to understand their business, their target markets, and their goals for growth. From there, we gather data about the client and their competitors. Once we complete the template, we conduct a data analysis to identify areas of opportunity and present our key recommendations to the client.

A competitive analysis includes two types of deliverables:

an Excel spreadsheet containing the raw data, and
a PowerPoint presentation with the key findings.

You can see a detailed example of the Excel spreadsheet and the PowerPoint presentation in the above video. The Excel template is available upon request.

The Core Areas of a Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis consists of seven core areas:

Market opportunity
Website trust signals
Reputation management
SEO performance
Paid search
Other digital marketing strategies
Website technical performance

Evaluating market opportunity involves using search terms and keyword ranking to identify the client’s potential in the market compared to their competitors.

After identifying their market opportunity, our first priority is to identify each company’s website trust signals and determine areas of improvement for the client. This involves going through a list of key points and seeing how many of them are present on the client’s website (see the above video for a detailed example).

From there, we compare the reputation management strategies of the client and their competitors on sites such as Google My Business, Facebook, and Yelp. We also look at various factors of the companies’ SEO performance to see how well their websites rank in search engines like Google or Bing, as well as how much they invest in paid search per month.

Other digital marketing strategies we evaluate in a competitive analysis include email marketing, social media marketing, display advertising, and remarketing. And finally, we evaluate the client’s website technical performance: average load time, utilization of Google AMP, CDN, etc. Note that these last two areas are generally for analyzing companies in highly competitive industries, so they may not be necessary for a competitive analysis of your business.

By building a competitive analysis for your business, you’ll be able to compare your company to your competitors and identify core areas of improvement in your digital marketing strategy. Get started with this tool today to stay ahead of the game!

Need help building a competitive analysis for your business? Watch the webinar video above for a detailed walkthrough of our process, and learn more about our Digital Marketing Competitive Analysis service!

Part Two: Tips for Increasing Enrollment at your Montessori school

August 2, 2018 // by Tabitha Middendorf

This is part two of our three-part series: Tips for increasing enrollment at your Montessori school and will review Facebook promotions and retargeting strategies.

Click on any topic below to be taken to that section.

Part 1: Tips for increasing enrollment at your Montessori school

Part 2

Facebook Promotions – Schedule a Tour
Facebook Promotions – Open House
Facebook Remarketing

Part 3

1. Facebook Promotions – Schedule a Tour

One of the first things parents who have researched potential preschools and daycares want to know is if they can schedule a tour, preferably to observe a class in action. For instance, a local Montessori school near me offers an observation window specifically for prospective and current parents to observe the Montessori environment.

Whether your school has specific dates for tours or you grant tours year-round, you’ll want to promote it on Facebook. If you are wondering if Facebook is still an appropriate platform, consider these recent statistics in a 2018 social media fact sheet report by the Pew Research Center*

Facebook continues to remain the primary social media platform
68% of U.S. Adults use Facebook
78% are between 30 and 49 years of age
Approximately 74% of Facebook users login daily

*Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank and subsidiary of Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew Charitable Trusts holds silver level status with GuideStar which indicates a commitment to transparency.

These statistics represent what we are seeing across our Montessori promotions as well (see below).

When creating FB promotions we utilize the following layout:

Also, take a look at similar ads on FB and save the ones you like as examples for your business to emulate.

2. Facebook Promotions – Open House

Similar to running a promotion to schedule a tour, an open house promotion’s goal is to attract the parents of new potential students. However, your school’s capacity may differ. For instance, the staffing and resources necessary to host a successful open house may differ than the staffing needed to provide scheduled tours.

An open house allows parents a special opportunity to meet everyone involved at the school, from the Director and Owner to current parents and children. An open house provides your school a unique opportunity to make a great impression and showcase the value of your curriculum.

3. Facebook – Remarketing

The Facebook pixel is a remarketing tool that is easy to install. If your website is a WordPress site, you can upload the pixel following these instructions. Facebook does a great job of going through this step by step here.

Once your Facebook pixel is installed and setup, create “events” so that Facebook can track specific actions that are happening on your website.

For example, turn on the event “complete registration” to track when a visitor from your “Schedule a Tour” ad clicks through to your landing page and fills out the form to schedule a tour.

Recommendation: Use UTM Codes with or without Facebook pixel

If you aren’t already using UTM codes, we highly recommend it, especially if you are hesitant or not ready to install the FB pixel. UTM codes allow you to track a source (i.e. Facebook), medium (i.e. paidad), and campaigns (i.e. open house). Google has a tool that makes it easy to build campaign urls.

Facebook still reigns but don’t ignore the power of Instagram and Video

The above examples cover two specific promotion types we use for our Montessori clients. While Facebook continues to be the primary platform, it should be noted that Instagram and video ads are also powerful marketing tools. Within the Facebook Ads Manager platform, you can choose Instagram as a placement or choose to exclude it entirely. For example, you might choose to exclude it if you do not have an Instagram business profile setup. To exclude Instagram as a placement, select “edit placements” and uncheck Instagram.

In June of this year (2018), Instagram announced it achieved 1 billion monthly active users. Instagram has over 25 million business profiles and one-third of the most-viewed stories are from businesses. If your parent demographic uses Instagram, then you might want to consider creating a business profile and crafting stories that sell the benefits of a Montessori education. After all, according to Instragram, 60% of users state they discover new products on Instagram.

While each of the methods outlined above have been successful for our clients, your adoption of them should be directed by your school’s ability to accept new students.

Next week, we will dive into part 3 of this series and review how email marketing, content marketing and video marketing can help you increase enrollment at your Montessori school.

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