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INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONCHARTER SCHOOL MARKETING

Utilizing Data to Shape and Inform your Enrollment Marketing

November 13, 2018

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OUR SERIES

Date Topic

10/16/18 @ 12:00 Introduction: Understanding the foundations of enrollment marketing

11/13/18 @12:00 Operations: Utilizing Data to Shape and Inform your Enrollment Marketing

12/11/18 @ 12:00 Operations: Your environment and your customer

1/8/19 @ 12:00 Marketing: Inbound marketing and building your culture of marketing

2/12/19 @ 12:00 Marketing: Lead nurturing and social media

3/12/19 @ 12:00 Recruitment: The school tour

4/9/19 @ 12:00 Retention: From first to last day

5/14/19 @ 12:00 Retention: Surveys and communication at your school

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ABOUT BRIGHT MINDS MARKETINGBoutique school enrollment and marketing firm

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REVIEW OF OUR LAST LESSONMacro Issues

• The importance of enrollment to your school

o Largest source of funding

o Your key for sustainability

• Changing student landscape

o Lower birthrates

o Shrinking K-12 population in the state except for the Marion county area

• Indiana charter school dynamics

o Good charter school environment

o Lower state funding

o Continued growth of vouchers providing a competitive alternative to charter schools

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REVIEW OF OUR LAST SESSIONThe different frameworks that we will use

• Using our enrollment funnel

• The power of the “5 whys” to diagnose your opportunities

• The 4 pillars of successful enrollment managemento Operations

o Marketing

o Recruitment

o Retention

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THE 4 COMPONENTS TO A STRONG ENROLLMENT SYSTEM

Operations: Know your self, your environment, your competition, and your customer.

Create messages that resonate with her and have ways to deliver those messages

1. Attracting

prospects

2. Identifying

those prospects

3. Nurturing those

prospects

Come to a

recruiting event

Marketing

1. Positive experience at every recruitment event

2. Closing the deal / enroll

3. Create a positive onboarding experience

Enrolling students

Recruitment

1. Listening to your

constituents

2. Measuring your

constituent’s

satisfaction

3. Improving based

upon their

feedback

Retaining students

Retention

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USING DATA TO SHAPE OUR ENROLLMENT PLANNING

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WHY IS UNDERSTANDING YOUR DATA IMPORTANT?

1. Data allows you to base decision on fact not intuition or hunches

2. If you can measure it, you can manage it

3. Data will answer most of your questions if you ask it the right way.

4. Having strong data eventually becomes a business asset

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WHAT BENEFITS DOES GOOD DATA PROVIDE TO YOUR SCHOOL

1. It makes your enrollment marketing more effectiveo More efficient spend of your marketing dollars

• The ability to say no to certain opportunities

o More effective time spent• Focus on what is important and what will generate more new students

2. It provides clarity and an ability to prioritize retention activitieso Improving areas that most parents have identified rather than just the

ones from the loudest voices

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• Garbage in = garbage outo Clean, updated, constant focus on ito Registrar / school secretary must

understand the importance

• Don’t just gather data / analyze ito What do you want the data to do?o Are you gathering the right data?

• Use a systemo CRM, SIS, Google sheets

PRINCIPALS OF GOOD DATA MANAGEMENT

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EXAMPLE OF USING DATA TO IMPROVE YOUR ENROLLMENT

• Charter school X had poor engagement on their websiteo Average session was under 1 minute and poor click through rates on

scheduling their open house

o Analyzed their Google analytics

o Discovered that 72% of traffic was via a mobile device but their site was not optimized for mobile

• Redesigned their website to be mobile optimizedo Improved time on the site, click rates and customer experience

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TWO TYPES OF DATA

• Trend datao How does the data evolve over time?

• Enrollment over 5 years

• Retention rates across the school over the past 5 years

• Customer satisfaction rates

• Snapshot datao How did a single event do

• A specific email open rate

• Clicks to a certain video

Strategic

Tactical

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EACH PILLAR OF ENROLLMENT HAS DIFFERENT DATA NEEDS

• Operationso Baseline information

o Total enrollment

• Marketingo Website traffic

o Identified prospects

o Nurturing activities

• Recruitmento # of inquiries / tours / shadow days

o Yield or closure rate

• Retentiono Retention for the school

o Retention for specific grades

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YOUR IWIKS

• List out all the things that “I Wish I Knew”

• How do you gather this information?

• Would knowing the answer improve your efforts?

• Living document

• Helps to shape your whole data strategy

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IWIKS (I WISH I KNEW)Topic Question Source

General Enrollment • What is our 5-year average of new students?

• Is there a difference based for grade level?

• What is the 5-year average of our class sizes

• What is our true replacement number?

• Analysis of enrollment trends

New Student Information • What channel was successful in recruiting students?

• Why did they choose our schools?

• What school did they previously attend?

• Who referred them / what channel closed the deal?

• Admissions questionnaire

Overall Satisfaction • How do parents feel about the schools?

• What are areas that the school needs to improve to keep students?

• How do they feel about our teachers and administrators?

• How satisfied is our staff?

• Annual parent satisfaction survey

• Annual staff satisfaction survey

Retention • What is our average retention rate?

• Are there specific grade levels at risk?

• Why are they leaving our school?

• What school are they going to?

• Why are they leaving

• Core enrollment data

• Exit interview

Academic Effectiveness • How are our graduates perceived at their colleges?

• How valuable was the experience of our schools in the minds of

graduates

• Follow up with admissions directors at colleges

• Alumni follow up interviews / surveyChannel Effectiveness • What is our acquisition cost per channel?

• What is our closure rate by channel?

• What is our open house closure rate / shadow day closure rate?

• Comparison of newly enrolled students with marketing channel against channel cost

• Closure rate at open houses

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CORE DATA: ENROLLMENT & RETENTION

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YOUR CORE DATA (QUANTITATIVE)

• Enrollment1. Total enrollment for the school over time.

2. How many new students joined our school each year?

3. What is the grade level distribution for new students?

• Retention1. Retention percentages for the school.

2. Do certain grade levels lose more students than others?

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TOTAL ENROLLMENT TRENDS

379 375354 340 328

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Total

Total Enrollment Trends

2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

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NEW STUDENTS PER YEAR

61

52

4144

49

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

5 Year New Enrollment

Total

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NEW ENROLLMENT BY GRADE LEVELFocus on your entry grade

6152

41 444945

3525 29 31

16 17 16 15 18

0

20

40

60

80

2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

New Enrollment by grade level

New Enrollment New Enrollment K New Enrollment Other

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RETENTION DATA

• This can vary depending upon how you want to look at retention:o Number of students enrolled in year 1 that re-enroll in year 2

o Number of students enrolled in year 1 (first day) that are still enrolled in year 1 (last day)

• Key Metrics1. Total school retention rates

2. Retention rates by grade level

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TOTAL RETENTION TRENDS

80% 82% 84% 87% 89%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Average Retention Trends (All Grades)

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CHARTING OUT YOUR RETENTION RATES

Retention 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Retention full school 80% 82% 84% 87% 89%

Kindergarten 55% 62% 60% 58% 65%

1st Grade 78% 85% 82% 93% 100%

2nd Grade 90% 85% 95% 100% 96%

3rd Grade 85% 90% 84% 90% 92%

4th Grade 84% 82% 90% 91% 96%

5th Grade 92% 85% 91% 88% 78%

6th Grade 62% 55% 64% 68% 71%

7th Grade 78% 90% 89% 96% 100%

8th Grade 95% 100% 100% 96% 100%

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HIGH ISSUE GRADES VERSUS SCHOOL AVERAGE

80% 82% 84% 87% 89%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

High issue grades against the school average

School average K 6

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WHAT DID WE LEARN – WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS

• The school is facing declining enrollmento Non-K grades are attracting around 17 students and is stable

o Kindergarten enrollment is down 30% over 5 years

o Focus on kindergarten enrollment!

• The school is improving its’ retention rateo Kindergarten and 6th grades are significantly below all school average

o Understand why those grades are at risk.

o Start creating retention programs for the kindergarten to 1st grade transition and 6th to 7th grade transition years.

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KEY TAKE AWAYS FROM ENROLLMENT AND RETENTION CHARTING

• Charting your enrollment and retention are critical to allow you to understand your core trends rather than what happened last year

• Cutting the data allows you to isolate and focus your efforts

• You can use first day of school, count day, or other day, just be consistent and use the same one every time

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RECRUITMENT: RECRUITMENT EFFECTIVENESS

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YOUR RECRUITMENT EFFECTIVENESS (QUANTITATIVE DATA)

• How many students toured your school / attended a shadow day?

• How many students enrolled?

• What is your closure rate?

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RECRUITMENT EFFECTIVENESS

100110

94

65

98

6152

4134

49

61%

47%44%

52% 50%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Recruitment effectiveness

Tour / Open House Shadow Enrollment Closure %

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WHAT DID WE LEARN – WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS

• Closure rate is averaging around 50%

• To enroll more students;1. Increase the number of families who tour the school / engage in a shadow day

2. Improve the closure rates of families who enroll after they take a tour

• Follow on question for the data or the school:o Why is our closure rate so low?

o Why don’t parents enroll after engaging with our school?

o Is there a difference in rates from open house only, open house→shadow, shadow only?

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KEY TAKE AWAYS FROM RECRUITMENT EFFECTIVENESS CHARTING

• Improving your closure rate is low hanging fruit for a schoolo You should be striving for at least a 75% rate

• Optimizing your closure rate generally doesn’t cost money o It is just creating a better experience while a family “tries” the school

• This exercise helps you to know the “what”, it might take more effort to know the “why”o Possible reasons: Poor tour, less than engaging collateral material, lack of a follow up

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YOUR CURRENT STUDENT BODY

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YOUR CURRENT STUDENT BODY

• Understanding information about your current student body informs other marketing efforts

• Two simple sets of data to track:1. Where do your students live

2. What was their previous school

• These give you insights into what your “typical” customer looks like and what schools are your best feeders

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YOUR STUDENTS

• Pull from your student database all the addresses of your students

o Include what school they previously attended (preschool or 8th grade)

• Feed this into a mapping program like Google maps, www.batchgeo.com, or www.mapline.com

• Questions this will answer:

o Are you a neighborhood school or a destination school

o What do the zip codes of households tell us demographically about the families?

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• Though this school pulls from 28 zip codes, most students reside close to the Binford corridor

• 5 zip codes make up 87.7% of all students:

o 46220: 31.7%

o 46256: 25.4%

o 46250: 10.4%

o 46236: 10.4%

o 46226: 9.8%

• Three public school districts make up 89% of the school’s student population

o Lawrence Township: 56%

o Washington Township: 22%

o IPS: 11%

STUDENT LOCATIONS

Example map

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• Knowing where your students are coming from allows you to analyze the effectiveness of your feeder school programs

• It also allows you to spot potential opportunities

PREVIOUS SCHOOL

43%

21%

13%

12%

5%4% 3%

Students in the network

Public Schools

Charter - Non Virtual

Private - Non Catholic

Private - Catholic

Home School

Charter - Virtual

Out of state

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PREVIOUS SCHOOL (2)

Target Preschool 2016-2017 Students 2017-2018 Students

Happy Child PreSchool 6 7

ABC Preschool 3 4

Goodard Preschool 0 0

St. Mary Preschool 5 6

Early Learning Preschool 2 4

HeadStart 3 0

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KEY TAKE AWAYS FROM STUDENT MAPPING

• Though this is a retrospective look, it provides you an understanding of what your effectiveness has been to date.o It gives you data points that will also allow you to judge effectiveness of future

marketing programs as well as inform and make better your future marketing programs.

• By identifying what schools our students come from, we can better shape our partner (feeder) school strategyo This also allows us the ability to “target” certain groups if we are looking for more racial

diversity, higher academics, etc.

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YOUR MARKETING PROGRAMS

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YOUR MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS

• Improving your marketing (attraction and identification of leads) is often the hardest and most expensive part of your enrollment plan

• Parents may see your advertisements in multiple places and often they can not identify the single piece that drove action

• Knowing what caused them to engage with you is tough to figure out and is often more of an art than a science

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ADOPT A MARKETING NOT A COMMUNICATIONS MINDSET

• Establish strong platforms that make prospective parents aware of you

• Write engaging copy that makes them consider you.

• Move them down the buying journey to engage with you.

Co

mm

un

ica

tio

ns

Ma

rke

tin

g

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YOUR MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS

• Key metric: # of identified leads in your prospect databaseo # of identified leads that turn into an enrolled student

o Make sure you ask people how they heard about you or provide a source for how you got that name!

• Key questions to ask:o What tactic generated the highest number of identifiable leads?

o Is this tactic an awareness and consideration tool or one that leads to engagement?

• What can we do to make this channel an engagement channel?

o Be very deliberate with tactic that you can not source identified leads• Radio, TV

• Your website and your social media ads should be designed to identify leads

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YOUR FOUNDATIONAL TOOL: A CRM SYSTEM

• You need to gather the contact information for any prospective parent that engages with you

• You want to have the ability to follow up and nurture them

o Don’t hope they engage with you – engage with them

• Feed this information into a prospect database.

• This can be robust or simple

o Salesforce.com (free to non-profits)

o Hubpot (starter pack is free)

o Sharpspring

o Google Sheets

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BEGIN TO POPULATE YOUR DATABASE WITH DATA ABOUT THAT CUSTOMER

Parent name Parent email

address

Child’s name Child’s age /

entering

grade

Marketing

source

Activity 1 Activity 2

Susan

sample

susan@gmail

.com

Steven 5 /

Kindergarten

Preschool

feeder –

Polly Panda

Attended

kindergarten

round up

10/18

Attended

open house

12/1

• Once you have this data – you move into the nurturing phase to get them to come to a recruiting

event

• As this begins to get fleshed out, you can track the lifecycle of a prospect

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PROSPECT SOURCES

Websites

Community

events

Social media ads

Door to door

canvasing

CRM

Data

base

Enrollment

form for

siblings

Summer programs /

tournaments

Nurturing

Open

House

Shadow

Tour Enroll

Student name,

parent name,

student age,

parent email,

parent phone

Enroll Indy

Feeder Schools

School visits

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SUMMARY

• Data is importanto Must be clean, must be updated

• Foundationalo Enrollment

• 5-year enrollment trends, new enrollment, new enrollment broken out by grade level

o Retention

• School retention rates, grade level retention rates

• Student datao Addresses, previous school

• Marketingo How did they hear about your school

• Get your CRM for prospective families set up

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OUR SERIES

Date Topic

10/16/18 @ 12:00 Introduction: Understanding the foundations of enrollment marketing

11/13/18 @12:00 Operations: Utilizing Data to Shape and Inform your Enrollment Marketing

12/11/18 @ 12:00 Operations: Your environment and your customer

1/8/19 @ 12:00 Marketing: Inbound marketing and building your culture of marketing

2/12/19 @ 12:00 Marketing: Lead nurturing and social media

3/12/19 @ 12:00 Recruitment: The school tour

4/9/19 @ 12:00 Retention: From first to last day

5/14/19 @ 12:00 Retention: Surveys and communication at your school

https://www.doe.in.gov/grants/marketing-and-communications-webinars

CONTACT US FOLLOW US

THANK YOU!!!

Facebook.com/brightmindsmarketing

@brightmindsmktg

531 W. 83rd Place, Indy, IN 46260

317-361-5255

nick@brightmindsmarketing.com