by Harry Bloom
The world of advertising and marketing has been transformed by the Internet and social media. Never before have advertisers had so much information about who uses their product and who doesn’t and how best to reach prime prospects. The foundation of this knowledge is hard data about consumer habits and practices. Contrast this data driven market segmentation and outreach to how most of our schools work to recruit students. Most schools are still relying on Open Houses and View books and Admission packets to attract families and students. These can be important but they are basically passive and depend on an already motivated inquirer. What if there aren’t enough inquirers? How can our schools “create” them?
For many of our schools, this is key question. Fortunately the pathway to proactive generation of inquirers, and, even better, visitors, is pretty clear and it isn’t expensive. But it does require a disciplined reflective approach to thinking about our current customers (families and students).
Here are four steps your school should consider to go on the recruitment offensive:
- “Take the roof off your school” and look down at the families and students inside. Think about each one individually and who they are and why they chose your school and not another? Then step back and group families/students which have common wants and needs and demographic characteristics. Each of these groupings is a “market segment.” It is the core of your future proactive recruitment strategy. Give each segment a name so it can be discussed and planned for and measured. Examples might be Russian families with a passion for math and science, pluralistic Jews with a desire for a values based education, Israeli families with a passion for Hebrew language, et al.
- For each segment, assign a relative priority based on the potential size of the segment and your ability to gain a higher share (percentage) of segment members. Do a bit of research: Is the segment growing or declining? Is your share (percentage) of potential segment members as high as it possibly could be or could it be grown?
- Interview segment members or conduct informal focus groups among them. Learn more about them: what they like, dislike, how they select schools, who their social circles and friends are, what media they access and trust.
- Appoint segment managers to work with school Admission professionals to build target segment member visit numbers. Enroll parent ambassadors from among segment members. Start small: ask each ambassador to build a list of five prospective segment members they will motivate to visit your school for an appropriate school event during the next 30-60 days. Add these segment members to a database and track their visits – and follow up when they aren’t occurring.
Congratulations, you have just graduated from passive to proactive recruitment! Keep working at this as it represents a reliable pathway to growth. Just ask Google or Amazon.
Dr. Harry Bloom manages the YU School Partnsership’s division of Planning and Performance Improvement, which is tasked with developing and helping schools implement strategic planning, governance strengthening, financial benchmarking and long term financial planning and process improvement efforts. He can be contacted at hbloom1@yu.edu.
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There are some fantastic takeaways here, not only for the Day School community, but for all of us. Here at Foundation for Jewish Camp, we have the opportunity to work with Jewish residential camps that are setting great examples, nurturing their community by engaging parent and alumni ambassadors and working with other community institutions (federations, day schools, and synagogues) to create incentives to generate new inquirers. However, there’s always more we can be doing. Thanks for the great reminder.
Harry,
market segmentation is a great idea! It’s a great way for schools to more strategically (and effectively) recruit prospective students. Another great way to help get that information is to work closely with early childhood centers, synagogues, and JCCs to identify potential segments and/or prospective parents.
It’s also a great way to empower your current parents: what segments and families do they see in their networks that are underrepresented, or may be interested in hearing more about the schools? By empowering and collaborating with parents and other institutions, a school can use the recruitment pipeline can strengthen its entire ecosystem.
Jeremy and Charles make great points. The idea of “discovering” the segments we currently serve and don’t serve, learning more about both through research and then looking for more segment members via volunteer and student/camper/parent ambassadors is not only effective–it is incredibly efficient
Sometimes school leaders (lay and professional) have been nervous about market segmentation, concerned that all families should hear the same message. You note that people bring different foci to their school searches and that we communicate more effectively when we respond to the questions and concerns each segment brings to the table. You remind us that the interests of each market segment do indeed reflect key elements of our missions (e.g. strong academics, values, passion for Hebrew).
Harry,
Your idea to enhance how schools recruit by zeroing in on specific segments of the day school community is a great concept. It makes so much sense to delve more deeply into who comprises each of the segments, their interests/commitments in order to foster methods that can broaden the potential pool of students. Nurturing them as “Ambassadors”would likely lead to the families’ increased involvement and stronger commitment as well as enhancing what happens in the school in the long run.
Thank you for your creative, and very implementable ideas!
Minna brings up an excellent point related to student retention. Keeping sight of our market segment members once they are enrolled in our schools, and of their key interests (wants and needs) and assessing how well those needs are being met is a valuable tool for ensuring high levels of segment member reenrollment.