Parents who go in search of private schools for their children will likely start their search online. What will they see when they find you?
With luck, you’ve already established an inbound marketing campaign that utilizes search engine optimization, content marketing, social media and video.
It’s that last point we’d like to focus on. Last time, we talked about how video can help private schools tell their stories, by sharing what life is like on campus and allowing prospective students to imagine themselves there.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the nuts and bolts of video, and the things you’ll need to consider before you start filming.
Getting Started
First off, think about your marketing goals. Talk to everyone at the school and look for gaps. Maybe there are areas that you haven’t played up enough. Use those gaps to help create a better understanding of what your school is about.
As we discussed in the previous post, you can use video for two purposes: to attract new students, but to also communicate with existing members of the community.
To attract new students you can:
- Show your current students doing interesting things: working in a new science lab, playing sports, performing in a school play.
- Give students an idea of what a big moment at your school — graduation, finals week, homecoming — looks like.
- Answer whatever questions they might have. Think of it as the FAQ section of your website, but in video form. Answer common questions they receive from applicants
- Recruit alumni to tell stories about their time at your school, and share how their experience made a difference in their lives.
To interact with your school community, you can make videos that:
- Congratulate new students on being accepted to your school.
- Celebrate the holidays. You can wish students well as their leave on winter break, or if your school has younger children, even offer some Halloween safety tips.
- Thank your donors for their generosity or announce new fund-raising campaign to attract new donors.
- Commemorate big moments. This one can overlap with the kind of videos you make for prospective students. Capture your students as they achieve things: a victory on the athletic field, or a particularly good musical performance.
Getting Outside Help
Now that you have a better idea of the type of video you’re going to shoot, it’s time to consider who’ll do the shooting.
A video that’s showing just one event — a few minutes of a school play, for example — might be something that you can do in-house.
But for more complicated productions — involving multiple settings and advanced production techniques — you may need to hire outside help. Your staff just may not have the experience, or the time.
There’s one advantage to an in-house production: your students and faculty know you and will feel more comfortable during the filming. And since you know what day-to-day life is like on campus, you’ll know where to get supplemental footage, also known as “b-roll.”
And because your videos are part of your inbound marketing campaign, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention YouTube. Creating a YouTube channel for your videos gives you a much wider audience. When parents come searching, it’s yet another place for them to find all the great things your school has to offer.
Video can help market your school to new students, while also helping current and former students feel at home and appreciated.
