Digital marketing for independent schools.
Digital marketing has evolved into a necessary component of modern K-12 marketing strategy, yet it remains mysterious to the uninitiated. Wondering where to start? We’ve got you covered.
Digital advertising for private schools
Digital advertising is the process of serving an ad with the right message to the right person at the right moment.
We manage digital advertising on platforms where your prospective students and parents spend the most time and where they conduct their school research. Mainly, we manage advertising in Google (search and display) and social media (Meta’s Instagram & Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, TikTok, etc.) although we do have capabilities in other digital platforms like Bing, Roku, Spotify, and Hulu.
Which digital marketing channels are right for my independent school?
We begin our work with LFM partners by designing a digital marketing strategy that determines the ideal channel mix of search engine marketing (SEM) and social media marketing (SMM) based on the goals, targeting parameters, and audience demographics. While each strategy is unique, there are a few search engine marketing channels that nearly all our partners benefit from advertising in, like Google and more recently, Bing.
Google Ads for private schools
Google Ads, formerly called AdWords, allows you to appear in the results for searches—even if you don’t rank organically. It’s also the gold standard for digital advertising. Paid search, sometimes referred to as PPC (pay-per-click), allows you to interact with a prospective parent precisely when they are searching for exactly what you offer.
How do Google Ads work for independent schools?
Even if you’ve never run a paid search campaign, you’re likely familiar with how it works:
A prospective parent searches using keywords (“top private schools”, “best prep school”, “all girls schools near me”, etc)
Your ad appears above the organic search results
The prospect clicks and goes to your site
Search-based text ads are just the beginning of Google Ad management for private K-12 schools. This digital marketing platform also includes tactics such as:
Serving display (image-based) ads
Showing ads to parents who have searched for your competitors
Serving ads to students and parents who frequent your feeder schools
Retargeting to your website visitors after they’ve left your site. This can include segmenting messaging based on website behavior.
Uploading CRM data and list-purchases into Google for retargeting and increased search bidding
Serving video ads on YouTube
Geo-fencing feeder schools, transfer sources, prospect events, admissions travel, etc.
How Little Foxes used paid search to appear for 88% of local NYC school searches
Social media marketing (SMM) for private schools
Paid social media advertising for independent schools presents effective options for targeting prospective parents because social media provides targeting capabilities and insights that search engines can’t match, such as income levels and child ages.
How does social media marketing for private schools work?
While each social media platform features unique audience composition, targeting parameters, and advertising options, below are some of the tactics that we rely on most often.
Prospecting on social media
“Our upper school is thriving, but we don’t get enough interest at the lower grade levels”
“My CFO says we need more full-pay students. Help!”
“We’re a really good school, but not enough people know we exist.”
These are some of the most common pain points that we hear from schools that seek our services. These are difficult challenges to solve without social media targeting, such as targeting by child age, income-based targeting, and options for increasing awareness.
CRM retargeting
What do most schools do when prospective students don’t open their emails? Send them more emails! When prospects become unresponsive, social media marketing can be a helpful tool. We can take lists from your customer relationship management (CRM) system and load them into social media platforms to deliver customized messaging in their feed and stories.
For example, if an inquiry starts an application but doesn’t finish it, we can place advertisements in their social media feed encouraging them to complete their application.
Retargeting on social media
If you’re not running website retargeting, then when a prospect parent your site, they’re gone—poof!—and no matter how many resources you invested in getting the prospect to your site in the first place, they may be gone forever. Through retargeting, LFM can track prospects from your website to their preferred social media platforms. And similar to CRM targeting, we can match the user’s behavior with messaging.
For example, if a prospect spends considerable time on your website’s tuition pages, they can later see your Instagram Story ad highlighting your value and aid options.
Summer camps: a little social media marketing can go a long way
SEO for Private Schools
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of refining your website and its content so Google knows exactly who you are, what you offer, and to whom you offer it.
For example, you want Google to show your website anytime a prospective parent or student in your area searches for what you offer. SEO refers to tactics we use to make Google more likely to include your site as one of the top results when prospective parent searches for preschool and K-12 school options in your local area.
SEO is the best tactic in marketing private schools (fire emoji)
At first, that might seem like a bold claim. But the most affordable and highest-converting source of students originates in organic search. This is a truism that applies to all of our clients for three main reasons:
Prospective parents typically commence their initial awareness search in search engines
Prospective parents trust Google’s results as a proxy for quality. For example, if a parent searches for “best all boys schools nyc”, the parent is likely to assume that whichever school Google lists first is indeed verified as the best all boys school in the city.
An institution that ranks organically for search terms doesn’t need to pay for subsequent traffic, positioning SEO as a sustainable long-term strategy for independent schools.
SEO is the ideal starting point for any admissions-driven digital marketing strategy. In fact, it is difficult to scale admissions in an affordable way without SEO.
How does SEO work for independent schools?
A prospective parents searches for who you are or what you offer (“private schools near me”, “best private high schools”, “Montessori preschools near me”, etc.)
Google returns the top results for the keywords searched
The parent will click on the first organic result about half of the time. Generally, the top three results account for nearly 75% of the clicks for any search, and only 8% of people ever go past the first ten results.
We offer our SEO service in two managed-for-you formats:
SEO Project
A 4-6 month initiative designed to clean up your site from a search perspective. Includes an analysis, recommendations, and support. If you’re considering a site rebuild, we can ensure that at launch your new site retains your earned SEO value and is optimized for continued growth.
Ongoing SEO
A longer-term initiative designed to incrementally improve SEO. Google updates its algorithm regularly and is actively integrating various AI features. Our monthly ongoing SEO service keeps you ahead of the constant changes, allows for long-term initiatives, and provides you with a trusted SEO partner.
An SEO project puts an independent school on the map. Literally.
Not ranking where you should?
Let’s begin building your digital strategy.