Category Archives: Big Tips

It goes without saying that first impressions matter, and this is especially true when deciding upon a school for one’s children. Open days give prospective pupils and their parents an important insight into a school’s facilities, ethos and history, and they are an integral part of the admission process for primary and secondary schools alike.

There’s no question that it’s well worth investing the time and money in spreading the word about open days, and so we’ve collated our top open day marketing ideas to help make this process a little easier.

Use traditional marketing to promote your Open Day

Whilst many organisations are spending increasing amounts of their marketing budget online, traditional media still has a place in helping schools reach a wide audience.

Invest in newspaper advertising and pop-up banners in the months leading up to your Open Day, and make a good first impression by disseminating professionally designed flyers and leaflets. We recommend that you use what information you have about your existing students in order to gain a good understanding of your target audience. This will enable you to launch location-specific campaigns that achieve the best results.

Set up an Open Day page on your school’s website

No school open days campaign would be complete without an open day landing page. The open day page needs to state the time and date of the event. You should also provide a clear event itinerary, in addition to general information about the school.

Above all else, it is imperative that you include an eye-catching call-to-action (CTA) that encourages prospective students and their parents to apply.

Write blog posts about your Open Day

Once you have decided upon a date for this year’s open day, make a blog post announcing the exciting news. It should link through to your open day page, and other blog posts published in the months leading up to the main event should help publicise the day in a similar fashion.

Invest in school Open Day video production

Video is a powerful medium capable of communicating more information, action and authentic emotion than blog posts, flyers and emails could ever hope to achieve. As such, opting for video marketing is a fantastic way to raise awareness of upcoming open days and boost admissions.

Your open day promotional video is your golden opportunity to capture the essence of life as a pupil at your school. We recommend that you include short interviews with both the students and senior staff in this video. The footage that you show should highlight your school’s strongest points. Have the grounds been renovated in recent years? Has the school’s science department been recognised for its outstanding facilities?

You would be well advised to mention your open day in other media too. If you intend on producing a school promotional video, take the opportunity to discuss any upcoming open days that you plan on hosting. We invited Eton College’s director of admissions to talk about their open day (see the 02:20 mark) in our promotional video about the school’s Orwell Prize.

[Eton College | Main Video | Promotional School Video]

Find out more about video marketing for independent schools, and discover how to promote private schools with video.

Use social media to reach a wider audience

Almost everyone is on social media these days, and so using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn to raise awareness of your event really is a no-brainer.

Start by creating a public event page on Facebook. This will allow you to keep students and their parents updated on the upcoming event (they’ll be notified in the event that the date changes, for example). Facebook allows you to create event ads that are targeted at specific groups using paid promotion.

If you do decide to make a promotional video for your open day, upload it to your school’s Facebook page, and consider using Facebook video ads in the months leading up to your open day to expand your reach. Given Facebook’s relative popularity amongst older users, this will likely prove a wise investment. We recommend targeting the demographic profiles of both your students and their parents, as well as retargeting visitors to your school’s website. Find out more with our guide to Facebook video ads best practices.

If you’d like to take to Twitter to market your open day, you can’t go too far wrong with tweets bearing hashtags in the #[InsertSchoolNameHere]OpenDay format. Again, consider increasing your reach across the Twittersphere by promoting your tweets and Twitter videos.

Learn more about how schools can use digital advertising and how to promote a private school on social media.

Promote your Open Day via email marketing

Looking for a quick win? Reach out to those who have already expressed interest in your school with emails about upcoming open days. Prompt your recipients to register for an open day with a CTA that links through to your site, and increase engagement by embedding promotional videos in your emails.

It’s a good idea to grow your mailing list by collecting contact details from visitors to your school’s website. One way to go about this is to ask parents who would like a hard copy prospectus to submit their names and email addresses.

Make live broadcasts during the event itself

Marketing the open day doesn’t have to end when the parents come to visit your school, children in tow. You can promote your event even whilst it is in progress by live-streaming footage of the headmaster’s speech on the school website and/or via a video streaming service, such as YouTube and Vimeo.

It’s time to start marketing your Open Day!

There’s no denying that open days involve a fair amount of preparation. We hope that this has given you a few ideas that will help get the ball rolling ahead of the big day.

If you’d like to make a promotional video for your open day, you’ve come to the right place. Learn more about what to include in a promotional video for your school, and discover how we can help you with your school open day video production. Take a look at our work for some of the UK’s leading independent schools by viewing our best school promotional videos.

Take a look at our schools blog and all of our latest work on our YouTube channel for more ideas and inspiration

Small Films is a London-based video production company. If you’re thinking about creating a promotional school video, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our experienced team have produced films for many of the UK’s top independent schools, and they’d love to hear from you.

A private school is like any other business when it comes to marketing. A strategic and multi-levelled marketing plan is required in order to drive more customers (or students in your case). Unfortunately, it’s not possible in this competitive day and age to expect students to just come to you – no matter how good the standards are at your school.

At Small Films, the school sector is our speciality, and we’ve created innovative promotional videos for iconic institutions such as Eton College and St Margaret’s Preparatory School – so marketing for independent schools is something we know a great deal about.

From video production to blogging and beyond, this article will share five useful and creative tips for your private school marketing strategy, so that you can stay ahead of the competition and allow what sets your school and its ethos apart to shine.

1. SEO your school website

Let’s start with SEO.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) can be intimidating, and it covers a broad spectrum of areas – but we’re going to focus on just a few key aspects of SEO for marketing a private school.

Use local keywords to appeal to your target audience and those searching online for an independent school in your area. It’s not about stuffing tons of keywords into your site but using them in a natural way to give yourself the best chance of appearing in search rankings for those local Googlers that really matter. Consider local towns, cities and your county when determining what prospective parents might search for, ie. ‘private schools in Hampshire’ or ‘independent schools in Manchester’.

Start to type into the Google search bar, and Google will autofill in top searches. This is a great way to understand what terms to target when compiling your keyword research.

You can also make sure of online directories such as Google My Business to help you get found.

>> We talk more in-depth about local SEO for private schools in our Marketing an Independent School Ultimate Guide (2022).

A big aspect of search engine optimisation is also having regularly updated, quality content on your site. You can achieve this by having a blog, which brings us to our next point…

2. Create a school blog

Consider creating a school blog if you haven’t already.

This is a great way to keep your website fresh and demonstrate to both current and prospective parents what your school offers to students.

Put yourself in the parents’ shoes – if you’re comparing two private schools online and one has a regularly updated blog with news, insights and engaging content, and one doesn’t – which is going to be more compelling?

We don’t have to tell you that picking a school is a huge decision for parents, and they’ll want to find out as much as possible before they invest. – a blog is the perfect platform on which to share this information.

>> Looking for a video production company to support with a promotional school video. The Small Films team would love to help. Just drop us a line

3. Share content from the student’s point of view

What’s more important for parents than knowing what kind of experience their child will have at your school?

Private schools often default to creating content where the teachers are the narrative voice. While we think these kinds of videos are important to make, we also urge you to include content from the student’s viewpoint in your independent school marketing strategy.

Examples include student story videos, day in the life videos and blogs and student Q&As (these could potentially be done via live video on social media, or in person at open days).

It’s essential to have variety when marketing a private school and to create content that will appeal, answer questions and entertain in different ways.

4. Use school promotional videos

School promotion videos are a fantastic tool that we highly recommended all private schools to take advantage of. They’re an effective way to share your school story, and give a further insight into the day to day life at your school.

Wyzowl reported that “86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool”, and “94% of marketers agree that videos have helped increase user understanding of their products or service”.

The stats make it abundantly clear that you’re going to lag behind the competition if you’re not incorporating video into your marketing plan.

Watch the Small Films video we created for Dumpton School

>> You can find out more about how to make a school promotional video in this blog.

5. Create videos across your marketing channels

The possibilities for school promotional videos are endless, and you can harness their potential across all your marketing platforms.

For example, your website homepage can automatically play your explainer video, which will give parents and students a comprehensive overview of what it’s like to enrol at your school.

Watch our promotional school video for Eton College

Then you can use shorter, snappier videos for social media. These may be a mix of professional promotional videos and more casual, off-the-cuff videos that play into current social media trends. Don’t be afraid to show a slightly less filtered version of your school, especially on apps like TikTok.

Student story videos could be played in the background at in-person open days, or linked on your blog to complement written content.

There are so many ways your school can tell its story through video, and ensure your independent school marketing strategy is effective across all your platforms.

Keep in mind that each marketing platform likes a slightly different type of content, including styles of video – this is something we can advise you on.

Innovative marketing ideas for schools

Independent schools should be using strategic and innovative marketing techniques to demonstrate what life is like for their students and tell their stories effectively.

We hope this blog has given you a taste of what marketing a private school can include, and provided you with plenty of inspiration. Remember that an independent school is like any other business when it comes to marketing, and fresh methods and content are needed to keep appealing to new students.

Small Films is an educational video production company. We have created promotional videos for some of the top schools including Eton College, Blundell’s and St Margaret’s Preparatory. If you’d like to discuss a video for your school, then do get in touch.

As competition grows, private schools need to be clever in their efforts to increase enrolments. One way to do that is with video marketing, which can help your school stand out to parents and children. But how can promotional videos for schools achieve results? In this guide, we’re looking at video marketing and the role it has to play in private school enrollment.

How to promote a private school

Private schools function just like any other business in the sense that they need to generate customers. Only a customer is a student in this scenario, and their education is on the line. That means there’s more at stake, as parents want to ensure they’re sending their children to a school that will provide them with the best education possible.

So how do you make your school enticing? There are many ways to market your private school, but video marketing is the most intriguing. When done right, it can strike a chord unlike any other form of advertising – and a school video production could be just what you need to increase enrollment rates.

Videos have multiple uses, and you can share them on your website, social media and other platforms to increase reach. An impressive 89% of video marketers say video gives them a good return on investment, while 66% of consumers prefer watching a video to reading about a product or service, such as a private school.

Start with an explainer video

Video marketing works as an inbound tool, which is just what you need to increase your private school’s enrollment. One of the first things you can do is put an explainer video on your website, showing parents and children what they can expect from enrolling in your private school.

The explainer video only needn’t be more than a couple of minutes long – just enough to get people intrigued and looking at other sections of your website. Think of it as the first point of entry that entices potential school-goers into finding out more.

Include information about the school, giving a broad overview of what it’s like to attend and be a pupil. You can also show footage of the grounds, inside the classrooms and facilities, so viewers get a closer look inside the school.

Don’t forget the social media videos

Younger demographics are spending more time on social media, with platforms like TikTok becoming important places to share your message. Using social media as a private school is a great way to ramp up your marketing efforts while making you more relatable.

Don’t be afraid to have fun when marketing on platforms like TikTok, as students will see your content and be more inclined to show it to their parents if it resonates. Other platforms like Instagram and YouTube are also worthy platforms for showcasing your content.

While most people think of social media as a way to gain more followers, it can also act as an effective lead generation tool. A solid social media presence can start building the foundations to get more people interested in enrolling in your private school.

Use video for SEO

Your digital output is only as good as your SEO when it comes to organic traffic. Fortunately, video marketing is a great way to increase SEO on your website. In turn, that can increase enrollment in private schools, as your website is getting more traction.

If you have a news section and other forms of content on the site, try including videos for each piece of written content summarising the article. It will help boost your SEO, as more people are searching for video answers on Google.

Google also shows a video thumbnail next to 26 per cent of its search results. And because video is the preferred method for most users, there’s an increased chance that people will click on your page if there’s a video attached to it.

Videos allow for more personalisation

A whopping 82 per cent of internet traffic is video, and using it to market your school can build a connection with potential prospects. Use video tactics to highlight the people who make your private school tick, from the teachers to the pupils.

The further potential attendees move down the funnel; the more personal they expect you to get. So if you’ve previously captured some leads, why not send out a personalised email with videos focusing on your school and how it could impact them directly?

Personalised videos are a great way to build a rapport and address your target audience’s situation and needs. They will appreciate the extra effort on your end, as they’ll know that you are the school to look after their child’s needs.

Summary: video marketing for higher enrolment numbers

Well-executed video marketing will help your school stand out from the crowd and give people a great first impression. If you can leverage video marketing to strike a chord with parents and students, you can get your private school in front of the right eyes and ramp up the numbers for higher enrollment rates.

If you’re looking for a school video production company, then we’re your guys. We’ve worked with some of the top private schools across the country and we’d love to help you tell your school’s story. Just drop us a line and we’ll get back to you within two hours.

As the school marketplace becomes more competitive and parents are faced with more choices than ever, it might feel like you have a mountain to climb when it comes to marketing your independent school. You may be looking to increase school admissions, or to change the perception of your school to one which is student wellbeing focused, or you may have recently opened exceptional sports facilities that you want to shout about. Whatever your objective, this ultimate guide is packed full of our top tips and tricks to help you in marketing an independent school.

LOCAL SEO FOR SCHOOLS

Local SEO is a way of ranking your school on Google when someone performs a location-based search. For instance, a prospective parent may type ‘private schools near me’ or ‘independent schools in Berkshire’, into Google and if they see your school listed in the local map results they are more likely to click on it. Local SEO can be one of the most effective ways of targeting parents in the local area who are looking for a school for their child. There are many ways you can implement local SEO for your school, so I’ll break them down into a handy list for you below.

List your Independent School on Local Directories

One of the first steps and also one of the easiest to implement is ensuring your school is listed on local directories. These will be listings such as Google My Business and Bing Places but will also be specific location-based directories such as local news sites like BerkshireLive or Manchester Evening News. Just search for ‘directory + your area’ to find places to find appropriate listings.

Earn Online Reviews

Online reviews matter a lot when it comes to location-based searches. Businesses that are well thought of are pushed higher in the search results by Google, so achieving a high average rating for your school can make all the difference when it comes to having a prospective parent want to click on your website. Make sure you always play by the book as Google will penalise reviews that they think have been bought or given by staff. Add a link on your school marketing emails to ‘add a review’ to encourage great comments to be left on your Google My Business page. In the below example you can see that users would more likely click on Marlborough College over Stonar or Dauntseys due to its glowing reviews.

Optimise your School Website Pages with Local Keywords

Before optimising your site, you will need to perform some keyword research to discover which keywords have the highest search volume. Tools such as Ubersuggest, SEMrush and Ahrefs all offer free trials to help you perform your school keyword research. Remember to think like the searcher when it comes to location. For instance the search term ‘private school Wiltshire’ has 210 people searching for it a month, whereas ‘private school Pewsey’ has zero. Therefore you would want to optimise for the term Wiltshire to take advantage of the higher search volume. Bring these keywords into pages on your website (without being spammy) to help your site rank higher on Google when a user searches them.

Add the Location of your Independent School to your Title Tags

Title tags are very important when it comes to SEO as they signal to Google what search terms your website should rank for. By adding in the location of your school to your title tag it can help your site rank when someone performs a location-based search. Use the keyword research that you performed for the web pages to help you decide the right term for your title tags.

SCHOOL VIDEO PRODUCTION

Create Promotional School Videos

Promotional school videos can be one of the most powerful tools to help you achieve a variety of objectives including increasing school admissions, driving awareness of your school or changing the perception of your school. Promotional school videos can also come in a variety of formats to help you tell your story, this may include departmental films that focus on a specific area that you want to highlight such as your sports or theatre facilities or you may want to tell your story from the perspective of a student. Below are some of the types of promotional school videos you can create to help you with marketing a school.

Types of Promotional School Videos

– School website videos
– School department highlight videos
– Student’s story videos
– Head’s welcome videos
– School event videos, i.e school plays, dances, celebrations etc
– Alumni videos
– Open Day videos
– Aerial videos for a birds-eye view of your school
– Web advert school videos

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR MARKETING AN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL

Instagram

With roughly one billion monthly users, Instagram is a social media channel that every school should be on. This highly curated platform when used strategically can put your school’s content right in front of your target audience, by tapping into location opportunities and hashtags. Create a content strategy that encompasses key school dates which may include World Book Day, open days and Christmas carols etc. Hashtags are one of the most important elements when it comes to Instagram and marketing an independent school. You should be using approximately 15-20 per post. Assess what types of hashtags prospective parents may follow such as #devon or #independentschools and add these to the caption when posting.

Create a Facebook Business Page for your School

A Facebook profile for your school is another way to help parents discover your school and also interact with you online. Create a full profile that is populated with content and imagery and use the channel to update followers about key school events, open days, successes and social activities. When promoting key days across the year such as open days then design eye-catching Facebook banner headers, create Facebook Events and post key information on your timeline.

Use a Promotional School Video on your Facebook Header

When a user lands on your Facebook page, the header will be the first thing they see, so it’s, therefore, a great place to hold a showcase video for your school. Use a video that highlights all the best aspects of your school without the need for sound.

Facebook and Instagram Ads for Schools

Facebook and Instagram ads can be a great way to deliver your message in a highly targeted way. With filtering options that allow you to focus your demographic including age, gender, behaviour and interests, these platforms ensure that your ads are only being shown to those who would find the content relevant. Make sure that you have a clear idea of who your target audience is and what sort of compelling content would get them to engage with your ad. These style of adverts will have a cost associated every time someone clicks on it, so you always want the page you direct them to grab their attention and lead them to perform an action (download a school prospectus, sign up to an open day or sign up to your newsletter). You don’t want to spend precious £s on having people click on your advert and then jump straight off your website.

Contact us to find out how Small Films can help you with your social media ads

Create a School YouTube or Vimeo Page for your promotional school videos

Not sure where to put your sixth form Macbeth school play video? YouTube and Vimeo pages are brilliant channels to give a more in-depth view into life at your school. You can go behind the scenes of your art department or give a deeper insight into how you approach wellbeing and pastoral care or even share your sixth form awards ceremony so parents can watch the replay from the comfort of their own homes. Every video uploaded should tell a story and have a purpose. Aim to segment your videos into categories to help users easily find the style of video they’re looking for, i.e sports department, celebratory events and co-curricular.

If you would like Small Films support to create a promotional school video then do get in touch

SCHOOL WEBSITE DESIGN

Design a Website That Clearly Shows the Benefits of Your School

A clear and well-designed website is the most important factor in marketing an independent school. A well-performing school website is one that helps build trust with your audience, guides your visitors to take particular actions, is full of valuable and useful content and is clear and easy to use. Assess the content that a prospective or current parent may want to know and check that your website answers it. Are key pieces of information such as fees and admissions information easy to find? Does the content clearly show the ethos of the school? Make sure you build in trust signals throughout – this can be as simple as ensuring blog content is regular and updated. If you have won awards such as The Independent School or Best School Awards then shout about this or if you have video testimonials from current students then include these on your site.

School Website Checklist

– School Term Dates
– Head Teacher’s Welcome Video
– About the School
– Open Day Information
– Registration Timelines
– Pastoral Care
– School Life Video
– School Fees
– School History
– School Prospectus (or ability to have the prospectus posted)
– Scholarship and Bursary Information
– Co-curricular activities
– Admissions Procedure
– Departmental Information
– Directions to the School
– Contact Information
– Blogs and News
– Links to Social Media

Start a School Blog

Placing emphasis on your school blog content is a great way to showcase to prospective parents the best highlights of your school. Think of it as a window into your school where you can recap key school events or give a glimpse into a typical day of a student. Blogs also make great content to share in newsletters or on your social media channels.

Independent School Blog Ideas

– News
– Highlights of key events, i.e school plays, celebrations, awards etc
– Interviews with Department Heads
– A glimpse inside a new building
– A day in the life of a student
– What to expect when starting at your school
– School admission tips
– Student guest posts

Consider the questions that prospective parents may have and write blog content that answers these topics such as

– How to prepare your child for boarding school
– How to apply for a bursary or scholarship
– Top 10 ways to help your children complete their homework
– Creative ways to homeschool during lockdowns

ENTER INDEPENDENT SCHOOL AWARDS

Not only can winning awards be a great way to boost staff morale, they are also an excellent way to showcase to prospective parents that their child will receive an outstanding education at your school. A shortlist can be a great bit of PR and excellent content to broadcast on your social media channels and if you go on to win the award make sure to proudly place the winning logo front and centre on your website. Below are some of the key independent school awards to enter across the year to help you market an independent school.

Enter Best School Lists

By listing in independent school directories you can leverage when a parent performs the search on Google of ‘Best independent schools in the UK’. Some of these lists may be populated by league tables whilst others may be by area, i.e top independent schools in London. Contact the owner of the website and ask if there is an opportunity for your school to be listed.

Independent School Directory List

If you are looking for a school video production company and digital marketing agency that can help you in marketing an independent school, then don’t hesitate to get in touch – we’d love to help.

The best thing about commissioning video for your independent school is that you probably already have a great story to tell and a lot of amazing assets to film. That’s the hardest part over. Now it’s just about creating videos that tell your unique story in the best way, connect with your audience and help you drive admissions. Coming up with those film ideas can sometimes be a tricky task, especially when you have specific objectives like changing the perception of your school, reaching a wider audience, or letting people know about a unique aspect of what your school offers. To help you get started, here are 5 types of video that can be used to tell the story of your school.

1. Website Video

The first place to start is with a video that sits on your website and tells the story of your school in a nutshell (2 – 3 minutes). It is the first thing that prospective parents will engage with when they search for your school, so it has to be broad and cover all the relevant information. It can be a lovely mix of interviews with teachers and pupils, footage of the grounds and the facilities, footage of the students and teachers in action and everything that the school has to offer like extra-curricular activities, boarding and your school’s achievements. It’s an extremely effective way of building a personal connection to your prospective parents and can be empowering, heartfelt and even humorous.

Here is a website video we made for St Margarets.

2. Departmental Films

These are videos that can be about the schools different departments such as the arts, sports and science, or particular aspects of the school like boarding, prep-curriculum or extra-curricular activities. It’s great to highlight particular aspects of your school that you really want to shout about, or to let people know about a side of your school that they didn’t know about. If you want your customers to know of your fantastic theatre facilities then create a video interviewing the teachers and students, then combine that with footage of the theatre rehearsals and plays. If sport is your forté, then create a short film looking at all the different sports you offer. Or, if you’ve traditionally been seen as a sporty school but have made huge headway in academic league tables, then create a short video about academia and teaching to show a different side to your school. Departmental videos are also extremely good at giving your customers a more detailed and personal look at your school. These videos can be hosted on your website, your YouTube channel and can also be turned into great online advertisements for Facebook and Instagram.

3. Pupil Stories

Another effective way of telling your school story is from the perspective of the pupils themselves. A video of your pupils (with their parents consent) put up onto your Facebook or YouTube channel can be a great way to build an instant connection with prospective students. These videos can be highly creative and can also be a really good way at getting your existing pupils involved with some media, filming and acting activities. It can also be a great way to show the pastoral side of school life. Themes for these videos could include “A day in the life of a student”, “Boarder’s Story” or “Leaver’s Story”. Your pupils are perhaps the best ambassadors you have for the school so make sure to feature them in your videos.

Here’s a video we made for Moulsford Boy School to sit on their website which followed a pupil throughout his day.

4. Message from the Head

Many schools have a “Head’s Welcome” message on their website so why not turn this into a video? Parents will always be keen to know who the Head of the school is and to get a feeling for what outlook they have. This would be an interview with the Head giving their personal story and connection with the school, outlining their experience, capabilities and everything they hope to achieve for your child. It’s a personal way for the Head teacher to tell their story and connect with parents directly.

We made this video for The Oratory Prep school to house on their website which has an interview from the headmaster. We filmed the interview and created a separate, longer film for other marketing activity.

5. Short form stories

These are videos that tell a story of your school in under 20 seconds that can be very easily marketed across the internet through your social media channels. They are a great way of regularly getting your school message out there to your potential audience. These videos could feature quick vignettes of school life like boarding, extra-curricular activities or after-school clubs. They could also focus on individual aspects of the school and its facilities like the sports hall, theatre or grounds. Or they could highlight a different side to learning at the school like using smart boards in classes, school trips and outdoor learning. The great thing about short story videos is that you can easily create a large volume of videos from a single shoot and each video can tell a different story about your school.

We made this video for Priory Academy LSST for their digital advertising campaign to increase boarding admissions and international student intake. We made short form videos that looked into each international students life boarding at LSST.

These are just 5 ideas for videos to tell the story of your school but this really is just the tip of the iceberg. When you start to get creative with your videos, there’s no end to what you can create from mini-documentaries filmed by the students themselves to ex-alumni films and even 360 videos of the school grounds and facilities.

The world of independent schools has changed and the academic landscape is now a highly competitive industry. Independent schools can no longer rely solely on the prestige of their institution, league tables or word of mouth to secure a constant flow of admissions. Today your prospective students and parents live in a digital age and you will need to embrace technology if you want to keep your admissions high and stay in the minds of the right people. After ensuring you have a well presented and smooth working website, video is the next marketing tool you should set your sights on.

At Small Films we have created videos to increase school admissions for some of the UK’s leading independent schools including Eton College, The Oratory Preparatory School and Moulsford School. Here are our top five ways in how you can use video to promote your school.

1. Video on your websites homepage

A video on your homepage can be incredibly powerful for independent schools where your website acts as your shop window. In fact, a survey by Unbounce found that video on your landing page can increase conversion rates by 80%. This video holds all the information and knowledge that a prospective parent or pupil will need. It eliminates the time your prospect has to spend searching for information and engages them instantly with creative and meaningful content. In a matter of minutes, not only do they know everything they need to know about your school but they also form an emotional connection. They have begun to imagine what it will be like to be a pupil at your school or as a parent what it will be like to send their child there. This connection is hard to achieve through just text and pictures. It’s an instant way to stand out from other schools and demonstrate your unique selling point. When creating this video you should ensure it is concise, polished and easy to digest.

2. Facebook Video Marketing

If you haven’t already been using social media for your school then it’s a good time to start! After watching the brand film on your website, visitors will want to do further research online. This is where social media channels play an important role. The more interaction they can achieve with your school, the better they will feel about you and the easier it will be for them to build a relationship. Facebook has 1.18 billion daily active users (Facebook) and the average user spends 50 minutes per day on Facebook. Incorporating a Facebook page for your school will amplify the amount of people you can connect with and it is another platform where your brand film can be presented. Not only that but via your Facebook page you can begin to include “vignettes” of school life via both professional videos and “self-shot” videos. This could be films featuring different parts of the school like sporting life, 6^th form, arts and drama, or calendar events like school trips and sports day. It’s a great way to add depth and character to your school. Facebook has options now to prioritise video viewing and your page cover photo can be replaced with a video. Consumers engage with branded videos the most on Facebook (49%), followed by YouTube (32%), then Instagram (24%) (Tubular Insights).

3. YouTube channel

YouTube is the second most visited site after Google (Alexa). Regular video posts onto a YouTube channel can achieve huge traffic and engagement from your prospects. The average mobile-viewing session on YouTube lasts more than 40 minutes (Kissmetrics).

Where YouTube excels over Facebook is that you can create your own “channel” for the school with lots and lots of videos. It can be an exciting way for pupils and teachers at the school to create their own videos to contribute to the channel. You can be a lot more creative with the types of videos you make and really show off the school’s character. YouTube can act like an extension of your website video where parents and students will be willing to spend more time watching a video about specific aspects of your school like sport, maths, or teachers and facilities.

4. Social media advertising

Video advertisements can be hugely effective online as you can target very specific demographics whether that’s pupils, parents or teachers. Different social media platforms will work more effectively depending on the target audience. For example, Twitter and Facebook adverts will work best on parents whereas Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube ads will work best on prospective pupils. These adverts can be either brand new content or can be created using your own existing videos. The optimal length for these is between 5 and 15 seconds. Social media advertising as a whole can be an extremely effective way of getting your school in front of a new audience, but you can also use it to keep your school constantly in the mind of your current audience. Using a simple feature of Facebook called “pixel” you can “re-market” to people who have already visited your website. This means that when they visit your website they will be tracked by Facebook or Instagram and shown an unobtrusive advert to remind them that they were interested in your school. This form of advertising is highly effective.

5. Video mail

The truth is not everyone is on social media, so how do you reach parents that are not on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube? One fantastic solution is through email marketing. It is a tried and tested approach that works time and time again. Whether you send out a newsletter or a personal email you can include video within that email. That can be your school video, a message from the head or a video about some other aspect of school life. Another way to get parent’s attention is to send out a hard copy of your video via Royal Mail. Rather than being old fashioned (i.e. a VHS sent in a big package) this is actually a very sophisticated form of marketing called a “video book” — it’s a school prospectus that when opened, contains a small screen that plays your video automatically. If you have an open day coming up and you want to target parents with something special then this could be the perfect solution.

There are so many great ways for independent schools to increase admissions in school using video and it represents one of the best ways to get high user engagement and a solid return on investment. There has never been a better time for schools to spread awareness, share their story and connect with new audiences. Video is one of the fastest ways for you to get your school out there in front of the right people and make your story heard by those that matter.

If you are looking for ways to increase school admissions and would like a discussion with one of our team about digital marketing or video production, then do drop us an email as we would love to help.

In an article by The Guardian, Ralf Lucas the founder of Good Schools Guide said that he was noticing a clear shift when meeting parents in their opinion towards State schools, saying that “Independent schools really need to show us more, not just tell us, as we’re really taking State schools seriously”. Parents today are spoilt for choice. Not only do independent schools need to prove their value over State schools but they also need to work harder to stand out from their competitor schools. This is why a well executed digital strategy should be a top priority for any marketing team in the independent school sector, and digital advertising can play a massive role in that.

So, what is digital advertising? Digital advertising is when you run adverts online across social media, Google, YouTube, and various other websites. Last year digital advertising spend outstripped television for the first time in history (SEOworks). It’s highly effective and the good news is it’s affordable for everybody, regardless of the size of your school marketing budget.

What are the best ways to use digital advertising for your school?

1. To drive more people to your school website

A video on your school website is an extremely effective way of engaging prospective parents. But how do you get them to visit your website in the first place, especially if they’ve never heard of your school? By running adverts online across Facebook and Instagram you can reach people beyond your immediate sphere of influence. For example, if you are a boarding school based in Surrey but you want to attract more international students from South Korea, you could run a Facebook advert that only targets affluent, well educated, English speaking adults in the Seoul area. Or, if you are a school in Buckinghamshire running a bursary scheme for inner city children, you could run an Instagram advert explaining the advantages of the scheme targeting London postcode children under the age of 16 who attend a specific selection of State schools. Even if you just want to attract more pupils from the next county, social media advertising is a great way to do this.

2. To highlight the best aspects of your school

Parent’s can often get into “analysis paralysis” when comparing different schools. This is because many will have a good website, a compelling video and lots of information that positions them in a favourable light. To stand out from the competition, you need to think outside the box and that’s where digital advertising can help. You can provide parents with many more layers of information about your school to help them in the decision making process and also keep yourself in the front of their mind. By creating a series of films highlighting different aspects of your school, whether that’s art, sport or academia, you can run them as promotional videos online across social media channels, Google and YouTube.

3. Keeping you at the front of prospect minds

One of the best things you can do for your school with digital advertising is to set up “re-marketing”. You might not have heard of re-marketing before but you will no doubt be familiar with it. We’ve all been there; you look at a bit of furniture or some clothing online and then an advert for that same item starts following you around the internet. You might find this slightly annoying, but the truth is it really works! All you need to do is ask your website designer to install Google and Facebook Pixel. Once that’s done you can set up your own re-marketing campaign via Google ads or Facebook ads. The reason this is so good is because it will keep your school in front of prospect parents as they deliberate over which school to visit, or which school to choose for their child.

Digital advertising can offer you some great solutions. Instagram and Facebook are both platforms that allow you to be very strategic in your approach to reach target audiences. By allowing you the selection of certain factors like location, age, gender, demographics, interests, behaviours, connections or language, you have the potential of reaching parents and students worldwide. As well as specific people around the UK. Your main focus when advertising on these platforms is to have a very distinguished idea of who your target audiences are and how you are best going to reach them with compelling content.

You can be even more specific in your approach by targeting your prospect parents and students on the channels that you know they are most active. For example, if you want to be targeting parents with digital adverts the best options will be Facebook, Google and YouTube. As an older generation and not so immersed in the world of social media, you’ll mainly want to target them during everyday internet activity, for example, at work or online shopping through Google, watching recipe videos on YouTube, or, staying in contact with friends on Facebook.

If you want to be targeting students with your digital adverts the best platforms for you will be Instagram and Snapchat. The younger generation is much more tech savvy – providing them with direct access to your school’s information through a well displayed advert on Instagram will add a lot of credibility (maybe they’ll even share the ad). If you want to be reaching Feeder schools with your adverts then the best place to reach them is through Twitter as it’s more of a platform for brands, businesses and organisations. Perfect for spreading a more sophisticated message about your school to other people in the same field.

Digital advertising can seem like a daunting task but once you get started it soon becomes second nature. Just be specific in your approaches and make sure to have a very clear idea of who you want to be targeting. Use the right platforms in relation to your target audience, be knowledgeable about them so that you can be precise in your targeting and, be specific in the content you produce so that it resonates and connects with the target audience.

If you are looking for support with how to advertise your school then we have a team of highly experienced creatives, film makers and digital marketers who would love to help. Drop us a line here.