New Strategies For Marketing After-School Programs In 2022

After-school programs can be beneficial to both parents and students. It provides more hours for the kids to be away from home if the parents are working, provides exciting things for the students to do, or even helps with areas of education they may be struggling with. 

You can show potential clients that you are the person to go with easily on a website, but how do you tell people to go there? To increase your enrollment, you need to first raise awareness. 

Raising awareness is best done through marketing. Unfortunately, if you don’t take the time to educate yourself on marketing strategies, you may find yourself just wasting money and not getting new customers. 

If you want to learn more about marketing strategies, specifically for after-school programs, continue reading below. We will cover some apps to help your productivity and management, how to promote engagement, and how to focus on your goals. 

How To Increase Enrollment With After-School Program Marketing

There are two main ways to increase enrollment in after-school programs. The first is word-of-mouth. Having people who can recommend you to others is by far your greatest tool. It is essentially free marketing backed by a good review. 

The second way to increase enrollment is to improve your after-school program marketing. Increasing your marketing allows you to bring in new students and increase your word-of-mouth. 

Why Is Marketing After-School Programs Important?

Unless you are in a small or impoverished area, it is unlikely that you are the only after-school program. Without proper marketing, it is unlikely that people will find your program and decide to choose it over another that they’ve heard about more. 

Even if you are the only program, you have to explain to people why they should pay to put their students in your program when what they’ve been doing for free works. 

This is where marketing comes in. You are enticing people to come in and try your program by providing information about your program and building trust in your community. 

You can’t just start marketing out of nowhere. It is essential to have a plan, often referred to as an after-school marketing plan. 

1. Make An After-School Marketing Plan

What Is An After-School Marketing Plan?

An after-school marketing plan is a strategy that lays out how you are going to focus on marketing. If you make an after-school marketing plan correctly, you will have an idea of your target audience, the best way to relay your information, and goals. It usually consists of about five steps to help you narrow down how you want to market your information. 

One of the main goals of an after-school marketing plan is to define how you stand out from the competition. You want to make sure that you are bringing something unique to the table. Something like a SWOT analysis can help you figure out where you excel in your after-school program marketing.

Why Is An After-School Marketing Plan Important?

An after-school marketing plan is important to help you focus your energy and money on targeted avenues that will be beneficial instead of just trying various marketing strategies in the hopes that one or two will work. 

2. Keep Organized

The first step is to keep organized when marketing after-school programs. When you are trying to handle payments, invoices, marketing, and who is enrolled in your program, you don’t want to lose any bit of information. One person trying to handle this all alone can easily get overwhelmed and lose track of the information. 

Thankfully, you don’t have to work alone. There are quite a few companies out there that can help handle all of your organization easily. Some of it is free, and some costs a few dollars a month, but the price is well worth it to make your program organized and data easy to access. 

• Google Analytics. Though you aren’t running a store, Google Analytics can help you to keep track of your online marketing, as well as information on your website. How many people are checking out your website? How far are they getting into the enrollment process? 
• Curacubby. Curacubby is designed for school and enrichment programs. It not only helps you manage your finances but your enrollment, screenings, staff, and even fundraising. While it doesn’t directly help with marketing, it helps you to track finances going towards marketing and make your reviews better due to the improved organization of your program. 
• Facebook. Both Facebook Ads Manager and Facebook Pages Manager are good programs to look at. They help you streamline your pages so that information about your business page appears first and keep track of your Facebook marketing campaigns and spending to see how the ads are helping your website traffic. 
• Grammarly. One of the first things new clients look for is proper grammar. If you aren’t going to even take the time to check your spelling and grammar, how can you take care of children? 

3. Make Enrollment And Information Easy To Access

If people can’t learn more about your company, they are less likely to give it a shot. Having a lot of your information online and easy to access allows potential users of your program to read about your company and start building that trust with you. 

Improve Your Website

This means that even if you already have a website, make sure it is working, easy to navigate, and has all the information you may need. You will want to make sure it is designed to work well on both mobile and desktop modes easily. 

4. Engage With The Public

Getting involved in your community and opening up communication to your local parents is a must when it comes to marketing after-school programs.

It helps build trust and lets people know that you are open and willing to answer any concerns and questions they may have. There are a few different ways to do this, and you can employ multiple at once.

• Social Media. Websites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are places where you can provide information, talk with potential clients, share any updates, and toot your own horn. 
• Blog. Blogs allow you to talk more about the program in detail. You can discuss things like what makes you qualified, what your goals are with your program, and even some success stories. 
• Videos. Showing videos of how your program is run, some of the fun/educational things your program does, and happy, smiling faces is a great way to show people that it is a good program to use and makes them feel connected to the business before they even try it. 
• Weekly Emails. Weekly emails are a great way to get all the information out to the parents all at once. You want to keep them short and sweet so they read them, but it is a good way to spread information, ask questions, and keep everyone feeling safe and comforted that you are willing to communicate with them. 

Conclusion

By making a plan, opening up communication, and making your information easy to find and read, you are well on your way to increasing your enrollment. Now all you need to do is point people toward your website. 

Ads, word-of-mouth, and connection with the school and your local community are all effective marketing tools. Just make sure you stay on top of it all so you are managing everything effectively, and remember that there are tools out there for you if you need some assistance.