Admission Drive

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What did you choose?
" Teaching is an art". Rajeev Ranjan

The demand for perfection, on both a
personal and institutional level, has
increasingly taken hold of our schooling
system, and it is to the detriment of the
learning, development and wellbeing of
students. (Rebecca Saltot, http://www.theguardian.com)
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The school’s survival will depend on its ability to maintain and capture
market share by marketing both to an internal (current consumers)
and an external environment (Davies and Ellison, 1997).
Choosing not to market your school today is choosing not to continue
with the business of --------------- education.
School marketing is means to communicate, what do we want
audiences/prospective parents to know about our school.
Marketing is a management philosophy passed on relationships that link
the community and the school itself. This is due to market changes
and the school’s need to respond. (Foskett 2002)
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5" Teaching is an art". Rajeev Ranjan

Crucial, difficult and challenging moment for a parent
Children at school (14-16) crucial and challenging years
Questions?
 Better return on investment, time and cost
 Integrated development of a child
 Skill based education for a child
 Positive Attitude of a child
 Etiquettes and manner
 Exposure of a child
 Don’t know , don’t think, may be absurd, may be many
more, but each and everything, may be change in course
of time

High level expectations from a parent & cut throat
competitions among schools to provide better
opportunities and facilities
Questions?
 Distance from home to school (often kids of 3 to 8 years )
 Infrastructures of school available around 25 Km of
radius
 Quality of studies at school , observed by local parents
 Economic capacity of a parent
 Standards offered by schools and what parents can afford
 Teacher- Student ratio

Questions?
 Class-size
 Teacher –Students relationship
 Teacher-Parent relation especially acceptance of two way
communication
 School quality, brand value in society, reputation
 School administration, principal, well-qualified and
professionally trained teachers

Questions?
 Success ratio of students in terms of admissions in
good colleges and universities after leaving school
 Selection in reputed career oriented institutions
 Successful alumni in diverse fields i.e. administrative
officer, lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientist,
journalists, musicians, artist,----------------
 Safety and security of child

High level expectations of a parent & cut throat
Questions?
 Attentive school attend the individual needs i.e.
different learning styles, different types of learners,
learners’ interest in different fields i.e. sports, horse
riding, music and creative arts

Who takes decision for admission?

Crucial, difficult and challenging moment for a parent if s/he
thinks to choose a new school for various reasons:-
 Decision to select a school for the first time for own child
 Thinking to change the school, due to unsatisfactory
progress of students
 Thinking to change the school due to shifting
home/business shift
 Thinking to change the school due transfer/promotion
 Any other reasons

 Market Survey
 Current Trend of Schools
 Prospective Parents
 Prospective Students
 Paying Capacity
 List of Feeder School
 List of Resource Person
 List of Parent Ambassador
 List of school (Struggling for maintaining rational
education)

 Data collection is the process of gathering and
measuring information on variables of interest, in an
established systematic fashion that enables one to
answer stated research questions, test hypotheses,
and evaluate outcomes. (https://ori.hhs.gov)
 Provides a clear and lucid picture
 To answer particular questions
 A way to identify questions for further investigation
 What is right medium?
 What can be best effective approach?
 What are positive and negatives prospects?

 Prepare an Admission Drive Team
 Work on analyzing collected data
 Further planning and execution
 Wise leader designs school advertisement plan
suitable to the expectations , needs and temperament
of local people. Different strategy works at different
place

 Cut throat competition/big business men/big
educational ventures/ establishing a group of
schools every year. So,
 Advertisement
 Advertisement
 & && & & &&&
 Advertisement
 Let see what you can do for your school

Objectives of an advertisement
 Awareness /Knowledge/Liking/Preference/Conviction/Enhances
possibility
Reasons for advertisement
 Increasing the sales of the product/service
 Creating and maintaining a brand identity or brand image
 Communicating a change in the existing product line
 Introduction of a new product or service
 Increasing the buzz-value of the brand or the company
 (Source:-
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/different-types-of-advertising.html
)

Tools and Techniques of Admission Drive
1. Brochures/Prospectus
2. Leaflet
3. Pamphlets
4. Poster
5. News paper
6. Hoardings
7. Banner
8. Synagogue
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1. Billboards
2. Radio
3. Television
4. Celebrity Branding
5. Kiosks, Trade-shows and Events
6. Coffee cup
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1. Website
2. Email
3. SMS
4. Blog
5. Social Media
6. Telephonic Call
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1. Words of Mouth Campaign
2. Student as brand ambassador of school
3. Parent as brand ambassador of school
4. Open house
5. Presentation at “ Feeder” school
6. Organizing different fests, programmes, and competition
to provide opportunity for other school students to visit
your own school (Students Interested Programmes)
7. Think local with a global vision (within a certain radius)
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 Decide day , time of school visit feasible to the parents
 Mild reminder through :-
 SMS
 Email
 Email with a small school over view video
 Telephonic
 Follow up
 Complete address of school, clear and lucid direction to
reach school , may be direction to all minute place
 Give a personal touch to this visit

School preparation for parent visit at campus
 Feeling of safety of child by observing security system at
gate
 Positive aura at reception (Playing soothing music,
students activities videos, photos)
 Fine hospitality at reception
 Fluent and well informed PRE to answer parent’s
question
 Visiting parents’ name at reception display

 Well trained and well versed a team of teachers to
attend the guardians
 Neatness and cleanliness of campus, playground ,
classrooms , washrooms
 Discipline in the school, in the classroom and during
movement of students for different activities and
changing over period
 Tour to school campus must be accompanied by
Admission Team Member

 Students, teachers , even supporting staffs should greet
PP
 Subject teacher can brief about the current activity in
class
 Classroom display board reflects the creativities of
students
 Students’ friendly furniture in the classroom
 Behaviour of students during parents’ visit can have
great impact(Way of communication, respect for each –
other ,general caring behaviour as well as positive body
language)

 Visit of school and tour to classroom should be selected
 Selected student admission ambassador(SSAA) should
greet the parent and students
 SSAA should be able to tell the present classroom
activity

 Admission Ambassador ensures a meeting with school
leaders
 School leader should present a small gift as a token of
love i.e. a branded coffee mug (school name printed),
school activity magazine and for student a school t-
shirts etc)
 Admission Ambassador should take a photograph and
send it by thank you email to the visiting parent
 School leader may send a handwritten personal message

1. Open house events on campus is a very effective
recruitment strategy
2. Open houses allow potential students to experience
the private school life first hand, making it easier to
imagine themselves there in the future
3. Proper and planned open house session for outside
students enhance the possibility for more admission
4. Organize a student to student interaction, students to
teacher interaction of same grade
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1. The day a student from another school share his/her
wish to join your school for better education, that day
school becomes a educational hub
2. If a student visits your school to inquire about the
school, the school becomes a educational hub. More
footfalls of students at campus sign of more
admissions in school
3. If present students become brand ambassador of
school that is sign of more admissions at school
because joyful academic activities mean viral
branding of school
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 Follow up of prospective parents through Calling, SMS,
Email, Personalized Letter(Email/Printed) encourages
parents to think, think and rethink, review of previous
school performance and your convincing promises for
the future.
 Prepare a follow up plan for the prospective parent
 Prepare follow up plan for at least one month
 Starting with initial inquiry
 Prepare a concise personal letter for the parent
having school highlights
 Start from thank you call , sms, and email

 Call parent for information and ask for campus visit
 Confirm parents receiving of mail, sms , letter from the
school by telephonic conversation and use this time
for extracting more information about parents’ wish
 Try to understand the temperament of parents
 Admission drive team can consult parent ambassador
of that locality to consult the prospective parent
 Mildly encourage parent to visit school once
 Mild reminder through sms, mail , telephonically with
a gap of time
 Do not disturb parent frequently

 Meeting prominent people of the village, Gram
Pradhan, doctors, Engineer, businessmen,
shopkeepers, intellectual people, educated people,
farmers, workers, leaders, parents, students and
different people without making distinction of caste,
creed and religion

 Objective of this programme
 Root level marketing management to promote a school
 To feel the pulse, expectation and aspiration of people about
good as well as quality education
 Aware people about quality education and its characteristics
This type of admission campaign works in semi urban area(50 to
200 thousands population). This campaign has great impact on
parents. Admission committee member meets with prominent
people and convey vision and mission of school, shows videos ,
pictures and other evidential proof to the guardian. Committee
member also replies the questions of parent and prominent
people related to school. In fact , it is very effective admission
campaign in a long term.

1. Proper respect , proper involvement , considerable
and rational partnership with school enhances the
possibilities in the popularity of school
2. Parent an image builder of school
3. Parent a decision maker in taking admission in a
school
4. Parent motivates other parent to take admission
5. Parent a good catalyst
6. Pupils rational and holistic progress give a sense of
relief to existing parents

"Kindness is the one commodity of
which you should spend more than you
earn." T.N. Tiemeyer

Existing parents are the greatest asset of a school. Their
satisfaction with the school solve two tier purposes. Firstly,
they will keep their child in the same school and secondly
they are prime resource to reach target community for new
admissions. So,
A. Well aware about the taste and temperament of existing
families
B. Keep regular touch with existing parents
C. Organize face to face meeting with the yes/no parent
D. Try to understand parents next level demand/wish
E. Organize small get together with parents on a coffee table

Personal phone call to all existing guardians to communicate
extended features of school and beneficial factors to re-
enroll
Work out the areas of dissatisfaction of existing parents and
improvement must be conveyed individually related to
individual parent(improvement in handwriting, behaviour--)
Existing parent positive concerns towards the growth of school
and students must me taken care at personal level , no
matter , what are the nature of concerns. We should not
hesitate to give proper respect to their prime concerns
because his/her son/daughter’s future is at our hand . There
is always negative and positive possibility to turn a student
into a fine human being or to derail from the right track.

 Conducting open test for students aspiring for taking
admission
 Promising incentive for brilliant students
 Promising a reasonable fee concession for sibling case (parent
feels comfort if s/he has more than one kids) school can frame
own policy according to budget.
 Promising a reasonable fee concession for a (specific group i.e.
some schools give 10% concession for defense
personal/teacher etc) (Scheme based admission carries some
flaws also) (Think pros and cons of scheme based admission
before launching it)

 Mirror of Quality and Quantity Assurance and a
Platform to Share Every Moment as an Evidence
to Students, Parents and Different Prospective
and Interested Clients

Power of virtual world is intact. School presence on world wide
web(www) ensures the brand image of school, in fact build a
brand among local as well as world wide viewers. It is store
house , information center, mirror, vision and mission of a
school. WWW is a solution center to the known to unknown.
Smartphone is under reach to everyone parent with the
highest internet speed so school be ready for -----------
One click
One click
One click
One click



1. Create a responsive website:- marketing focused , appealing
to prospective parents and students, user friendly
2. Responsive web design is simply this–a website design that
adjusts gracefully to fit on desktop, tablet, and smartphone
browsers. (Steimle is the CEO of MWI). School needs to do it
because most of parents are friendly with smartphone.
(http://www.forbes.com)



1. Search engine optimization:- hiring a professional and use
various tools for search engine optimization for the parent,
school can take payment based service from service
providers
2. Create a school blog:- create a blog, post relevant content
which is useful to students, parents and other people,
information hungry people, involve various contributor of
blogs. We can share (a)success story of students, teachers
and old students (b)Achievement of school in its vision and
mission(c)Positive reviews of parents , students, i.e. What
makes this school special? Parents’ reconfirmation and
satisfaction over choosing this school and the difference
made in academic year.

What is Social Media Marketing?
 Social media marketing is the process of building your brand
equity & awareness via social media channels.(Jayson DeMers
Jayson DeMers is the Founder & CEO of AudienceBloom)
 What are the benefits of social media marketing?
 Social media marketing has several significant benefits:
 Increases brand awareness
 Gives your brand an organic, human feel
 Allows you to tune in to what’s being said about your brand
 Facilitates word-of-mouth marketing
 Gives you a medium through which to communicate with your
customers & potential customers
 Increases customer loyalty
 Builds consumer trust

1. Social media channels are platforms to connect people from
various fields. Strong medium to promote school.
2. Create school page on various social media sites , Face book,
Twitter, YouTube, Slide share, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram
or Snapchat for students
3. Use of social media sites for advertisement of school
(Available on payment)
4. Video brings life as effective evidence of educational
activities happen during academic year, students activity,
teacher’s teaching methodology, classroom teaching video

Mr. Rick NewBerry’s prepared a list of questions that will be helpful in preparing
prospective students and parents friendly web world to promote school—
 Have you invested in a responsive website design?
 Are you utilizing a blog on your website and in your marketing
strategy?
 Are you bringing your school to life on your website by telling
stories about your people and programs?
 Are you communicating news stories about the great things
happening at your school every day?
 Does you school’s website make a great first impression and is it
marketing-focused?
 Have you implemented best practices in search engine
optimization, content development, call-to-actions and more on
your website?

 A brand is a reason to choose. Cheryl Burgess –
Blue Focus Marketing
 Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular
organization. Branding is about shaping that
perception. Ashley Friedlein – Econsultancy
 Branding is the representation of your organization as a
personality. Branding is who you are that differentiates you.
Dave Kerpen – Likeable Media, Author of
Likeable Social Media
 “Brand is the promise, the big idea, the expectations that
reside in each customer’s mind about a product, service or
company. Branding is about making an emotional
connection.” (Alina Wheeler, Designing Brand Identity)

 The quality of your brand should match the quality of your
school. It should be a true reflection of your school’s
mission and values. Your brand has a direct effect on how
people relate to your school.
 Good looking school uniform with school logos
 School logos in almost all advertisement items
 School logos and motto on all printed material
 Schools logos on school bus and other vehicles

 Generally, it creates a wonderful impact on
prospective parents, students and other person in the
society. They look for the best option for their wards,
family member’s wards, relatives’ wards, friends’
wards and other known persons’ ward. Branding
creates high expectations for the prospective clients.
So, we ready for branding your school.
 Will you?
 Will you?
 Will you?
 Will you?
 Will you?

More common trends and marketing strategies in schools in
recent years
 Bob Salisbury, Garibaldi's head teacher, says, the challenge
is coming from all directions.“ Pass: it's bed, breakfast and
lessons ...
 Changing diaper, toilet training, feeding , table manner,
-----------------------------------------each and everything

 Satisfied staffs, positive working culture, and motivational
leader play crucial role in admission drive. Staff is directly
related to the prospective parents work as resource
person. Drivers, peons and other supportive staffs related
to school motivate guardian and even guardians visit
campus for inquiry, moreover most of time footfalls in the
campus turns into admission (especially Indian culture).
They feel more attached to the institutions.
 Motivation and hope for unconditional incentive
encourage supportive staffs to fetch so many people to
visit campus for the purpose of admission.

 Assurance of quality education is itself a big contribution
 Insurance to cater individual’s need in the classroom
 Developing a good professional rapport with existing
guardian
 Talking positively about the school’s inside culture with
family, friend and parents
 Identifying the parent ambassador , resource person in
locality
 Good etiquettes and good attitude can help to develop
good relation with known people

 Keep promises intact/unbroken otherwise school may
face retention of existing admission for new academic
session because many schools are ready to fulfill all
ACADEMIC and NON ACADEMIC promises
 Whatever programs or activities a school describes in
its prospectus, brochure, website, blogs during
admission campaigns must be fulfilled and be carried
out at any costs
 Promises made by school staff, students, and parents
should be factual, supportive, and positive otherwise
faith once broken will do damage forever---
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 Educators view the selling methods so often
linked to marketing cheapen education, not
enhance it (Kotler and Fox, 1995).
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 Kotler, P. and K. Fox (1995). Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
Inc.
 Davies, B. and Ellison, L. (1997). Strategic Marketing for Schools, London: Pitman Publishing.
 Oplatka, I. and Hemlsey-Brown, J. (2004). The research on school marketing: Current Issues and Future Direction.
Journal of Educational Administration. 42(3). 375-400.
 Woods, P. (1993). “Responding to the consumer: Parental choice and school effectiveness,” School Effectiveness
and School Improvement, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 205-29
 National Association of Independent Schools (2005). Marketing the Independent School in the 21st Century (NAIS
Publication).
 Davies, B. and Ellison, L. (1997). Strategic Marketing for Schools, London: Pitman Publishing
 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/private-schools-must-adapt-or-die-1305507.html
(Dr. Arnaud Prevot research article)
 Rick NewBerry’s Blog http://www.enrollmentcatalyst.com
 http://www.schoolwebsite.co.uk/branding
 http://www.theguardian.com/education/schoolbranding
 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/09
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2013/11/12/the-top-7-characteristics-of-
successful-brands/#7ec300ba4017
 Gillian Allen Business Manager Churchill Community College
 Diocese of Allentown: www.allentowndiocese.org
 National Catholic Education Association: www.ncea.org
 www.isca.in, www.isca.me Lodhi Raees Ahmad, Ahmed Rizwan Raheem and Ahmad Nawaz
 http://www.audiencebloom.com/2012/09/what-is-social-media-marketing/ 79" Teaching is an art". Rajeev Ranjan

Rajeev Ranjan
Principal
B.Ed(English), PGDTE & Psy. Counselor
English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad
Email .Id : rajeevbhuvns@gmail.com
Website: www.rajeevranjan.net

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