Fall time is the best time: Back to School Marketing Strategies
Part I
By Darren A. Gaitan
Summer is coming to an end and the busy season is upon us. As
students prepare to head back to school, we as school owners should
be ready to launch our back to school campaigns. Over the years, I
have found that this is the time you should go with a full court
press. Be very aggressive and don’t chance anything. It is essential
that the fall season be one of your most successful seasons of the
year. New enrollments during September and October will help make
November and December a lot more financially secure.
One of the best things a school owner can do to help boost
enrollments is to hold a referral contest. Since these couple of
months will be some of the best of the year, you can afford to give
away a big ticket item. In fact, I would save these big items and
only run with them when you will get the biggest return on your
investment. A colleague of mine gave away a plasma screen TV to the
student who signed up the most students. It was such a great idea we
decided to use it as our back to school referral contest. The retail
cost is about $1000.00, but well worth it. Students receive points
based on the number of students that they sign up. The person who
has the most points by our Halloween party will win the grand prize.
You can giveaway a second place prize like a Sony PSP, and a third
place prize like a gift certificate to a popular video game store or
a movie night package for the family. This helps build excitement
and awards others who made a valiant effort to enroll students into
your school. It can be done as a raffle, but the problem I’ve seen
in the past, is that it only takes one ticket to win so in a sense
the person with one ticket almost has the same chance as the person
with 100. Remember we are talking about chance, not odds. I speak
from experience, and every time I’ve ran a referral contest as a
raffle, the person with one or two tickets wins, and the people with
the most tickets tend to have less involvement in the next contest.
In addition, as martial artists we reward the hardest working
students with elite awards like best tester, student of the month,
student of the year, etc. Your contest should run on the same
principle so it goes along with the theme of your school.
Some school owners might think this is too much money to spend, or
they simply can’t afford it. I used to feel the same way, but I
always remembered two of the most important business principles I
learned in college: Don’t count pennies on your way to millions, and
it takes money to make money. Once I changed my mentality, I always
made money off of every similar contest I held. In fact, when I
opened a location in September 2004, I held a $500.00 cash giveaway.
Students received points throughout the fall and winter for
enrolling new students, and it was one of the major strategies that
helped me enroll over 100 students by the end of that December. I
gave away the cash at the Christmas party, and the contest worked
out great. The best part was that I didn’t have to come up with the
money until December, so it gave me plenty of time to make money
before I had to spend it. Do you want to hear the best part? I made
the money the very first day the doors were open. The first student
I enrolled wrote me a check for $774.00 for the first six months, so
I already made the cash I needed. The rest of the money was all
gravy. When ever I give away a big item, my goal is to cash out the
first 1-3 students in order to immediately cover the cost of the
item. Even if you only sign up ten students, and with one student
cashing out, you still have nine students you would have never had.
Believe me, it’s worth it!
This is one of the most aggressive strategies you can use to help
make your back to school campaign a complete success. In part II of
the series I will talk about a less expensive, but very effective
strategy that you can use for your back to school marketing
campaign. If you would like any help with how to structure this
contest, or if you have any questions feel free to email me darren@championsways.com . Continue To Part II.
Darren A. Gaiten
Associate Consultant
ChampionsWay Inc.
877.774.5425
darren@championsway.com
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