How Can Schools Increase Their Enrollment Utilizing Grass Roots Marketing?

Is your school struggling to increase enrollment? If so, you’re not alone. In our challenging economy, it’s getting harder and harder for families to afford a Catholic education. As well, it’s getting harder and harder for Catholic schools to maintain enrollment and increase their endowment. As a result, the number of Catholic school students has decreased substantially since the 1960s, when enrollment was at its peak.

Lots have changed in last fifty years, and Dom Pilato of the MAX LA Team (Marketing Archdiocesan eXcellence in Los Angeles), thinks it’s time that Catholic schools changed the way they market themselves as well.

Mr. Pilato says it’s important for schools and educators seeks out and understands the data related to their enrollment needs.  Armed with this (humbling) data, schools will be able to build strong strategies based on weak foundations.

How can we change the direction of Catholic education? For starters, the Catholic school business model hasn’t changed since the 1960s. Additionally, since socio-economic issues have made it harder for families to afford tuition, Catholic schools are behooved to make hard decisions when it comes to how they spend time, money and energy developing and disseminating their marketing messages.

Catholic schools can be strong, vibrant and solvent. Here’s what Mr. Pilato recommends:

• Build a strong marketing team that is able to think creatively, and out of the box; are strategic and organized; are solution-oriented; are accountable to yourself and your school; and always work for greatness.

• Learn how to tell your school’s story. By crafting your school’s message that resonates with your targeted demographics, your school can begin to increase student applications and increase your enrollment. 

• Schools need to get comfortable building relationship with board members of organization, identifying connections within the community, and understanding your marketing message for targeted audiences.

Together, Catholic schools must work to be creative, think strategically, and focus on the bottom line to increase enrollment in our schools. To do so requires a strong investment in collaboration among organizations, principals, staff and parents and alumni.