Direct Mail for Private Schools & Prep Schools

Private schools and preparatory schools come in a wide range of approaches, styles, and criteria for admission, but the one thing that is constant across all of them is that they need to communicate effectively with their target student and student-parent demographic. While there are a number of channels that private schools can use to get in front of their audience, one of the most effective ways is to use direct mail. Private & prep school direct mail is similar to most direct mail strategies in that you need to get in front of your target audience, but very different in that you have a unique value proposition that can only be expressed through the legacy your school has built and will continue to develop.

In this article, we share the best strategies for your next direct mail campaign, how you can increase awareness to the right audience and get them to engage with your school every time.

Timing Your Direct Mail Sends is Critical

There are many schools of thought surrounding when direct mail gets sent. In every case, you have to first consider the industry (in your case Private Schools) and follow that up with universal timing considerations. Things like enrollment timing, parent patterns on when they start to look at schools and matching your direct mail sends to other marketing channels are all important factors when planning your private school direct mail campaigns.

In general, there are three typical periods each year that you will promote your private school.

• November and December
  Depending on the private or prep school and when enrollment begins, these months are ideal for those parents who are looking to make a last minute decision on mid year enrollment. You will be competing with Thanksgiving and Christmas, but last minute decision makers are typically more motivated to see the direct mail and take action.

• February – April
  This is traditionally the busiest season for recruiting new families for autumn / fall private school enrollment. So you will definitely be sending out direct mail at this time, but you’ll also be in competition with every other school. This means that your direct mail piece will really need to be on point with look, feel, messaging and the original targeting.

• Early Summer
  Schools in high demand now that summer can almost be too late to get in, but for many private or prep schools you will have space for more students to join and making sure these parents know that is important. Actually reinforcing the message that space is limited, but still available could play into quicker decision making by the parents.

Private School Target Audiences

The most critical piece of any direct mail campaign holds true for private school direct mail as well, and that is who you are targeting. Ensuring that you have the segments of parents by child’s age, location of the family, the school you are promoting, etc. are all universal criteria, but depending on how your school qualifies its applicants you’ll need to layer in those additional targets.

Other common layered targeting criteria for private school direct mail campaigns include:

• Household Income (attract high net worth families or low income as an example)
• “New mover” families that have school age children

Direct Mail Design for Private Schools

Design is a wonderful thing! How you design a piece of direct mail has a significant impact on the story that the piece tells, how it resonates with the intended audience and how well it gets the recipient to take the desired action. In every case you must put in the effort to design for your audience and to the desired outcome.

Universally you need to ensure that the design matches your brand so the school is represented accurately. This is typically pretty easy for most private schools.

But designing for action can be more difficult. If you are looking to get a family to attend a student recruitment event, sign up online or to send something back you will need to consider how you call them to action, what language you include and speak directly to their desire as it relates to the intended outcome. Plus you want the piece to stand out, so the more interesting you can make the design the better.

Share Your School Message & Tailor It To Your Audience

Private Schools need to speak the language of their intended audience. This builds congruence, familiarity and trust with the families that you are targeting. Consider what aspects of your school distinguish you from the competitors. Perhaps you have a great new curriculum, new buildings, famous alumni, high acceptance rates from elite colleges, etc..

Additionally, use the principle of “Less is More.” Don’t crowd your direct mail with a ton of information, focus on what matters to them most and keep it simple. Crowded, busy language and lists will guarantee a parent does not engage with your direct mail piece.

Lastly and as some would argue, most importantly, you should personalize your messaging. This can be as simple as using the name of the prospective student, including the family last name or referencing where they are at now. Personalization feels more inviting and it’s very hard to ignore.

Include a Clear Call to Action

A call to action is the “thing” that you are asking the recipient to do. What is it that you want the audience to actually act on after engaging with your direct mail piece? Most private schools want parents of prospective students to learn more in some way and that learning can come in the form of calling the school itself, visiting the school, taking a tour, attending an event, scanning a QR code to be taken to additional information, watching a video or requesting additional information by mail or online.

While this ties back to the design component of your school’s direct mail piece, you need to make sure the call to action stands out, is easy to read and clear on what to do. This will dramatically increase your conversion rate or engagement rate.

Expect & Plan for Responses from Your Direct Mail

Where many private schools and prep schools fail is on the back end of the direct mail campaign. Don’t be one of those schools!

Be ready for responses and the engagement that will follow. Depending on the call to action you provided it’s a requirement to have planned for those actions to actually take place and that you are in a position to accept that communication. It’s easy when the call to action was an event or a QR code that will take them to a page you built. But what about those forms they’ll fill out? Will they get sent to an inbox that is monitored? Are they tied to a CRM that has reps waiting on to follow up. What about your phone line? Are people ready to take these new calls? These details are important because the experience a prospective family has is representative of the school itself.

If your school focuses on the elements we’ve listed here regarding direct mail campaigns then you are guaranteed to get better results from your efforts and continue to build and honor the legacy your school offers to students and the community.