Admission Marketing Committee

AMC Notes

9.30.11

Discussion

• What parents are looking for when they arrive on our website?
• Review of Barb’s email: How do we grab our audience?
• Search engine optimization
• ACTION: Please send Robert phrases that you would type into Google to look for an independent day school in Massachusetts
• rserrell@berkshirecountryday.org
• STRATEGY: Google Ad Word Campaign created by Robert

Website Group: Lance, Barb, Colin, Robert

• Focus: build ideas, concepts, touch base with Robert to discuss feasibility
• ACTION: Lance will create a meeting time for group

Review of Marketing Plan:

• BCD Student
• BCD Parent: our parent is professional, corporate, medical, affluent, Jewish, NYC commuters, value outcomes, predisposed to pay for independent school, understands the value, willing to invest and be involved in their children’s education
• Brand Statement: does not specifically name who we are

Preschool Discussion

• We are competing against warm and fuzzy, and philosophy
• We have yet to distinguish our response
• We need to look at the key segments of the website that grab our prospective parents
• ACTION: PL Begin to interview Beginner Threes teachers

Columbia County Discussion:

• Proximity
• Bus
• Lack of quality school offerings
• Our website does not speak to transportation
• ACTION: We need to focus on promoting our bus offerings from Pittsfield, Lenox, NY, CC, NL, and South County
• STRATEGY: Adding first page of website promotion of bus program to BCD
• STRATEGY: Add outcomes to website: Where to kids go, but where do they come from? What are our feeder schools? Add hard facts to our website
• Promotion of the facilities plan

Key Message Review:

• Our key messages are boiler plate messages that could be used in any of our competitor’s messaging
• We need to develop the message where we are seen as the preeminent day school in Berkshire County
• We need to have outcomes and incomes
• Transportation focus
• Speak to our superior faculty
• Our environment and facilities (promotion of master plan)
• We need to be the first school they think of
• They need to be willing to invest in bringing their child to the next level

Columbia County Recruitment:

• Web development is needed because much of the content is buried
• Need page to page linking
• Month view vs. week at a glance
• Advertising language updated/refreshed
• Hard facts need to be spelled out
• Google ad words campaign
• ACTION: Robert to speak to Kevin Sprague about parameters on the website
• Transportation focus
• Crandall Theatre ads
• Distribution of materials
• ACTION: Amy to create Parent ambassador forum for Columbia County
• Booth at Independent School Fair
• Columbia County Fair
• Winter Walk in Hudson
• Admission Receptions earlier in the year
• Parent Testimonials: Why I Chose BCD

AMC 2011-’12

Friday, September 30 

Thursday, October 27

Thursday, December 8

Thursday, January 26

Thursday, February 23

Thursday, April 26

Thursday, May 17

Radio BCD–Jan

Filling Freshman Class–Group Discussion

BCD Masters—Maxine

Priorities for AMC—-Dave

ADMISSION MARKETING COMMITTEE MEETING

September 30, 2010 Minutes

In Attendance: Amy Freeman, David Hosokawa, Paul Lindenmaier, Maxine Carter-Lome, Colin Mathews, Barbara Newman, Claire Pollart, Laura Rotenberg, Jan Seward, Lance Vermeulen

This is the first AMC Committee Meeting of the year. Paul thanked everyone for their time and participation in this important work of supporting enrollment and retention, and invited everyone to introduce themselves and to share their background and the skills they bring to this committee.

Paul shared with the Committee that at the September meeting, the Board discussed the school’s ‘ideal’ enrollment size as 256, and shared with the Committee the optimal size per grade.

Amy explained and reviewed the Admission funnel for this past year that ended with 46 newly-enrolled students and 161 re-enrolled students.

Dave shared the three areas he would like to see the Committee focus on this coming year:

1.  Recruitment for the “freshman” class (B3s-K)
2. Focus on under-populated classes
3. Retention

He also discussed the need for the School to invest in a CRM system that can support the work of Admission. Amy shared information on one vendor she is familiar with that could meet our needs and will continue to work with the Tech Committee to explore other options and vendors. Committee members talked about the importance of making this investment to support the investment we have already made in recruitment and Admission. Colin & Lance will form a sub-committee to work with Amy to explore other solutions and vendors for the Tech Committee to consider. Dave will bring up the need to make this investment at the next Finance Committee meeting.

Maxine shared information about the contract the School has signed with Studio Two to develop a new BCD web site. Colin offered to look at what we are proposing to develop to identify ways and suggestions for optimizing search engine marketing. Barbara has agreed to work with Maxine in reviewing content for the site and making sure our key marketing messages are incorporated into the final layout and copy.

Lance suggested that one way to get in the door with realtors and businesses is to put together a presentation on the demographic information we have compiled. If we approach them with information that can help their business they may be more inclined to have us come in to meet with them. We may have better success with that angle than calling to ask for a meeting just to come in and pitch our school.

Claire mentioned that the Board approved resources for Paul to get out more in the community and asked committee members to keep Paul in mind for events, fundraisers, and parties where Paul can network to make new connections with people in the community.

Jan suggested working with a local radio station to produce a weekly education-based talk show that positions BCD as an educational authority in the community. She agreed to do more research on this, and offered to produce it for us. Lance offered to have Lance Vermeulen Real Estate underwrite such programming.

Amy was asked to create a demographic chart for the next meeting that shows the demographic information we have by town/region vs, BCD students vs. prospects/leads.

We talked about the Pittsfield market in particular as being challenging to get better visibility. Suggestions for exposure in Pittsfield include a window display in Guidos, promoting to the dance studios, doing BCD events at the Beacon Theater, adopting a road in Pittsfield, and looking into activities at BMC.

The next AMC meeting will be held on Thursday, October 21 at 8:05 a.m. in Paul Lindenmaier’s Office.

The charge of the Admission and Marketing Committee is to provide the Director of Admission and the Head of School with counsel and ideas and to support the research, development, and maintenance of a comprehensive Strategic Enrollment Plan.  The Strategic Enrollment Plan, which may inform school policy decisions for the approval of the Head of School and/or the Board of Trustees will include, but not be limited to:

•  The establishment of enrollment goals based upon a yet-to-be determined policy about school size, forecast models, research about current demographic and economic conditions, in collaboration with the Director of Finance and the Finance Committee
• Admission and recruitment strategies
• Retention and re-enrollment goals and strategies
• Employment of tuition and financial aid incentives to enhance cash flow and diversity

In addition, the charge of the Admission and Marketing Committee is to provide the communications staff and administrative team with counsel and ideas for:

•  Accomplishing the strategic plan initiatives assigned to the committee and these groups
• Effectively and creatively communicating with the school’s internal and external constituencies in promotion and articulation of Berkshire Country Day School’s mission, program, and strategic plan, including the plan for the school’s website

September 28, 2009

Look forward to seeing you all at our first AMC Committee meeting of the year, this Thursday, September 30 at 8:05 a.m. We will be meeting in Paul Lindenmaier’s Office. The following is our Agenda for this first meeting:

Introduction of new committee members  -   Paul

Final report 2010-2011 admissions - Amy

Welcome - Dave

Review of 2010-11 marketing Plan & Initiatives - Maxine & Amy

Setting priorities for the year – Group Dicussion                              

Filling the Freshman Class - Group discussion

Welcome back to work.

As you know, we’re enjoying the results of our most recent admissions cycle with enrollment up to 207.  This increase will insure another year operating with a balanced budget. 

The success of this year was no accident.  It was the result of a “perfect storm” confluence of hard work, talented people and a healthy dose of good luck.  Our staff enjoyed great success, carefully allocating limited resources to the effort, in the face of a most difficult economic climate. We will need to work hard to replicate our success in coming years.  In addition to working hard we must work smarter in the highly competitive marketplace, using research and employing technology and creative marketing to support our recruitment-oriented program.

We will need to continue to increase the size of the student body to reach our optimum size. It would appear the administration is zeroing in on an estimated 245-265 as the ideal student population. 

To achieve a student body of 250 we need separate but concurrent strategies and an increase is our investment in Admissions.

What we must accomplish:

Fill the incoming freshmen class(es) to capacity (B3-K)

Filling a chair in an entry-level class effectively guarantees an 8 or 9-year student and corresponding tuition revenue. Currently just 25 per cent of eighth graders entered BCD in B3-K. The rest were recruited in later grades.  At the same time 89 per cent of our total student body this year are returning students.  In other words, once students start at BCD, they stay.  Those who enter during early childhood grades and stay through eighth grade turn into valuable investments. So we must invest in filling the early grades first.  We MUST employ new initiatives to increase our database of leads and to effectively manage them.

I believe one of the most productive things we can do to maximize the yield from our pool of prospects is to purchase and utilize an enrollment/CRM software system to track and manage our communications with prospects. We should begin populating our database with names of newborns from public record birth announcements in the county and begin contact with a card, “Congratulations from your friends at Berkshire Country Day School where it’s never too early to begin planning for your child’s education.” Expansion of the “BCD and Me” sampling program is another worthwhile program aimed at the freshman class that needs to be expanded, refined and coordinated with the database.  We need to stay in touch with current parents for retention purposes and for recruitment of siblings. Twelve out of our 46 new students this year were siblings (26 per cent).

Add new Students to fill under-populated grades

Our parent referral program has been extremely productive as a source of new prospects.  An amazing 56 per cent of our 46 new students were referred through the referral program.  This program needs to be retained, refreshed and reintroduced, with an emphasis on staying in touch with new BCD families.  Direct marketing efforts started last year via recruitment efforts in the community and beyond need to be refined and continued.

Add and Track Retention Efforts

Retention is the easiest way to fill chairs.  It is easier to keep an existing student than to attract a new one. Of our 207 students 89 per cent are returning from last year.  We must take steps to continue a strong relationship and responsive dialog with current parents to insure continued high retention, particularly with eighth grade students.

As we begin our new year the next admission cycle is well underway.  We need to support the Admissions and Marketing staff with creative ideas and advocacy with the Finance Committee and the Board.  I am looking forward to another productive year.

Hope you are having a great summer. Please note the following scheduled dates for AMC Committee meetings during the coming school year: All meetings will now take place on Thursday mornings after drop-off (8:15 a.m.) in Paul Lindenmaier’s office:

September 23

October 21

December 16

January 13

February 17

April 21

May 19

Look forward to seeing you then.

Hi, AMC Members,

In support of our effort to accumulate parent testimonials about the benefits of BCD, I’d love to get a statement from each of you about an experience you or your child had at BCD this year that was exceptional. It could be a class project your child was involved in, a conversation you had with a teacher, or a meaningful moment you experienced on campus. Anything at all that helps us tell the story of BCD as a place that celebrates and inspires the potential of each individual.

Please use the comment box below to provide your testimonial.

Thanks and have a great summer!

Jenny