Admission Marketing Committee

Present:  Amy Broberg, Maxine Carter-Lome, David Hosakawa, Paul Lindenmaier, Colin Mathews, Clair Naylor-Pollart, Barbara Newman, Paige Orloff,  Eleanore Velez, Eric Wilska, and Jenny Wright.

Jessica Ryan.         Absent: Lisa Kantor, Jan Seward

Welcome and Introductions:  The meeting was started with quick introductions since it was Jessica Ryan’s first time to meet the AMC. 

 2010-’11 Enrollment Update:

Amy Broberg reported that the early admissions incentive campaign continues to be very successful.  The current number of reenrolled students stands at 155 compared to 146 by June in 2009.  When it comes to new students there are also increases bringing current new student numbers to 33 compared to 17 last year.  As of May 21^st the total enrolled number of students stood at 188 with a potential of 203 enrolled students without taking into consideration the potential of 12 extra applications with strong inclinations of materializing. While in the past most reenrollment contracts came in August this year’s reenrollment initiatives brought in many more contracts during the winter.  With that said, there is still the expectation that more contracts will come in August as it is a natural transition/decision time for many families who are waiting to see how the school year ended and what other educational possibilities materialize for their children.

Currently the following information provides a very accurate picture of current enrolment.

 Grade               Enrolled            Potential           New

B3’s                 3                      4

PreK                11                    2         

K                     10                    3

1^st                    11                    2

2^nd                    13                    2

3^rd                    10                    1          +          6                     

4^th                    22                    1

5^th                    21                    3

6^th                    28/29

7^th                    17                    4

8^th                    21

9^th                    16

The numbers of the B3’s prompted a small discussion of what other schools catering to this particular age group are doing (new facilities) on how BCD’s assets be better exposed (i.e. BCD’s skilled faculty and wonderful campus).

Recruitment Activities Update:

Jessica Ryan reported that she has been actively working with a master database including the name and addresses of families in an area around BCD including Columbia, Hudson, and Berkshire County who due to the ages of their children and their income could seriously consider BCD.   The use of the Database and information gathered serve to reach out to potential families through phone calls, mailings, invitations to open houses and outreach by current BCD families from their geographic area.  Jessica has been keeping records of all the communications and making sure she follows up and stays in touch with the families. Jessica’s work was praised by the committee. Paul Lindenmaier pointed out how Jessica’s research has delivered very good quality information that sticks to the desired profiles while on the other hand the feedback received from the potential families has enhanced the understanding of their needs and realities.   Since Jessica’s work at BCD will come soon to an end Colin Mathews recommended that she leaves behind a “play book” so future ventures benefit from the identified implementation approaches.

Lenox Choice Night Update:

Maxine Carter-Lome reported that Lenox Choice Night remains a local event that BCD would like to have an opportunity to be involved with since it mainly pertains to families who are interested in an alternative option to their children’s education.   Unfortunately this year, we were not able to get involved, but the plans continue to find ways to reach out to families looking to choice into Lenox.  One of those ways includes creating group specific materials that highlight what BCD can do for that group.  Paul Lindenmaier gave the example of how BCD’s success in the education of girls can meet the needs of parents looking for other choices for their daughters. 

• Following up on girls education Barbara Newman said that having a piece that highlight the achievements of our female graduates such as Jessica Ryan, who went to Smith College, came back to BCD as an employee and is planning to go to the Peace Corps would convey the message quite well. 
• Following on the topic of school choice Clair Pollard asked if busing was an issue could BCD provide any assistance. Paul Lindenmaier answered that bussing can be done as long as the interested parents initiate the request and secure it.

Group Discussion: Retention & Parent Feedback

David Hosakawa asked if exit interviews are conducted in order to create a better awareness of the reasons why families are leaving.  On a different subject he reported that he has been receiving very positive feedback from parents regarding MYBCD and the blogs.  However, parents want to have more than an opportunity to respond to the blogs.  They would like to have opportunities to talk face to face and maybe having a place in the campus where parents could casually meet and have a cup of coffee. Paige Orloff, said that the PA had also brought up the idea of having informal coffee gatherings in campus and that the PA was going to explore that idea.  Paul Lindenmaier followed up with the sentiment of more open lines of communication stressing that the relationship between parents and faculty is extremely important and often manifests itself in two different levels.  At one level there are  issues, concerns or questions arise at another level parents also like to know what their children are doing and faculty blogs allow parents to have a better view of what is happening in the classroom. Colin added that while the blogs allow parents to see what is happening in their children’s classroom there is also the potential of parents sharing pictures of school activities they have participated in.   With that said, he added that it is extremely important for parents to be engaged and familiarized with the faculty and campus. 

Closing

David Hosakawa thanked all the members of the AMC for an exciting and productive year.  He asked the AMC members to keep on thinking about AMC issues during the summer, engage in parent and prospective parent conversations to get a better feel of the needs that pertain to this committee. 

Next meeting to be announced in the near future, this was the last meeting for the 2009-2010 academic year.

 Submitted by Eleanore Velez

June 7, 2010

Dear Committee Members:

Jenny, Amy, and I conducted a planning retreat two weeks ago to get a jump start on our admission marketing efforts and initiatives for next year, and in support our long range admission goal of 260 students. Under separate cover I will send you a draft PDF of our work to date, which primarily focuses on our overall marketing structure (target markets, brand, key messages, etc.) and sets the stage for our best thinking on initiatives to support Retention and Recruitment. As a member of AMC we would love your input and involvement in this planning process. Our goal is to have a preliminary draft to review with the Admin Team the second week in July during our retreat, and then a final draft in place by the end of July. As we look to shift our marketing efforts more in line with a traditional admission cycle, many of our initiatives will need to be worked on over the summer.

We would like to hold a meeting on Monday, June 7 at 1:00 p.m. if you are able to make it. At this meeting, we would love your input on initiatives we could consider under both retention and recruitment. We have stated several goals under each and now need to slot initiatives to meet these goals. Many initiatives will come from the projects we started this year (1:1 campaign, information booths at Community events, referral program, etc.) but you may have other ideas, as well as ideas on what we can do to make what we are doing better.

Please let me know if you are able to meet on Monday at 1:00 p.m. in my office. If you are unable to attend, please let me know if you have ideas
you would like presented at that meeting. Thank you for your support in this important planning phase – I look forward to hearing back from you as to your availability to meet on Monday.

Regards, Maxine

Thanks to all of you for your work and terrific ideas doing the past school year. I believe our administrative marketing and admissions staff made great strides forward this year in shifting our focus from “admissions” to “recruiting and admissions.” I believe this committee was a major contributor to that shift.

As we look ahead to next year I want to leave you with one thought: What can we do to make it possible to dramatically increase the number of preschool prospects we bring in to Admissions. It seems that if we focus on pre-k and kindergarten, we will be obtaining children who are entering school for the first time rather than attempting to search out parents unsatisfied with their present situation at an older age. If we succeed, chances are good we will be obtaining students for the long haul, since once they’ve started at BCD our retention is excellent.

What do we need to do to compete for these young entry-level students? Is our program not right? Are we too expensive? Is our marketing message not on target? Are our facilities below par?

We need some research to find the reasons and then we need to act with some strategies. When parents seek alternatives at a higher grade level we seem to be very competitive. We must do a better job with our “freshman” class. We can’t drop the ball on what we’re currently doing. For the most part it seems to be working. But I believe we must pay attention on improving recruiting at the entry level.

Please give this some thought over the summer, talk to other parents for ideas and we’ll start with this in the fall.

Thanks again; have a great summer.

Dave

Hello!

We look forward to seeing you for our last AMC meeting of the academic year!  The meeting will be held this Friday at 8:05 a.m. in Paul Lindenmaier’s office.

Here is the agenda for the meeting: 
 
1. 2010-’11 Enrollment Update: Amy Broberg

2. Recruitment Activities Update: Jessica Ryan

3. Lenox Choice Night Update: Maxine Carter-Lome

4. Group Discussion: Retention & Parent Feedback

See you on Friday!

AGENDA:

Update on recruitment initative–jessica

Update on 2010-11 enrollment–Amy

Suggestions on local messaging
  Lenox
  Great Barrington
  PIttsfield

Brainstorming on strategic initiative on retention
  Communication with parents,  students
  Getting faculty more involved    
  Customer satisfaction surveys

Agenda:

• New Admission DVD – Amy/Jenny
• Results of Projects in Play – Amy
• Review of AMC Projects – David/Maxine/Jenny/Amy
• Overview of New Recruitment Campaign
• Parent video testimonials…moving forward
• Populating under-populated classes, we still need a plan
• Call for Volunteers  

Hi everyone,

I’ve put together a simple testimonial worksheet with a list of all parents we’ve identified who can speak to specific admission topics. The link is also permanently located in the left-hand column of this blog. All AMC members can edit the document, so please feel free to add names or check off whom you’ve already interviewed.

In Attendance: David Hosokawa (Chair), Eric Wilska, Barbara Newman, Jan Seward, Paige Orloff, Colin Mathews, Paul Lindenmaier, Amy Broberg, Maxine Carter-Lome, Jenny Wright

Absent: Eleanore Velez, Claire Pollart, Lisa Kantor

Minutes:

Sub-Committee Reports:

Jan has spoken with many parents in our targeted classes about the referral program and reports that the program is “fresh and alive” in their minds. Although Jan did not receive any new leads directly from those calls, Amy reports that she has received a flurry of leads lately and attributes that to Jan’s calls, the letter sent out last week under Jan’s name, and the momentum of the program. Amy reports that we have received 20 referrals to date of which half have or will result in a campus visit. Amy characterized these leads as “strong and positive.” Amy and Paul are making personal outreach calls to every lead.

Barbara reported that she was asked to hold back on writing advertising copy until an advertising plan could be put in place. Maxine, Jenny, and Barbara will be meeting to take the next steps. Barbara also suggested we look at screen advertising at the Beacon theatre in Pittsfield. Colin will send Barbara a copy of the video interviews filmed to date so Barbara can cull for messaging, etc.

Colin and Paige reviewed the raw footage from the film they shot of parent interviews. The video showed parents in their authentic voice talking about why they came and what they love about BCD. Colin indicated that they had potentially a dozen different videos that could be cut from this raw footage and that they plan to interview more parents and edit and package this footage. Paul suggested that we also film a virtual tour of the campus. On the AMC matrix Amy had identified some parents that would be good to interview for each of our targeted classes. It was suggested that any one of us could ‘Flip’ video interviews when we got the chance to create a library of B rolls. Jenny will create a Google doc for our interviews, so we can keep track of who has been interviewed.

Advertising

Paul reviewed the NAID data of families with children 0-13 with household incomes of $150,000+. Strong markets include Great Barrington, Pittsfield, Dalton, Chatham, Valatie, and Hudson. We discussed the current advertising budget and the current use of print advertising, which is being used to promote Admission Open House events and the BCD & Me and BCD Reads programs. Maxine asked that the group help clarify what type of ad campaign we should consider (lead generating, image, messaging) and what markets we should be concentrating on first. The group recommended focusing initially on Columbia County, Great Barrington, and Pittsfield. Colin suggested creating a landing page for each market to tie into the advertising and create a call to action to view our parent testimonial videos and use the landing page to track response.

Long-range Interdisciplinary Enrollment Plan

Paul reported that the Finance Committee is considering the need to add an Admission Associate to our efforts to help get ‘feet on the street’ and drive leads and inquiries into the Admission Office. He also reported that the AMC survey would be sent out shortly and that it will address some calendar-related issues.

Jan suggested that we connect Financial Aid to a person so that families inquiring will know who to go to.

 Next AMC meeting is scheduled for Friday, February 12, 2010

The next AMC Committee meeting will be held this Friday, January 15 at 8:05 a.m. in Paul Lindenmaier’s office. The Agenda will be posted later this week. Please let us know if you are unable to attend.

 At our last AMC meeting, we worked on a matrix designed to help us identify advertising messages and marketing strategies for our admission targets: Columbia County, Preschool, Kindergarten, G3 for 2010/11 academic year, 5th/6th grade, and artists. Click here to see updated AMC Admission Marketing Matrix. While this continues to be a work in progress, it gives Amy, Jenny, and Maxine a good blueprint for their work. We will review this matrix again as a group at our next AMC meeting (Friday, January 15) but feel free to continue to share your ideas with the group before then.

We also talked about looking at the various schools that compete with BCD at its various target points. We hope the following list is helpful:

Preschool Competitors

• Montessori of the Berkshires (PS-G6)
• Kinderhof/Miss Becky’s (PS-K)
• Hawthorne Valley School (PK-G12)
• Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner (PK-G8)
• Lenox Children’s Center (N-K)
• Sinai Academy (PK-G5)
• Mountain Road School (PK-G6)
• Parker School (PK-G8)
• Undermountain Childcare (N-K)
• Dalton Co-Op Nursery School
• Sunshine Day Care /Berkshire School – (N-PS)
• Berkshire Christian Schools (PK-G8)
• Sunshine School/Berkshire South (PS-K)
• Kids’ Corner
• Bright Beginnings Nursery School (N-K)
• Great Barrington Co-Op Nursery (N-K)
• St. Paul’s Preschool (PS-K)
• St. Mary’s School (PK-G8)
• St. Agnes (PK-G8)
• St. Mark’s (PK-G7)
• Pine Cobble (PK-G9)

Kindergarten Competitors

• Montessori of the Berkshires (PS-G6)
• Kinderhof/Miss Becky’s (PS-K)
• Hawthorne Valley School (PK-G12)
• Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner (PK-G8)
• Lenox Children’s Center (N-K)
• Sinai Academy (PK-G5)
• Mountain Road School (PK-G6)
• Parker School (PK-G8)
• Undermountain Childcare (N-K)
• Local public schools (K-G12)
• Columbia Christian Academy (k-G12)
• Bright Beginnings Nursery School (N-K)
• Great Barrington Co-Op Nursery (N-K)
• St. Paul’s Preschool (PS-K)
• St. Mary’s School (PK-G8)
• St. Agnes (PK-G8)
• St. Mark’s (PK-G7)
• Pine Cobble (PK-G9)

Grade 2/3 Competitors

• Montessori of the Berkshires (PS-G6)
• Hawthorne Valley School (PK-G12)
• Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner (PK-G8)
• Sinai Academy (PK-G5)
• Mountain Road School (PK-G6)
• Parker School (PK-G8)
• Local public schools
• Indian Mountain School
• Columbia Christian Academy (k-G12)
• St. Mary’s School (PK-G8)
• St. Agnes (PK-G8)
• St. Mark’s (PK-G7)
• Pine Cobble (PK-G9)

Columbia County Competitors

• New Lebanon School District
• Chatham Public Schools
• Hawthorne Valley
• Dutchess Day School
• Mountain Road School (PK-G6)
• Parker School (PK-G8)
• Columbia Christian Academy (K-G12)
• Woodland Hills Montessori

Grades 5/6 Competitors

Click here for a document compiled from some of the schools’ various web sites to help you better understand how each school positions and markets themselves.