Digital Marketing guide page 49 image

Digital marketing and social media are essential ways to connect with prospective families and students. By contrast, direct mailers and flyers may seem like an old-fashioned way of marketing your school, but they can actually be an effective way to raise awareness and generate interest.

Here are some best practices when it comes to these offline forms marketing:

Tip 1: Keep it Simple

When designing flyers or mailers, keep the design simple and uncluttered. Use a clear and easy-to-read font and include essential information like the school name, purpose, grades offered, address, phone number, and open house dates and times.

Tip 2: Think Like Your Prospective Families

Try to put yourself in the shoes of prospective parents and understand their needs. Consider putting up flyers or leaving brochures at libraries, coffee shops, community centers, health clinics, and grocery stores.

Tip 3: Send Out Welcome Packets

When people move to a new location, the U.S. Postal Service sends out a Welcome Packet that contains coupons and advertisements. Try to get your charter school’s brochure or flyer included in these packets to reach new families in your area.

Tip 4: Consider Direct Mailers

Send out flyers or brochures in advance of an open house or informational meeting to generate interest among prospective parents.

Tip 5: Provide Information in Native Languages

If your area has a large population that speaks a certain language, it’s essential to provide information in that language. Consider translating flyers, brochures, or other promotional materials to ensure that you reach your audience.

Want to learn more about effective enrollment marketing? You can download the free Digital Marketing Guide. This workbook will empower you to build and follow through on a simple digital marketing strategy for your school. You can use these pages to set goals for your school, refine your messaging, set strategic marketing goals, and achieve them through various digital marketing programs.

Digital Marketing for Charter Schools Guide (charterschoolcapital.com)

In this session, marketing expert Stephanie Ristow joined Ashley MacQuarrie and Michael Barber for a discussion about hiring contractors and marketing freelancers. Watch the video or read the transcript below to hear about payment models, how pay-for-performance models work, and what to look for in contracts.

Join the experts as they answer all your questions live on Thursdays on YouTube at 10am PT / 12pm CT / 1pm ET. Charter School Capital – YouTube

Read Full Transcript

Michael B (00:00):

We’ve got to start that introduction again everyone was on mute, and I just turned everyone off mute, so that’s great. We’re getting this rolling again. I’m going to welcome everybody to our weekly Thursday lives on all things enrollment marketers, on enrollment marketing. My name is Michael Barber, and I’m joined by fearless co-host, Ashley McCrory, our director of enrollment marketing from Charter School Capital. We also have a guest with us today, our dear friend, Stephanie Ristow from Ristow Marketing. Stephanie, will you take a moment just to introduce yourself?

Stephanie R. (00:55):

Yeah. Hi, I’m Stephanie. I am a freelance consultant in marketing strategy and demand generation. I’ve worked at big brands like Nike, Microsoft, and WebMD, but have been in house and on the agency side, so happy to be here.

Michael B (01:11):

Glad you would join us. We thought we would invite you in for a conversation that I know you are uniquely talented to provide some insights to us. So Ashley and I want to talk all things essentially. How do you go about hiring either a freelance contractor, a freelance marketer, graphic designer, or agencies? What are the pricing models that school leaders should be interested or hearing from these sorts of resources? I’ve got some opinions. I know Ashley’s got some opinions. I know you will have a ton of opinions here, so that’s what we’re talking today, all things, hey, if you’re going to go out and get a contractor, or an agency, or resource to help you. What are the pricing models that you should expect to hear from these individuals or organizations, the pros, the cons? How should school leaders think about them?

(01:57):

So we’ll start with this. We’re going to tee up this question to Stephanie first, and would love just an answer to, hey, you’re looking to hire a contractor or hire an agency. What are the different investment models that those resources will propose for you? What’s out there?

Stephanie R. (02:15):

Yeah. Absolutely. I think the first decision is deciding if you want the backbone of a big agency behind you, which you’re going to pay more for, versus that scrappier, what I’ve always referred to as my duct tape network of freelancers, where there’s a little bit more nimble movements on changes in strategy and the work that’s happening. Things are a little bit cheaper. But you don’t have six brains behind the work necessarily. So the first step is making that decision. I would say for some of those bigger strategic projects where you just want to pass something over and know that it’s being done, that’s where the agency is often the right pick, unless you’ve found a really incredible freelance partner.

(03:04):

The scenarios that are easily suited to a freelancer or contractor are those specific tasks that you need to get done, that are really easy to scope, so design, copy, development, where you know exactly what you need and you’re willing to play a bigger role in managing that vendor. And to answer your question about the different pricing models, there’s retainers, and that’s really where you’re paying for the time that somebody’s putting in. But the real value you’re getting is that off hour thinking time that they’re giving you as your retainer vendor. Right?

(03:40):

I have a couple of retainer vendors or retainer clients, and if I’m in the shower washing my hair, you better believe that I’m thinking about those clients. And I’m not billing for my time in the shower, so that’s the added benefit. The other option is hourly, so that’s really well suited for you’ve got a specific design project or specific development project that needs to get done. And then the third is project based, and this is the safest realm for somebody that’s using a freelancer because you’ve put out exactly what you need. It’s a really defined scope. They’ve come back to you with a really specific price. You know what you’re going to spend and you know that you’re going to have the output at the end.

(04:20):

That’s a little harder to get to because a lot of times when you have a project you need done, you don’t know all of the components that you need done. And part of what you want to pay for is somebody to figure that out for you. But if you are in that sweet spot where it’s a really specific project or set of assets that you need, those project based contracts are a really safe bet.

Michael B (04:44):

Yeah. Really good overview of the three different pricing and investment options there, models. Another one to add to that mix that I know school leaders have been aware of because they’re seeing this in enrollment opportunities is performance based. Ashley, can you tell us about performance based and what that means from an enrollment perspective?

Ashley M. (05:03):

Yeah, absolutely. So performance based is what it sounds like. If your vendor doesn’t perform, you don’t pay for their services, or you only pay a small portion. So that’s one of the models that we have here at Charter School Capital for enrollment marketing clients. We have kind of a blended model where the client has maybe puts in a little bit of a base fee, a little skin in the game, and then also pays a smaller performance fee. And then we have completely pay for performance, and so we would take … When our goal is to drive enrollments, we take a baseline count. And at the beginning, we take an ending count at the end. And we figure out what the net gain or loss might’ve been. And we always hope that it’s gain, and it usually is. And then the client pays an amount for that net gain of students. And if we don’t go students, if enrollment stays flat, or if it declines due to retention issues or something like that, then sometimes the client doesn’t owe a fee at the end.

Michael B (06:15):

Yeah. So a couple good models there, investment opportunities there for charter school leaders to think about. I want to talk about [inaudible 00:06:22] just a little bit, just to break it down for somebody that maybe has not experienced any of these pricing models. Let’s go to retainers first and just what that means. Would love a breakdown from Ashley on the definition of retainers from your head.

Ashley M. (06:41):

I think Stephanie did a really good job of defining it. But yeah, it’s just usually you would agree to a flat amount. And Stephanie, typically when we have used retainers for vendors that we might work with at Charter School Capital, we do put some thought into kind of how much time we would expect that vendor to be spending, and so we try to estimate those hours. But we know that some months, maybe they don’t work that many hours. And then other months are a lot higher. And it all kind of averages out. And then like Stephanie said, you do get that offline time. Or they might be more likely to be responding to emails after hours than somebody who is working maybe hourly.

(07:24):

And when we work with hourly employee, with hourly contractors, a lot of times they are billing for every percentage of an hour. So 15 minutes writing an email or responding to Slacks, you’re going to get billed for that. And so then sometimes maybe your retainer would be a better option.

Michael B (07:41):

Yeah. It’s good insights there to think about that compare and contrast between hourly and a retainer model, and how either an agency, a group of individuals, whether it’s a small agency or a large agency, and contractors might bill you just to understand the difference there. Stephanie, anything to add around retainers that you’d love to add to the conversation?

Stephanie R. (08:05):

Yeah. That retainer person that you’re bringing on, so say it’s 10 hours a week, or 20 hours a week, they’re really an extension of your team. So it’s kind of like you’re hiring a person on your team, but only for a portion of that time. A couple of things to think about as you look at retainer contracts with potential freelancers is: Is it a use it or lose it model or do hours roll over? Are you buying specific days on their schedule? So is it that Tuesday and Wednesday, they’re always available for your school? Or is it before noon every day, they have earmarked for you?

(08:44):

And then just what that availability looks like and how they’re going to report out on their time. So there are some instances with a retainer where you’re just getting billed 15 or 20 hours a week. You’re getting reports on what is getting done, but the two things aren’t connecting. And then you’ll see other retainer agreements where in that monthly bill, there’s very specific hour by hour. So it depends on the retainer, it depends on the nature of the project that you’re doing, but it’s important to get really clear on expectations for that as you enter that engagement.

Michael B (09:18):

Yeah, such good thoughts there. Ashley, one of the things that we touched base on before we had this chat was just how to think about investment levels if you are going to go on some sort of performance based [inaudible 00:09:30], how much investment a school leader’s going to need to make on enrolling a potential student, and would love some just thoughts there of ranges you’ve seen in the marketplace of what it costs to help put a kid in your school.

Ashley M. (09:43):

Yeah. Well, for our product, enrollment marketing, it’s a small percentage of the amount that a school gets for each student from the state, and so that can vary depending on the state. In terms, if you’re doing it on your own and you’re kind of thinking about a performance model with another vendor or just kind of thinking through how much you want to spend, I mean, the cost to enroll a new student can vary really, really wildly, depending on the size of the school and kind of how many students you’re enrolling, the costs in your area, the effectiveness of your campaign. So we’ve seen everything, we’ve spent as an organization anywhere from 100-ish dollars for each new enrollment, to up to almost $1000 for a new enrollment. And so it just really depends. And so it’s a good idea to try to keep track of what you’re spending from retainer vendors, from your search campaigns, and all of the different marketing campaigns that you’re doing, and try to add that up and try to figure out what you’re spending.

(10:51):

And the other piece of it is: If you’re looking just at net enrollments, what about your retention? I feel like we always talk about retention every week, but it costs a lot more to enroll a new student than it does to keep an existing student. And the last thing to kind of look at is, you look at that cost per new enrollment, but if you look at how long that student stays with you, and how much you get from the state over five years, eight years, 12 years, that really adds up. And so you’re only spending that new enrollment cost once.

Michael B (11:26):

Yeah. It’s such a good point to think about the long-term value that filling your school with kids has for your school, predictable revenue. And as you think about how much it costs, hard costs, whether you’re managing this by yourself or whether you’re working with an agency or a contractor, would encourage school leaders to think about. What is that long-term value that comes out of spending those dollars to help fill your school? Because it’s going to look increasingly like a better return on investment when you look at it at the grade level that they’re entering into your program. So if you are a K through five, and they’re coming in at third grade, what is the value to your school for third, fourth, and fifth grade? If you’re all the way through K through eight, and they’re a kindergartner or a first grader, the eight years of revenue that’s going to drive for your school, so just a really important point there from Ashley.

(12:22):

So we’re hitting up on time. I want to ask just one additional question around all of these different models as it relates to retainers, hourly, fixed fee, and whatnot is cancellation clauses, which can be interesting for as you’re working through with different partners because there’s going to be a variety of them out there. It always becomes a conversation I think when you’re a consultant, or whether you’re working at an agency, clients ask these questions. School leaders ask these questions. What should school leaders be looking for when it comes to cancellation clauses? And I’m going to turn it over to Stephanie first.

Stephanie R. (13:00):

That’s a great question. So the important piece to make sure you have in your master services agreement, or MSA, with a new contractor is that there is a cancellation clause in there that is very clear what should happen if for whatever reason, the partnership isn’t working. And I say that because it’s a partnership. Right? There’s benefits and challenges on both sides in any relationship like that, and so making sure that if your funding doesn’t come through and you can no longer afford that person, or the vendor’s no longer delivering, in any of these scenarios, you have a ripcord, and making sure that it’s really clear on both sides.

(13:38):

I’ve seen a lot of … So a retainer agreement, it’s pretty typical to have a 30-day cancellation, so either party can say, “It’s not working.” Or for whatever reason, I can’t continue doing this retainer. And within 30 days, it closes down. But in project agreements or hourly, you still have to have it figured out. What happens if you’re midway through this project and they are not delivering on your expectations? What is the pull out there? And so there’s the clause in the contract to make sure that you’re not paying for things that you’re not using. But then there’s also what happens to all of the assets and deliverables and the individual components that they’ve been building or using?

(14:20):

So how are they getting all of that over to you? What are the requirements there? And then also, if there’s any sensitive information, personal identification information, how are they destroying that on their end so that you don’t have student information living on some random person’s computer for eternity? So making sure that you’re covering the assets, the data security, and your own financials.

Michael B (14:48):

Yeah. Such good points there. Ashley, anything to add on cancellation clauses?

Ashley M. (14:53):

Yeah. I mean, we’ve seen schools sometimes where they’ve got all these different vendors doing little pieces of all of their different services, all their different marketing campaigns. This person’s over here doing video. This person’s running social media. And this person’s doing paid. And sometimes we’ve seen clients find that it actually makes sense even if there’s a breakage fee, where they have an annual contract and they have to pay some fee if they exit that contract early. We’ve seen clients kind of do the math and say, “It actually makes sense for me, for example, to take all these different vendors and work with somebody who does all of that,” and actually exit those contracts.

(15:29):

But I think Stephanie makes a great point, and that’s something to always look for. We have seen, unfortunately, times where clients, the vendor wasn’t super helpful in giving them access to their assets or their social accounts and things like that. And so you definitely want to, if you are ending a contract, make sure you kind of know what’s going to happen so they don’t just shut it off. It can be a headache.

Michael B (15:56):

Yeah. We should do a whole session, maybe that’s in a couple of weeks, around how to work with external partners, make sure that your Google Workspace is set up correctly to work with them. Make sure Google Analytics is set up correctly. How do you share things out of Canva? How do you share things from different resources that you may be doing with an external partner? So maybe we’ll make that about the conversation in a couple of weeks because we’ve got some great shows coming up.

(16:19):

Next week, we’re going to talk all things SEO. And then I think the following week, correct me if I’m wrong, Ashley, we’re going to talk all things … Oh, my gosh. I’m blanking on the calendar, but I think it’s all things mission and vision. Where are we going the week after next?

Ashley M. (16:36):

I think we’re doing something, I’ll double-check. I think it might’ve been around video, but yeah, we’ll check.

Michael B (16:40):

All things video. We’ll assume that it’s video. In the meantime, I just want to give a quick shout out for this beauty that is in my hands. Sorry, I’ve got to make sure I’m moving in the right way. This is our Digital Marketing For Charter Schools guide. We just republished this brand new edition of this meaty beauty right here. I’m going to drop in the link in our live chat, so you can go grab that if you feel like grabbing this lovely guide that our team has put together on all things digital marketing. It even has some work pages in the back for you to leverage all the good lessons learned. You can go grab that from the URL that I just dropped into our chat. And I just want to thank our guest today. Stephanie, thanks for joining us. Appreciate you being here.

Stephanie R. (17:26):

Thanks for having me.

Michael B (17:28):

Of course. And my fearless co-host, Ashley, thanks again for making this happen this Thursday. And we will see you all next week on All Things SEO. Take care, everyone.

Ashley M. (17:39):

Thanks.

The idea of the audit can invite stress, and it’s understandable to feel daunted by the need to address compliance and other issues while you’re focused on the day-to-day aspects of growing a school. The Charter School Audits Guide Preparing Your School for the Annual Audit offers month-by-month breakdowns schools can use to stave off overwhelm. The key is preparing a little bit at a time.

Here’s what the plan looks like:

School Audit month-by-month breakdown

As seen in the chart above, month one is dedicated to the fiscal audit overall. That’s because month one is when schools have just completed the previous year’s audit, so first steps are about how to move forward from there.

For a detailed look at previous months, click the links below:

Month 1 – What do after your audit

Month 2 – Post-Audit Conversations

Month 3 is a significant month for schools as it is the perfect time to conduct a thorough examination of your HR department. While it doesn’t necessarily have to be done in Month 3, it is ideal to do it in the spring when teachers are making plans for the next year and can inform you whether they will be returning. There are several parts to the internal review this month, so, if possible, divide the work between several people.

Step 1: Review Employee Policies and Procedures
  • Go over contracts and agreements for the upcoming school year. Include arrangements for management, teachers, and other staff.
Step 2: Standardize Roles and Create Employee Pay Schedules
  • Completing this together with revising your contracts will save time, provide continuity, and prevent discrimination.
Step 3: Have Your Attorney or Insurance Carrier Review Your Documents for Compliance
  • Look into employee recruiting and hiring software to streamline your hiring process.
    • Tip: Some full-service Back Office Providers (BOPs) even offer fingerprinting management.
Step 4: Organize Personnel and Confidential files
  • Ensure that you have both physical and digital copies of these files to be easily accessible.
Step 5: Update your HR Handbook
  • Attend an HR law update meeting. These are a great way to brush up your HR policies.
    • Tip: Some are free and usually occur at the beginning of the calendar year.
  • Check with local law firms, insurance organizations, or your Charter Association to see when the law update meeting takes place in your area.
  • Review, redraft, and add new laws to your HR Handbook, and send it to your insurance provider for review and updating.
    • Tip: Many insurance companies offer a once-yearly update for free, and they can look it over for compliance.
  • Share your updated handbook with your governing board for approval.
  • Roll it out! You can begin to distribute your new handbook immediately for new hires, or you can utilize it at the start of your new fiscal year for returning employees.
Step 6: Draw up or revise your volunteer agreement.
  • Make sure you have both physical and digital copies of the volunteer agreements, TB testing, fingerprinting, LiveScan, and any necessary COVID vaccines.
  • Organizing these now will make your annual audit run more smoothly.

Audits For Charter Schools

Want tips on types of files and how to organize them? To take a deeper dive into this plan, download The Charter School Audits Guide Preparing Your School for the Annual Audit, a free guide for school leaders.

Texas Legislative Updates

Days until the 88th Texas Legislative Session Sine Die: 70 (May 29, 2023)

TEA & State Updates
DOE & National Updates
  • The House Education and the Workforce Committee passed two bills now heading to the House Floor for a full vote. H.R. 734 aims to prevent biological boys and men from participating in athletic programs designated for girls or women, while H.R. 5 would give parents more authority over educational decisions and add requirements for school systems to ensure parental engagement. Committee Democrats argued that these bills distract from student academic recovery, mental health support, and access to free school meals.
  • A conservative wing of the U.S. House announced its intention to roll spending back to 2019 levels and cancel President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. If Speaker Kevin McCarthy agrees to their demands, it will eliminate most of the administration’s education budget requests, including a $2.2 billion increase for schools serving poor students and $.5 billion to address student mental health needs. On the other hand, the Biden administration wants to raise the $31.4 trillion debt limit to avoid what most economists anticipate would be a global economic crisis.
Articles of Interest
Important Dates
  • March 21 – House Public Education Hearing – Agenda
  • March 22 – Senate Education Hearing – Agenda
  • April 11-14 – SBOE Meeting
  • April 28 – SBEC Meeting
  • May 29 – Last Day of Regular Session

Check out more and Subscribe to Amanda List TX Legislative Updates here. 

In this session, Ashley McQuarrie and Michael Barber celebrate their tenth EM Live session. Watch the video or read the transcript below to hear their answers to the top enrollment marketing questions they get from school leaders.

Watch the video or read the transcript below for more.

Join the experts as they answer all your questions live on Thursdays on YouTube at 10am PT / 12pm CT / 1pm ET. Charter School Capital – YouTube

Read Full Transcript

Michael B. (00:23): 

Hi, Ashley. And welcome to our 10th episode of All Things Enrollment Marketing, our weekly series every Thursday, 10:00 AM Pacific and 1:00 PM Eastern. As mentioned before, I’ve got my fearless companion with me for the last 10 episodes, our Director of Enrollment Marketing, Ashley MacQuarrie. Ashley, how are you? 

Ashley M (00:42): 

Doing well. I can’t believe it’s already been 10 episodes. How are you, Mike? 

Michael B. (00:46): 

I’m well, thanks. Yeah, 10 episodes. We’ve done 10 since what, about mid-December. So we’re doing pretty well on trying to keep this a weekly series. But we thought it would be fun for our 10th episode as a little celebration to revisit the top three questions over the next 10 minutes, unless we see some in the chat, which as usual, you’re more than welcome to throw in any enrollment marketing questions for Ashley or myself on the chat. It’s usually below the fold on your mobile app. If you’re joining us from your desktop, it’s on the right-hand side. We’re more than happy to answer questions. 

(01:21): 

But we will kick off with our first, our top question, which is why EM and why enrollment marketing, a decision right now now that we’re in the first week of March is such important timing for school leaders to be thinking about? So would love your thoughts there, Ashley, on why as we transition into what, day 54 or 55 of the year, what should school leaders be thinking about when it comes to enrollment marketing? 

Ashley M (01:49): 

Yeah. Well, for a lot of school leaders, enrollment has just opened. Some of our schools just opened enrollment, opened enrollment yesterday, actually. Some of our schools have had lotteries that ran maybe a couple weeks ago. And so now schools should start to have an idea of where they’re at in terms of interest for their school for fall, whether they found that their lottery, they’ve had more interest than ever in their lottery, and now they need to make a plan for following up with those folks. Or maybe they didn’t get the level of interest that they want, and maybe the open enrollment isn’t driving the numbers that they would necessarily expect. And so now they really need to put a plan in place for how they’re going to get those numbers up over the coming months. 

Michael B. (02:29): 

Yeah. I mean, you make such a good point. And I think the other thing to think about as a school leader is if you are going to be doing this by yourself or you’re going to be doing it with a partner. As you think about, there’s a lot of partners out there. We’re one of those partners. We really like to make sure we’re working with schools, you know this, by April 1st because that’s a big deadline for us on a number of fronts. 

(02:51): 

You have to start building stories and getting to know the school. If you’re going to be working with a partner, there’s things that have to happen before you start this process. So just would be really curious for your thoughts. If someone’s thinking about working with a partner, what sort of decisions they need to be thinking about in order to select, “Hey, am I going to do this on my own or is a partner going to help me?” 

Ashley M (03:12): 

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you definitely need to have a sense of your bandwidth, a realistic assessment of how much time you actually have available. I mean, you need to make sure that you have a team in place who can follow up on those leads. And you have to remember that any partner, us included, they can get started pretty quickly. But if they’re going to do a good job, if they’re going to help you really define the stories that you’re going to tell and take a strategic approach and not just sort of scatter ads out there and hope for the best, it’s going to take a couple weeks. 

(03:43): 

So if we start in April, April 1st, you may not actually have really campaigns running at full steam for about a month. So that puts you to May. And so that’s why that April date is so important, or really the earlier, the better because if you’re going to take a strategic approach and if you’re going to have all the pieces in place that need to be there, there’s some time to get up and running. 

Michael B. (04:05): 

Yeah, for sure. We’ve got a few more viewers that have joined us over the last few minutes, so just wanted to say hello to all of you that have just come in and mention it is our 10th episode. So we are celebrating that 10th episode milestone by talking about our top three questions that we’ve received over the last few weeks on our weekly EM series here on YouTube Live. 

(04:24): 

We started that conversation on why at day 54 or 55 of the year, what should school leaders be thinking about when it comes to enrollment. And Ashley very intuitively talked just specifically about, hey, as you’re thinking about building those lists, as you’re thinking about building those waiting lists as you head towards next year, now’s the time that you’ve got to be putting programs in place to drive that interest and whatnot. So just such good insights there. 

(04:49): 

I want to ask a question. This is not one of the top three, so I’m going to put Ashley on the spot, but I know both of us are capable of having this conversation. But as you think about budgets, Ashley, that’s the other thing that school leaders are thinking about as they get into that March, April, May, June timing. They’re starting to think about next year’s fiscal for budgets. And often, you and I have had conversations with school leaders about how they should be thinking about an enrollment marketing budget. 

(05:14): 

And I want to couch this question with a little bit of a sort of lead the answer, if you will, but often we see those budgets as a budget number that is lower than what they probably should be spending. And I know the conversation you and I often have with school leaders is you have to think about the money that you’re putting into enrollment marketing as what the value that’s going to come out of it, which hopefully, is net growth in the amount of students, amount of kids that you’re serving. 

(05:46): 

And so just would be really curious as how do you guide a school leader for this budget conversation that it’s not just about, hey, thinking about just a percentage of your annual budget, it’s about thinking about the value that an additional kid from a headcount perspective brings to your school? 

Ashley M (06:06): 

Yeah, yeah, that’s really the right way to think about it because that individual kid that signs on for 2023, I mean, they could be with you for years and years and you’ve only spent that budget once to bring them into your school. 

(06:20): 

So I mean, I think when you think about, we do often see schools that maybe don’t understand how much it costs to do these things. If you’re doing it on your own, then you’ve got to find these other vendors to run campaigns. You’ve got to find designers and website developers and all of that stuff. And all of that can really add up. 

(06:40): 

And the other thing to be aware of is that costs, especially digital ads, they fluctuate throughout the year. So you might start out spending a lot of money at the beginning and find that you’ve exhausted your budget by summer when costs go up and you’re competing with all the other schools. Election cycles can also drive costs up, Christmas shopping, all of that kind of stuff. 

(07:00): 

And so you do need to take that budget and kind of spread it out and look at it, okay, if I have this number and I need it to go for six months, is that enough? And you think about all the things that you want to do, and you can do some quick math on what are yard signs cost, and what are postcards going to cost? And you might find that it’s probably not going to be, it may not be enough. 

Michael B. (07:20): 

Yeah. And on the question of timing too, this gets back to timing is as you’ve named some of the things that you want school leaders to be thinking about, yard signs, T-shirts, polos, uniforms, all of these things have supply chains that have been very, very challenging over the last couple of years and continue to be. And so as you’re thinking about timing at this moment in March, now is the time to be making some decisions as a school leader because you have no idea potentially what those printing timelines are going to look like, potentially what those production times are going to look like for anything that you’d need to help start your enrollment marketing effort. So just some other things to think about. 

(07:57): 

Okay. Question number two that we’ve gotten quite a bit is if there were three things you would tell a school leader to focus on when it comes to enrollment marketing, what are those three things and why? 

Ashley M (08:09): 

Yeah. Well, I would start with, and we kind of talked about this a little bit before, I would start with story, your story, your presence. What stories do you want to tell on social media? What stories are the people that schools talk to, your school staff are telling when families visit them at the school? 

(08:30): 

So really define those and get sharp on what those are and what your presence looks like, what your messaging is. That carries over into the website. That’s kind of the second thing that you really need to work on. Your website needs to reflect those stories. It needs to reflect that image, and it needs to be functional, usable. And it’s something that takes a lot of time. So it’s something you want to start early on, again. 

(08:58): 

Other things that go into your website, like search engine optimization, we put that stuff in place as early as possible because we know that it builds over time. And so if we put that work in in February, we might start to see it starting to pay off in May. But if you wait to do it until May, it may not actually help you this year. It’s still worth the investment, but it’s something that builds. 

(09:20): 

And then the last piece is how people get in touch with you. So I love an interest form. Take a look at your forms, make sure that you have your online application that gets you the information you need is in compliance with your district, but also make sure that you have a short interest form for people to just take that first step and give you just a little bit of info that you can follow up on. Make sure that it’s real easy to figure out how to get in touch with you. And make sure that you’re following up and, hopefully, keeping track of those leads and that interest as it comes in. 

Michael B. (09:52): 

That’s awesome. So top three things, story, website, how you’re converting that person in an interest form. And you heard all the best practices here from Ashley. 

(10:02): 

In true celebratory style, it’s our 10th episode and we have the most concurrent viewers live that we’ve ever had before. So I’m really proud of that for the both of us because we’ve been plugging away on doing this every single week for the past few months. So we can have a little pat on the back for both of us there. 

(10:18): 

For those that are joining You, we do this every week, Thursday, 10:00 AM Pacific. Some weeks we do it on different days, and that will probably be coming a reoccurring theme because we’ve got some exciting episodes coming up where we want to do some live conversations at conferences and whatnot. But we do this every Thursday usually, 10 minutes on a Thursday, 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern, and all the time zones in between. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel. You’ll get alerts if you’d like to get those alerts when we’re going live. 

(10:46): 

Otherwise, feel free to hop in here whenever you want to and take a listen, maybe on your drive-in or you’re heading on the train with your cup of coffee in the morning and ask us questions here. We refer back to a lot of those questions, even if they’re not live. So if you’ve got questions and you’re watching this tomorrow or in a month or in a year, Ashley and I are around to answer those questions too. 

(11:06): 

We’re about 11 minutes in, so we’re going to try and keep it to our 10-minute threshold. But I have one last question. One question that we talked about with one of our designing partners, our design partner is Niki Blaker, was what’s the importance of brand? Why does a charter school need a brand? And I would love your thoughts there, Ashley, as succinctly as possible given we’re up on this 10-minute mark. 

Ashley M (11:30): 

Yeah. I mean, I’m just going to just steal what Nikki said. I’ve used it since we had that conversation, and it’s just is it the same school when they come meet you that they saw elsewhere? Does everything that represents your school from your signage, your building, your swag, your uniforms, your website, your social media, does it all look like the same school? That’s just so important. That’s really what brand is all about. 

Michael B. (11:53): 

Yep. Nailed it. I love that insight. Okay, we’ll wrap it up there because we’re at minute 12. Thanks, Ashley, again for taking the time to join us on our Thursday weekly discussion on All Things Enrollment Marketing. 

(12:05): 

Want to tell everyone that’s joining us live, we have nine other episodes covering a variety of topics. Ashley and I have talked about the importance of EM, timing that school leaders should be thinking about when it comes to enrollment marketing on episodes one, two, and three. We covered the top marketing tactics I think in episode four. We’ve had two of our enrollment marketing project managers, Betsy Roberts and Sarah Scheel on our episodes talking about the importance of signage and direct mail and how you nurture relationships with families. And either on episode seven or eight, and I’m sure I’m getting them confused at this point, we had our dear friend, Niki Blaker from Five Sigma, who’s one of our design partners, who talked about all things brand and creative. So we’re really starting to touch on some of the major things that school leaders need to be thinking about when it comes to enrollment marketing. 

(12:55): 

So it’s been a fun 10 episodes. Can’t wait for the next 10. On that note, Ashley and I, we will be back next Thursday right here in our home offices as you see here. The following Thursday, we will be in Sacramento for the California Charter Schools Conference. We are going to do this live right from the conference in our open-space initiative where we’re welcoming California school leaders into a discussion on a ton of different topics right next to our booth. We’ll be in booth 200. We don’t know timing yet, but we’ll put it up on our YouTube page. It’ll either be Tuesday or Wednesday. So we will not have an episode in two weeks on our usual Thursday time. 

(13:39): 

But if you hit subscribe on our channel, you’ll get those notifications. And we look forward to seeing you all live next week, next Thursday, 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern. And then the following week we will be in Sacramento and maybe we’ll try and find a California charter school leader to come join us for the conversation because we know a couple of those people. Maybe we can get a charter school leader to come join us and sit in the hot seat with us. So we’ll look forward to that. As always, thanks to everyone for joining us and we’ll see you next week. Take care. Bye. 

Ashley M (14:09): 

Thanks. 

 

The Dewey Awards are all about honoring the teachers who make a difference. Every year, charter leaders, students, and parents across the country enter their written and video submissions celebrating exceptional teachers. Named for an excellent teacher, Mr. Richard Dewey, three entries are awarded a grant of $1000 to a charter school of their choice. Although only three winners are selected, each of the entries is inspiring and worth sharing. This week, we’re sharing an entry submitted by Ashley Means celebrating all she’s learned from Mr. Anthony Williams.  

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Submission: 

Charter School Capital
Dewey Awards 2022
Mr. Anthony Williams 

School: Maryland International school for sustainability and technology
Nominated by Ashley Means

I would like to nominate Mr. Anthony Williams for the Dewey Awards 2022 For the Teachers Who Change Our Lives. He is the CEO, Founder, and a great teacher of BEACON House Inc which encompasses Lil’ STEAMERS and Maryland International School of Sustainability and Technology.

I have known Anthony since 2017 when I showed up at his doorstep at BEACON House Inc, physically, mentally, and emotionally depleted from an abusive relationship. I walked in to become a volunteer to nurse myself back to health from that event, so that I could gain enough strength to re-enter the workforce. I walked out hired. I was terrified.

I walked out hired and terrified as an eventual part time AmeriCorps Member to work for his nonprofit, a STEAM educational organization. This organization brought education and experiences to children in the community who didn’t and don’t have typical access to such education. Even though I was hired, and an adult, I was still his student.

We used my credits I had gotten from what little college I could afford through life; I was 33 years old at the time, mixed with classes Mr. Williams paid for, I quickly became a classroom teacher studying under him as an AmeriCorps Member. With Mr. Williams I learned everything from teaching school age children, fundraising, how to work new age technology, curriculum, to tactics with children who needed that extra love. He was the person I needed when I was younger. He was and is the person young people need.

I say he was the person I needed when I was younger because as a child, I grew up very poverty stricken. I was born in Western New York, to two Taxicab Drivers. I lived in an actual “hood”, yes that’s the actual name of the area I was born into and spent half my life in. My single mother moved my brother, her, and myself to a suburb when I was 9. At 14 I was granted emancipation as I took my mother to court and proved her unfit. I slipped between foster care and the town police “left me alone” as long as I held a job and stayed in school. So, I was homeless and bounced from house to house. I stayed in school, kept a job as a server but I really needed a teacher like Mr. Williams back then, to learn from and look up to. Maybe even as a guide to a way out.

Fortunately, he did that for me at 33! Hey! Better late than never, right? Anthony has an amazing education mixed with experience with teaching in different regions and even other countries. I knew he was a man to watch and listen to. And I was right! Because of his leadership in how to be a teacher, I became a Certified Classroom Age Teacher, CPR and Med Certified, a two term AmeriCorps Member, a director of a program of his named STEAMWORKS, a Fundraising Committee Chair, on a Board of Directors, and eventually the CEO of my own business. Even to this day, I still work full time with Mr. Williams as a Resource Developer and Administrative Manager at his private school named Maryland International School of Sustainability and Technology. That is just one aspect of the nonprofit he has built based upon his knowledge and vision.

Everyday we work with children like me. Children coming from broken or poverty-stricken homes, especially given the city of Hagerstown’s demographics. Everyday because of this man, Mr. Anthony Williams, a child Is fed properly, a child is given the tools for self-worth and self-esteem, a child is getting an education beyond what the public school system offers. Not just a child… children… plural. He does this by applying for Grants and Scholarships for parents who are working or going to school, to keep tuition affordable. Every single day he is giving a child like I, myself was, and many children alike, hope. Not only is he doing this at the child level, but he is still doing it even for children with less opportunities who grow into 33-year-old adults with less opportunities.

Mr. Williams not only taught me and teaches many others daily with his knowledge and his example, but he makes other great teachers in this world from the help and inspiration of representing “Teachers Who Change Our Lives”. He changes lives and helps create others who are and will do the same, by leading by example and spreading his hard-earned education to the less fortunate.