There are many factors that lead to turning visitors to your school into enrollments. It’s vital that your school implements a comprehensive process when it comes to your school tours. Make it easy to sign up for a tour and ensure that you follow up enough with your prospective families after their visits. Here are some tips for how you can make the most of your touring process. This enables you to have a successful conversion rate!
Make sure tours are offered at convenient times
Making it too difficult for families to carve out time in their schedules to visit your school drives parents away. They may even forget about applying altogether. Additionally, if the tour sign-up process is too long or confusing, parents will likely move on to the next school. Ensure that you are setting up an easy tour booking option on your website and your social media accounts. The easier it is to book a tour with you, the better impression you will make on families before they even walk through your doors.
First impressions are everything
When a family comes to tour your school, an employee should greet them warmly as soon as they arrive. If you give families too much time to stand around and wait, they may become antsy or even leave altogether. You want that first impression of your school’s atmosphere to be inviting. This goes a long way when parents are deciding where to enroll their children. Additionally, ensure that you take time to get to know each family and their children before beginning the tour. This helps you make a more personal connection. Find out what their child’s strengths or weaknesses might be. Ask what the family hopes to get out of sending their child to your school? These are all incredibly important questions to ask upfront so that you can gain a better understanding of their needs.
Make sure tours are engaging for both parents and children
One way to make running tours a little easier on yourself is to have age-appropriate activities for both parents and kids. For example, if you’re showing families around after drop-off time in your infant room, you might have an activity set up so that while one set of parents watch their child play with toys as you discuss your classroom philosophy and curriculum, another can walk through other classrooms without feeling like they need to keep an eye on their child. The easier you make it for them to tour with little to no disruptions, the more engaged parents will be and the more they’ll understand what your school has to offer.
Come up with key talking points
Why should parents choose to enroll their children at your school? Is it because of your high academic success rate? or is it your unique curriculum? your extracurricular activities? Or is it because you offer both before and after-care services for working parents? Whatever makes your school stand out, be sure to provide this information right away. The more that parents know about what makes YOUR school unique, the easier time they will have chosen to enroll with you!
In addition to discussing your school’s benefits, you also need to thoroughly review tuition costs, transportation options (if applicable), and any other general information that needs to be covered. Providing clear information will give parents a sense of transparency (which is always appreciated), and it will also enable them to weigh the pros and cons of enrolling at your school, and come to a decision more quickly.
Make follow up phone calls
After your school visitors head home from their tours, you or a member of your staff can call or send emails to get a feel for each family’s impression of the school to find out if parents had any questions or concerns. This will ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. If anything was unclear during their visit, your follow-up call or email can help alleviate any doubts quickly. Doing so can help prevent losing out on a prospective family due to something that could have been easily communicated or clarified.
Conclusion:
When you facilitate tours for your school visitors, it is important to remember that the goal of these tours goes beyond addressing educational topics. Your primary responsibility as an educator and guide is to ensure that each family has an engaging experience with all aspects of your organization. In order to do this, there are some key factors you need to consider as you plan your visits, including an easy booking process, clear discussion points, providing a welcoming environment during the tour, and adequate follow-up after the tour.
Contact Local Child Care Marketing today if you need help making any adjustments or additions to your school tour process, so you can make your next visitor’s tour one they won’t forget!