Imagine you are exploring an ancient cave, and amidst the shadows and echoes, you stumble upon a shining stone. Unaware of its true worth, you dismiss it as ordinary and toss it aside. Later, you learn that the stone was, in fact, a diamond. Its brilliance and value were lost on you simply because you lacked the knowledge to recognize it. This story is a powerful metaphor for how ignorance can lead us to overlook something extraordinary. Just as the diamond’s value was hidden from you, the true worth of your educational institution may remain hidden from prospective families unless you make a deliberate effort to showcase it.
In today’s competitive educational landscape, families are inundated with choices. Schools and institutions must go beyond simply existing—they must actively demonstrate their value, culture, and uniqueness. This is where the concept of recall value comes into play. Recall value measures how well your institution stands out in the minds of your target audience. On a scale of 0 to 10, you reach the highest point when your audience not only knows about you but also follows you, trusts you, and takes inspiration from you. Achieving this level of recall value requires more than just marketing; it requires creating meaningful connections and experiences. And there’s no better way to do this than through open houses.
Virtual Open Houses vs Physical Open Houses
Educational institutions deformed their traditional open house format and started organizing it in a virtual mode. Though both formats are effective nowadays, here we will see how they make a difference in certain areas:
Best Practices for Hosting a Successful Open House
This boot camp explains how a welcoming approach, like an open house event, jet-speeds your enrollment. Now, focus on the best practices you must abide by to host successful open houses, be they physical or virtual.
Plan and Promote Early
Open house events are usually held on weekends for the working parents’ convenience. Reach out before they make any plans for the weekend if you want to tap your target audience. Early and planned promotions of the event never fail. All you have to do is:
- Make a creative
- Post it on social media with a nice caption and CTA
- Tag all relevant people (Speakers and collaborators)
- Keep posting stories about the preparation of the event
- Take bites from the speakers
- Talk about the parents’/students’ pain points
- Create FOMO
- Prepare your website before posting on social media platforms
- Provide the link to register in every post
Choose the Right Platform
The key to successful promotion is hidden in the right platform selection. While LinkedIn attracts working parents, Instagram would be ideal for every category’s parents.
Choose the Right Hosting Platform
The success of virtual events depends on the user experience. Choose a platform with maximum options like recording, screen compatibility, participants’ engagement, and polls during the session. Popular platforms for virtual events include Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Classe365 is integrated with both of them. So, your school management software is also there to support you with the event.
Create a Compelling Agenda
The agenda creates a real difference in the number of attendees. Point out the pain points of parents and students first. Work on them with this checklist and template. Find out your USP (Unique Selling Point) and make a groundbreaking pitch for them. Make your offerings so compelling that attendees cannot think of other options. Interactive sessions are a must, especially if you are hosting a virtual open house. This is when you start building trust in your prospective audience. Answer their questions with a crisp and to-the-point approach.
Work on Multimedia Content
Generating excitement about an event is done in a subtle manner where your audience doesn’t know how they are automatically subscribing to your offerings. So, present intriguing content around campus facilities, student life, and success stories. Go for carousel or video content that produces excitement. This blog section contains content on various topics from which you can pick ideas.
Facilitate Interaction and Engagement
Open houses are not only to show your institution’s facility. This is a great opportunity for you to know what parents want for their children. Market analysis and gathering user perspectives both happen at the open house events. So, make the most of it and interact with potential audiences. Understand their requirements and fix the curriculum and features accordingly.
Provide Virtual Tours
It’s easy to take the prospective parents through your school when they come to attend events. But how would you arrange a walk-through if the event happens online? There’s still a way. Record a virtual tour of your institution and take them through it. A 360-degree virtual tour helps parents understand the facilities like classroom sizes, classroom ambiance (whether it’s a smart classroom), playground, sports equipment, laboratories, auditorium, and more. Keep it candid by showing current students’ movement across the spaces.
Take Feedback
Asking for feedback after the event is a must. If the event happens offline, it’s easier to take video testimonials. These will help you promote your next open house as well as attract new students for enrollment. These videos are great sources of instilling trust in your target audience as word-of-mouth marketing works the best way.
Follow Up with Attendees
Taking feedback is not enough. Keep following up with the parents/students who attended the events. Leave a thank-you note along with the details of new courses or sessions. Sometimes, you can just call them for another open house event where lunch can be complementary. Nurture leads in every possible way and move them further down the enrollment funnel.
Open house events are your primary lead machines. Keep this rolling. Follow all the steps and take ideas from this boot camp. Classe365 is here to help you ease your workflow with all the necessary assets like checklists and templates. Take our platform tour and get into a world of possibilities.