S2E3 From Ad to Grad: A Top to Bottom Look at Enrollment Funnel

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hello welcome to this week's episode of the open house show with your host Jesse Meadow we've got a great guest here

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Jamie giblett of Digi Stormtrooper we'll talk a little bit about going from advertisement and inbound marketing all

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the way to a lead for your school and Jamie's going to really talk about a lot of the products and services and

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strategies let's bring them on Jamie uh how are you sir all the way from Colorado

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I'm doing great Jesse thanks for having me um today I love it you know you got that

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from add to grads the title I love it today Jesse I love it as well

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excellent well you know I I I love uh Digi storm for contacts you know we had

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a um a great time a couple of years ago at EMA we've been seeing each other at conferences ever since and you know the

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product that you're bringing to schools here in the states I mean tell us a little bit about it tell us you know uh

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about the company yourself as well um and kind of that transition uh into the states here yeah sure thing so

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um did you storm we've been building software for K through 12 schools for 11

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years now in September so 11 years and you know a month and a bit

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and we found that schools in a particular particularly in Australia

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where um not necessarily up to up to date with the best practice in terms of

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um their websites having a mobile phone app like this behind me here or having a

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some admission software that's going to help digitize their process for their families so things were still uh you

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know WordPress sites where they just got went and got a theme um they were using paper packets for

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admissions and an app that wasn't even on the radar so 11 years ago it made the

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first app for a school in Australia then we went into making websites and admission software

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um the journey from there was that I was based in Australia probably in my accent it's probably uh

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um I was looking after us schools from Australia because there was a lot of interest in in particular with our uh

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CRM or customer relationship management product for schools we opened up this office in Colorado

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almost three years ago now um and as Jesse mentioned I was lucky enough to to hang out with him and Chris

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at um EMA in Seattle and and from there we've uh I think we've caught up a

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couple more times since uh most recent the most recent EMA as well

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yeah we're here to stay in the US and look I'm uh I'm I'm here today as well I

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love this I love this country I love the schools here I love the people Jessie everyone else out there in podcast land

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um yeah it's it's so good to be here um that being said you know I know we're going to talk a lot about some of these

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products some of these Services when we talk about the funnel because you know pretty much that's that's where the need is

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um and you know when we talk about that enrollment funnel a lot of schools and we talked about this on the last one within John marketing you know defining

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your audience you know who is the Persona that you're talking to um and on a on a very large scale you

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know a top level view uh it's the parents of today and the parents of today and the generation of parents of

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today have uh changed quite a bit um from from what we might be used to I

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mean even my own parents uh the way that they were um consuming information the way that they heard about uh schools and and how

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they researched things uh very different uh from from what we should be expecting today and not only that the the whole

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flow in the in the the user Journey um is totally different and that expectation so you know I I definitely

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if we're going to be talking about the digital enrollment funnel I want to touch a little bit on your experiences

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and and you know obviously we go from webinar to webinar to conference to conference uh reading article an article

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about the parents of today and and how to Market them so you know if you can give us some insights and tell us a

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little bit about the parents of today you know what's attracting them um and you know how do we really just

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initiate them getting into that funnel I think the lessons we've learned from the past still apply to to communicate

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through traditional measures as well but you talked about the current generation so we're talking about you know Gen Y

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um and then some gen Z kids even if we're not thinking about gen Z putting it out there now gen Z kids are

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coming into those early grades and wait lists and you know your gen your Millennials and your gen wires and your

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gen X's traditionally had that emotional um connection with with marketing so it

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was about how does it make you feel being sold a dream on holistic education whereas what we're seeing now with Gen

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Zed is there responding more to intellectual communication so all the

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things that uh targeted to you know these are the the important things that our school delivers for your child these

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are the things that you know um our school is able to provide in a

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day-to-day experience for your child as well as that emotional piece that's connecting the Millennials and the um

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the the Gen x's and why is before them so expect instant information without my

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mobile phone in front of my my app there oh yeah it'd be personalized

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um they expect that you you as the school to already know what they want and tailor messages to them so it's

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becoming more and more complex um but thankfully we've got more and more technology to help us with that

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complexity there was a a good point that we put up on one of our last episodes um you know and they were talking about

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us schools um being you know a luxury brand it's a luxury item you know especially with the

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price points whether you're a day school or a boarding school either way um and how they don't market like other

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luxury items in the industry and you know it's really been on our part uh

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bringing a lot of attention to that funnel not just a push an event promotion you know a random couple of

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months what we call random acts of marketing it's it's really there is a brand awareness stage there is building

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a storyline there is getting them to take a small action before they come and take a stronger action like a tour or an

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application um and then forget it when we get when they actually get to the admissions office and now they're in the CRM

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program and how do you bring that down you know what have you seen uh you know especially as far as traffic is driven

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to your to your to your sites um you know what are you seeing as as far as the the tools or the platforms

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that are available for schools to to really try to to reach those families whether it be paid ads or inbound

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marketing um you know some content pieces that you're doing there what are you seeing as kind of most effective as driving

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those parents to decide and the key thing is to to know your your own unique selling points at your school and build

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a strategic long-term strategy around those unique selling points that you know connect with your families couple

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that with a a smart digital advertising campaign what I mean by that is not just

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spray and and pray we want to be targeted audience and connect it with

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them in a meaningful way like you said have that first point of contact build that story that creates that meaningful

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connection with the family and you're right but if they do get to your website let's not just bottom with a wall of

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text how do I actually find out more information I've got to click around make it simple land on the page that

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then reiterates what you've been telling them along the journey maybe through targeted ads maybe through being at the

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top of um a Google search whether it be through marketing or organically

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re reinvigorate that message when they land on your website and then use tools from there that capture information in a

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smart way and what I mean by that is let's not just get their information have it landed our inbox and we're like

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oh great we got you know Jamie just sent some a request for more information or he downloaded our view book we don't

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know where Jamie came from we don't know anything about him it's the old way of doing things the new way is oh we know

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he had these touch points for our digital pipeline so we worked with with Jesse

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um to create a campaign and we know that they they touched on X Y and Z these separate campaigns before they came to

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us so having those landing pages that collect data in a smart way so that by

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the time I land in your inbox so to say but and you already know a story about

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me my family and what it is is going to make me be interested and point down in

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a certain direction at your school so I really liked um you know when we start talking a lot

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about having an annual strategy you know and this is where you would build out some themes some talking points you know

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what are your what are your current families saying you know what is the the local or in a boarding school

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perspective uh you know what is the perspective of your school you know what's the perception of it when you create the the generalized messaging on

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the front end all of your organic content your inbound content your paid

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advertisements your landing pages they could all be built and put together to

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be a nice cohesive uh plan for a family maybe they see an article they gain some

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interest okay they come to the website now they're going to get another ad um you know that's retargeting on social

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media that's going to drive them to the next stage of the funnel but all of that is playing on each other and I think to

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have those brand awareness stages you need to have those action stages you need to have the conversion stages at

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the right times have you seen that work well I know you're you're not really on the top of the funnel things

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with the clients that are really utilizing you know that website you know the the CRM program where you know where

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they're capturing that data and they're utilizing it in a real intentional way um you know how are you seeing them use

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uh the tools that you know you guys provide and how is that working for them the theory around how parents slash

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consumers behave so consumer Behavior hasn't really changed that much in 20 or 30 years what's changed is what drives

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them to behave in that way so before maybe it was a newspaper maybe it was seeing you billboard whereas like we've

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talked about the Millennials Gen Y Gen Zed it's uh having those digital touch points that mean something to me that

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are personalized schools that are having the most success have it have targeted

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campaigns like you said awareness um to then bring people to a to make a

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decision around maybe a small ask and then to convert them with a bigger ask

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um but understanding the personas well what's the right messaging for them what's the right Cadence of that

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messaging right um like we don't read their words using their terminology that's right use their terminology use

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the devices they want to receive things on um and in a way that connects with them

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in an authentic is the other piece I want to use here you know like authenticity uh especially the newer

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Generations I can see straight through something that is just um just gleaned over with you know one

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thick brush that everybody gets they know it's not authentic to them so understanding your personas understand

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the messaging that works with them and being authentic whilst embracing digital tools I think

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is where we're seeing the most success one final point on that though marketing and admissions alignment

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having those two um job functions plot those two functions plugged into each other and

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working together I think they're really important things I see in schools that are that are really converting and and

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really um dominating at the moment I I couldn't agree more and it's just it

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you know we we hear about it every year the business of the school is really two

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tracks capital projects development and enrollments uh either way you know in

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most cases it's it's mostly enrollments um you know otherwise it's it's going to be your development office with your

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with your donations your annual funds capital projects and things of that nature so you know there's really only

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two ways to keep this Revenue coming and keep everything moving uh and to to not

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have those two departments be talking okay well who are those parents and then that's where Communications and admissions start saying okay we'll

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Define that Persona here's our audience here's our tactics here's our strategy but that communication has to come in

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the planning stages so you know you hit the nail on the head they've gotta they've got to start talking to each

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other if you want to get an efficient campaign from top to bottom what has been biggest

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headaches I guess you know or the biggest struggles that you're seeing on that bottom of the funnel you know the

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family's interested they contact the school boom where where are you seeing the biggest struggles with schools the

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the cardinal sin of one a family getting lost in an inbox and never responded to

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that is the worst possible thing like so number one

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losing prospective families or interested families in a in an inbox

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that's you know full of urgent and important things um I know how it can get my inbox gets a

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little crazy sometimes so I use a CRM to keep track of when schools are

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interested in talking to me that's right so tools that aren't using a CRM to

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leverage that technology to know when families are interested in speaking to them start thinking about it so number one

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losing prospective families that one no one gives me the biggest headache but

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I'm also excited when I hear it because I know I can help straight away so that's kind of cool true then

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um the second place family sometimes get lost as in spreadsheets so great I contacted them I've thrown them on my

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Google sheet or my spreadsheet or I put them into my student management system as someone who's inquired and great I

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contacted them and then nothing um we've done all this great work to get

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them invested in our brand to get them to our website to do a small answer do a big answer convert hey I'm interested

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cool um you know here's a bit more information let me know if you need anything seeing

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that and then it's just lost on a spreadsheet are you we haven't spoken to them in six or seven months that's the second thing that's the second worst

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thing we can be doing is just forgetting about our families so yeah First losing a family at the get-go who's losing them

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in a spreadsheet after first Contact um is the second thing that I see happening and then the third probably is

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schools that are starting to make that transition but they're communicating in a generic way to everybody so

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they don't care that it's Jesse Jamie or Jacob it's just one message for everybody I might have said you know my

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child's really interested in equestrian and and Jesse's kids are interested in

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uh water polo I don't know why I'm going with those examples but I'm sticking with them and Jake the child because he's a little younger is interested in

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um getting into Esports but instead of targeting that communication to me about equestrian and water polo to to Jesse

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and about Esports to um to Jacob as cool as you're saying that one generic message about themselves like we have

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100 Years of tradition we do this we do that great we love that you do all that stuff

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but make it personal and about the person on the other end of the message I not only agree with you but you know

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you are directly being compared to the way someone else is doing something digitally and it is so common for a CRM

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system to have organization automation it should never be that they're lost so

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if you get lost it's almost you know where before Oh it can happen to anyone now it's like I can't believe that they

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are just sending me a generic message you know like that I put why did I have to put interest if they weren't going to

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send me things related to my interest the good thing is that at every Point

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whether you're talking about the ad or we're talking now at the bottom of the funnel there are options to make things

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easier and I only bring up those automations because when we're trying to nurture a lot of those leads so what are

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uh some some some great tactics you know for nurturing those leads and nurturing families and I guess we kind of flowed

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that into um retention as well you know not just a lead but a current family

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um you know but starting with more of the leads and the prospective Families how do we nurture them through that process once they actually get to you

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know what are some best ways to do that yeah and you said something really um that resonated with me though is that

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you're asking them for information and they're not delivering an experience based on that so why did you ask me for

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my interest if you're not going to deliver me an experience based on those interests why did you ask me what you

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know Sophie or or my child wants to do if if then the next time I speak to you

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it's like that's the first time we've ever met and then the next time we speak it's like the first time I've ever met and then it's it

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if the school down the road is having a conversation with a family that feels natural and is in their style

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unfortunately whether or not your school is better the modern family is going to look at

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well I'm having a great conversation over here I feel like they're listening I feel like delivering information that I want that's right maybe your school

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traditionally is beautiful and has great grounds and you you're focusing on that but in terms of a consumer experience or

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a family experience you're not connecting with me so I just wanted to to hit back on that but no I hear you I

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agree but I think the the next piece is being able to use

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um to also track what works as well so let's learn we've got the tools building

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the school building your reputation building all the different um steam or stem programs and and your

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Athletics program that was the real real hard work the easier stuff is what we're talking

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about today is communicating that to parents in the in the right way so being

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able to track what works from the moment they see an ad through to becoming enrolled or maybe seeing an ad and

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somehow ghosting through your process well what caused that can we go back and look at that information so I think it's

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really important to be able to have that marketing intelligence and you don't have to have it up here like I pointed

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here systems can deliver that for you and and as Jesse's mentioned we build websites we build crms here so

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um that's something that we're deeply passionate about it did you storm is being gonna have that marketing intelligence to say hey great this

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worked but this over here didn't so let's learn from it and let's adjust our strategy we're not going to change our

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entire story we're just going to make little adjustments as we learn more and more about the the journey that is converting with families so

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part of that is taking things online so don't have a great marketing campaign

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and connect with families and tell them a great story and then when they get to their website ah click here you're going to call us or click here to send me an

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email or click here to download the PDF to do the next step and then they have to go and write on it like

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if that is part of your process I I care for you deeply but really have a look at that for your next uh admission season

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because that's not what families want they want to be able to land somewhere on their mobile device quickly fill out

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a form great if the form already knows about me and can kind of autofill some info from last time I spoke to you

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Hallelujah if I can do that um so I want an online form and I don't want an online form just for an inquiry

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or to download a view book or to book a tour or to come to your open house I want that

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from my admissions form and I don't want you to forget who I am when I get to that stage see that a lot

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nurtured you beautifully and now it's time to apply here's a blank application form like we've never met before good

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luck I mean in terms of parent experience family experience like some families just gonna go great I'm invested in

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Scott want to do it other families they might be at that point with two schools second School says hey here's everything

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we already know about you we just really need to know you know who's the emergency contact UM get some digital signatures from you

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and maybe make a deposit fabulous great I've done that I've done it all for my phone I've signed happy days thank you

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very much uh doing my school or or Schoolcraft uh digital school and maybe

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I won't worry so much about Antiquated school down the road so this doesn't have to be hard it can sound overwhelming like how am I meant to like

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personalize everything for everybody use Smart Systems that can deliver that at

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scale for you in in resonance with your brand and in a way that is automated at the

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right places and then Jesse you kind of touched on it right at the end is the retention piece you do that every day so

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enrollments admissions doesn't stop once they sign the contract that's right if that's a mindset let's get out of that

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mindset you keep selling to people because they could leave next year they could leave next semester they could leave at any time

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so we're continuing to engage with them continuing to show value continuing to be personalized as we move them through

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the Journey of being part of your school and then hopefully afterwards makes that job a little easier when I have got this

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new project on and we need a we need some Capital support fond memories of the family that was such a great

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experience um yeah I'm uh I'm in a position now to be able to help the school out so

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I know that was long a lot no that was perfect I agree with you you're gonna need to have some help with automation

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um you know especially if you don't want to have things uh fall through but you know just like at the top of the funnel

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blending the different platforms that everyone's using you know having that that seamless cycle to the website and

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then from the website to the admissions office um all of that played amongst each other

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it was a holistic kind of approach now what you were just talking about is that nurturing site and that also needs to be

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holistic don't be for automation pieces but there's also going to be some Personal Touch pieces and and the

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blending of those two together especially if you've got a mixture of good relationship good digital

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experience Yep this is a school that's going to be putting my child and

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preparing them for the future ahead they've got it together I want to be at a school like this so it is that blend

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uh that I really love that you've got to put there totally and so I was looking at my phone let's go just looking at

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best schools near me now this is why parents can compare you because previously I had to call you up and say

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oh when's your next open house or see an ad somewhere and pull up and sign up whereas now I can find out so much about

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a school oh there we go there's a there's a ranked list um before I've I've even moved out of my

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seat and I can do it in 10 minutes so if we're not playing the game of um connecting with parents of today that

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can compare you with five other schools in 10 minutes we're missing out but as Jesse said we don't want to lose

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anything else that we we do well in that in that process so that holistic approach super important aligning uh

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marketing and admissions super important but using technology and personas that talk to people in meaningful and

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authentic ways I think super important how have you seen that type of use of

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Technology as far as retention you know we talked a lot about in in this episode uh you know we talked a lot about how

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we're getting families attracted and how we're nurturing them through that process but now they're current students their current families and they will

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choose to go somewhere else based off of their living experience yeah that app really speaks to that a lot are there

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other things that can be done or that you are seeing done um you know touch a little bit on that with their current students their

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current Families how are we keeping them involved in the community where they don't feel like they need to go

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um you know look for another option and I think everybody who's who's

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reviewing the podcast is um has probably got their phone within Arms Reach right now so why why would we

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send out an email communication around a newsletter or why would we deliver you

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know what homework my child has or how they they performed in a particular assessment via an email or a letter home

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why wouldn't we have that instant connection with a family that's personalized via an app that is all

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about your brand because to Jesse's point now they're a current family it can make a decision to go elsewhere or

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maybe there's a sibling or two siblings or three siblings in the family keep giving them that personalized experience

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and they're not going to look elsewhere they're like it was personalized from the moment I heard her at the school online now I'm a family it still

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personalized like it's just the no-brainer that the rest of my children are going to be joining this school and

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we're talking then about the lifetime value of a family because then once they're matriculated again I keep going

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on about it but we often use the app as well to communicate with alumni so we'll have ways to stay connected to the

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people that are Alum people who are current families keep your staff engaged as well I know we're getting a little

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off track but thin apps being used to keep staff engaged so having a staff section and and somewhere where staff

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can can get information and update so parents staff students if they're if they're old enough we work with schools

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where the app will communicate directly with the student and let them know hey don't forget you've got this homework or don't forget this is your your clock

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these are your classes for today just coming straight through the app and then you might even be able to see over my shoulder here when the family's ready or

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be in the admissions cycle again it's probably hard to see there but there's an admissions button on this app it's like yeah I do want to bring in my next

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child boom I'm going to do it straight from the app and it's going to take me through to that beautiful process of hey

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Jamie I remember you um you've got a kid Jacob in that school are we we're getting some more kids let's let's go for it so

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that retention piece is in my mind as important as the conversion piece which

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is as important as the uh attraction piece like all of them work together

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um to ensure that you're not bringing all these new students in and families in and they're just kind of dispersing

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out the other side um of your funnel because we're not looking after them as current family so

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again sounds like a lot sounds scary but honestly all the hard work at a school

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has been done creating the the programs and the buildings and all of that this stuff there's technology out there to

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help you with it um and it it makes life a whole lot easier to be

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other than say okay I fully understand my entire top of funnel to the bottom of funnel to converted family to retain

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family to graduated um and matriculated family I understand it all and I have the data and I can

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show you that that campaign we run with Schoolcraft digital converted this many people and then years later this this

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many people stayed retained all the way through because we're we're keeping them retained with our programs with

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communication and then even all the way through to okay that this family is a donor wow it came all the way from that

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first campaign we run with with Jesse and the team there at Schoolcraft digital I think you've done a perfect job you know laying out you know parents

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of today how they're receiving information what what does that campaign really need to look like to attract them then they get somewhere where are they

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getting you know how is that laid out what does that website look like what is that experience going to be and then you know once they actually do make that

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connection and they contact at the school how are we nurturing that what are the tools available especially once

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they're enrolled as a as a as a current student you know what are we doing on this end now

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um to really kind of finalize this whole process of from ad to grad um which actually to be honest with you

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we've talked a little bit about this alumni um you know and and uh development options for it it's it could be even

27:54

beyond that um so what are we doing in those regards what tools capabilities and tactics and

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um are we employing here you know I always like to close the show especially with technology pieces like this you

28:06

know what what are we seeing for me I would obviously say these this app you should be getting competition my friend

28:12

this that is such a great idea um I hope you don't I hope you own it

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um but what do you think's coming you know crm's absolutely what do you see on the right where do you see these schools uh

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at least in the U.S uh where are they going you know what what are the biggest areas of opportunity for

28:30

um you know handling the enrollment funnel yeah um we've kind of touched on it right at the

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end here and that data uh it's layering information that

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is known about family so demographics about families layered over an

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admissions process think about like you're scrolling Instagram or you're scrolling Facebook or you've jumped back

28:56

on the Amazon app feels like he finds listening to you or something like that because it seems to

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be serving you up what you want before you know you want it um that's where it's not not necessarily

29:07

here today but that's where I see it going with the admissions Journey it's almost serving families up

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what they needed and wanted to know before they even knew they needed and wanted it and big data is what is

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driving that so seeing it start to emerge in the education space it's definitely in tertiary uh so higher

29:25

education they're already using big data to to kind of connect with people before they're even knowing that they're ready

29:31

to connect so um yeah being able to personalize a journey Based on data that you haven't

29:37

in collected via a form you've got it because you've been able to Overlay um demographic data over a particular

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visitor to your website because you already know all about them before they've even said hey I'm interested in water polo or equestrian you already

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know and you already know that what income the household has so you already know this is gonna be a good family to

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be able to donate later so you're already starting to engage them with those sorts of things like hey check out our cool Capital Works projects and this

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is some awesome stuff that we're doing so so yeah now I could I could definitely agree

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with that you know it it is already here at a lot of other places uh but in this industry specifically it's it's working

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its way in here and and it's it's gonna change the whole game Jamie I think we've covered a lot here I really really

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appreciate your time uh I I think there's been incredible insights if they

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you know if our viewers didn't know before they have a much better understanding of of the enrollment

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funnel you know all of it is um plays on each other and really goes to the entire

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experience and and I think you've outlined that um really really well for us today I wish you nothing but the best I hope we

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meet again soon and I really appreciate you taking the time and talking with all of us today hey we'll definitely hang on

30:51

soon and appreciate you Jesse and uh anyone else tuned in um it's been really good to be here today so thanks for having me well

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that'll do it for us today I hope you enjoyed the show uh you can catch this at schoolcraftdigital.com under the

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podcast section or on our YouTube channel uh you can just search Schoolcraft digital thank you so much have a great rest of the week