Where are your school leads coming from?

By |Published On: 02/07/2020|

Lead Source vs How Did You Hear About Us

One of the most fundamental mistakes we see schools’ struggle with is – how did we capture that lead in the first place? Now, there is a subtle difference between why a family may choose your school (word of mouth, reputation etc.) and what method of lead capture is the most effective.

Our experience and research tells us the answer to where school leads are coming from is invariably one of the following 4 methods:

  1. School Event – the family registered for an event, such as an Open House/Day, or came to a School Tour
  2. General Enquiry – they made a general enquiry, online, via phone or email to ask question about sending their child to your school
  3. Personal Tour – the family took part in a private tour of the school
  4. Information Pack – they requested a prospectus or information pack

At Enquiry Tracker, we dug into the data from over 50,000 records, and it clearly shows that the vast majority of leads, 94% are captured via web forms and website registrations, with less than 6% from walk ins, phone and email!

It’s a no-brainer where your energies should go!

As you can see from the above chart that the biggest influence is effectively word of mouth, especially when you combine it with current & past families with friends & families. How will you change the type of marketing you do? What we do as marketers can positively influence word of mouth. One more question to consider…

What prompted you to contact us today?

You may be surprised at the results.

KEY TIPS

  • 1

    Make sure you have event registration and general enquiry forms on your website.

  • 2

    Be sure to track both lead source and how did you hear about us for every single enquiry, here are some common options for users to choose from:

    • Advertising
    • Billboard
    • Friends
    • Internet Search
    • Live in the Area
    • Past Student
    • Family at School
    • School Website
    • Social Media
    • Word of Mouth

The Result: Greater understanding of where leads are coming from means precious marketing dollars can be directed more strategically.