Your school’s website design is likely to have a bigger effect on the success of your overall school marketing strategy and pupil recruitment performance than you might expect, according to educational research published by mtmconsulting recently.
The mtmconsulting Schools Marketing Survey 2009 showed that school website design plays a huge role for all schools in their communications and pupil recruitment activities. In the survey of over 200 independent schools in the UK of all shapes and sizes, mtm found that more than 1/3 of schools now received half or more of their enquiries via their website.
With the internet becoming more and more important in the day to day lives of all of us, schools marketing teams must respond effectively. A strong school website design will help to attract parents to the site in the first place through search engine optimisation (SEO), is likely to promote the school effectively, and will provide them with an effective means of news and communication distribution throughout their tenure at the school.
While many school websites have traditionally been seen as slow or poorly designed, it seems that in recent years school marketing professionals and educational business leaders have been attending to this. The mtmconsulting Schools Marketing Survey 2009 found that “schools update their websites more frequently than their prospectuses. Just under one-third of all respondents (31%) had renewed their prospectus within the last year, while nearly half (49%) had updated their websites in the same period.
Worryingly, the report also found that “a quarter of schools did not know what proportion of enquiries came via their school website”. Meanwhile an earlier mtmconsulting research report: The Missing Million (2008) found that only 35% of parents who visited independent school websites described themselves as being “very impressed”.
With the increasing awareness of the need for effective school marketing repeatedly being highlighted in the media, at mtmconsulting we are seeing an increased interest in our school website design and e-marketing services. Melanie Tucker, Principal at mtmconsulting, said, “our school website services represent excellent value for money and are informed by our 25 year history in school marketing. We firmly bellieve that effective website design can make a significant impact on independent school marketing and pupil recruitment, so we are glad that it seems schools are taking notice of this.”
For more details on mtm school marketing and educational website design and e-marketing services please contact us here.
To download a free copy of the mtmconsulting Schools Marketing Survey 2009 please click here - [pdf, 482kb].
