open days, admissions exhibitions, live broadcasts, and overwhelming advertising...the "enrollment war" combination that only started in november in previous years has been advanced to the end of september this year, just in time for the national day golden week. at a time when the growth of the new student population is slowing down and the number of students is decreasing, reducing the scale, acquiring and merging, transforming into general high schools, adding courses, and developing arts and sports for higher education have become the "self-help ways" for international schools. however, as the enrollment of "first-tier" prestigious seminaries in various places has been "relaxed", the branches of the head education group have expanded significantly, and the competition for students has become increasingly fierce. in this round of "enrollment war", is burning money to "jump the gun" effective? how can international schools rely on influence to make a comeback? and how to avoid “bad publicity”?

01 "jumping the gun" in admissions is popular this year. what's the hidden pain behind it?

the admission threshold for leading schools has plummeted, and second- and third-tier schools are looking at each other. the originally low-key and mysterious niu school has begun to promote its admissions in a down-to-earth and high-profile manner this year. in the past, it only started to carry out live broadcasts, advertising, and open day activities in full swing in november. now, , the international school industry in beijing, shanghai, guangzhou and shenzhen has sounded the clarion call for the "enrollment war" in advance... why are schools in various places frequently "jumping the gun" this year? in this regard, ma xiaoyu, an expert in brand communication market expansion and enrollment growth operations, who has many years of experience in international education groups, believes that this phenomenon is not accidental. in recent years, international school enrollment has faced many severe challenges -

first, during an economic downturn,the income of middle-class families has decreased, and parents’ ability to pay has weakened., which poses a challenge to the consumption of high-priced educational services, of which international schools are one. at that time, in the american project of an international school where ma xiaoyu worked, parents were willing to pay more than 300,000 yuan a year in tuition to obtain educational resources, and even positioned "high tuition fees" as fashionable "social items." in recent years, "cost-effectiveness" has become a hot word in the study abroad circle, parents' willingness to spend has dropped sharply, and international schools have become one of the "three-piece set of middle-class bankruptcies."

secondly, because parents generally regard enough foreign teachers as a manifestation of the school’s teaching quality,the loss of foreign teachers in recent years has also hurt the image of international schools.. coupled with the national regulations on overseas teaching materials and compulsory education courses, the characteristics of international schools need to be highlighted urgently. and with some private schools experiencing "thunderstorms", parents are turning to more stable options.

in addition, in high school, parents pay more attention to academic performance. therefore,full-time training institutions are emerging on the market and become a popular choice. the trend has also put additional pressure on international schools to re-attract students who have turned to institutions.

based on many years of working experience, ma xiaoyu also found that under the test of survival,in the school's "enrollment war", the school's "admissions office" is often the vanguard. however, enrollment, marketing, and branding are often confused.

in fact, most international schools usually have only one admission office, which is responsible for admissions, marketing, and branding at the same time. some schools regard brand and market as different concepts and manage them separately. branding focuses on building the school's image, including standard usage, titles, and officially released materials such as principal introductions, school promotional videos, and ppt, while marketing involves more about the actual use of these brand assets to promote the school. .

unlike commercial brands that are directly oriented to consumers, in the field of education, both brand and market are relatively new concepts. in the early days of international schools, due to the shortage of high-quality educational resources, many schools did not pay attention to brand and market. only after foreign schools and schools with foreign investment background entered the chinese market did schools realize the importance of these two.

in recent years, as competition in the industry has intensified, schools, whether well-known or not, have begun to focus on brand building and marketing strategies to solve the increasingly difficult enrollment problem. and they alsothey all point in one direction, that is, the spread of influence.

02 amusing yourself? unwelcome? international schools urgently need to avoid pitfalls in communication

in this regard, ma xiaoyu believes that as self-media flourishes and the power of public opinion becomes increasingly powerful, schools need to pay more attention to the power of communication and the long-term value of the brand. familiar brands such as adidas, nike, coca-cola, etc. still invest a lot of money in advertising every year, just to maintain the long-term brand image and increase their "sense of presence" and "sense of value." the same is true for international schools. completing enrollment targets is only a short-term goal.what is more important is dissemination and reputation.

therefore, as international schools vigorously expand their communication positions, they need to know how to cleverly "avoid pitfalls" in communication.

first,schools need to clarify the ultimate purpose of communication, is for enrollment growth and the sustainable development of the school. through dissemination, parent groups that match the school can be found to support the operation and development of the school.

secondly,avoid talking to yourself. the essence of communication is two-way communication, not one-way output. if you do not consider the feelings and needs of the audience when creating communication content, and only focus on entertaining yourself, you will easily fall into "self-pleasure". for example, you often introduce leadership inspections, principal's speeches, etc. in a stereotyped manner on the public account, even though these are the school's something that actually happened, but lacked interactivity.

again, when carrying out brand communication,the public needs to be kept in mind at all times, think about whether the content is suitable for the target audience. in international schools, there are many parents with high academic qualifications, high cognition, and high social status, such as professors, executives, etc. if the quality of the content is low, it will disrespect the audience's time and intelligence.

in fact, in addition to operating public accounts, schools can also consider multiple platforms such as websites, video accounts, douyin, and xiaohongshu. however, these additional channels should depend on the school's capabilities and can be tried if there is spare capacity.

for new schools, it is important to expand channels, but it should be noted that not all communication methods can immediately bring a large number of enrollments. commercial placement can bring results in the short term, but brand building is a long-term process. for schools with insufficient enrollment, they should first focus on improving their communication capabilities and the professionalism of their enrollment teams.

03 branding and publicity are in turmoil, and schools are hungry for talents but unable to do so?

according to the "2023 china international school salary report" released by dingsi, in the salary analysis of administrative functions, unlike the 13% and 21% declines of the operations and personnel directors, the marketing/admissions directors bucked the trend and rose, with salaries higher than those in 2021. up about 20%.

but at the same time, the sector is often in turmoil.

in fact, unlike the marketing communication of enterprises, the marketing department of international schools started late, and the budget is far different from the former. the development space of the marketing department is also quite limited. for practitioners in this sector, career development is also limited and there is a lack of good room for advancement. therefore, not many professionals can be recruited. due to the scarcity of talented people, many international schools are often in desperate need of talent.

the market admissions departments of many schools are suffering from two problems:first, what kind of person is the right person? second, what kind of team is a suitable team?

in ma xiaoyu’s view, talent recruitment in this field faces multiple pain points. first, many people see themselves as technicians, such as copywriters, editors, etc., and lack an overall perception of the market; second, many people working in this department do not have professional educational backgrounds, do not understand or love education, and finally the styles formed are mostly standardized publicity documents.

as for the right team, ma xiaoyu mentioned that, in fact,attracting and maintaining students is a matter for the admissions office before parents enter the school, and after they enter the school, it is a matter for the whole school.if we look at schools from the perspective of product operations, then schools must go through at least four links: packaging, channels, customer consultation, and after-sales service. brand, market and enrollment conversion correspond to the first three parts respectively. therefore, ma xiaoyu suggested that in schools of a certain scale, the staffing of the brand and market enrollment teams in the minimalist mode should be "2+1+1".

in terms of brand building, it is necessary to clearly and completely convey the service characteristics of the school, such as what the school is, how the campus space is designed, what academic stages and courses are available, etc. two employees can be deployed, one is good at writing, and the other has good aesthetic and design skills, including photo shooting and video production.

for the writing of promotional content, if there are errors such as misuse of idioms, wrong sentences, or problems such as rigid and old-fashioned writing style, it will greatly lower the school's style. at the same time, in terms of visual presentation, ma xiaoyu believes that "ugliness is the original sin", and images or the video must be simple and elegant.

in terms of marketing, it involves the planning of activities, the development of channels and the maintenance of partners. therefore, one employee is required to specialize in marketing, including channel maintenance and industry platform liaison; while in terms of enrollment conversion, at least one employee is needed focus on the consultation, reception and conversion of potential students.

in ma xiaoyu's view, for the vast majority of schools, institutions and even personal ips, as long as they have commercial demands, obtaining traffic efficiently and at low cost is the most important issue in the current environment. in the international school industry, "traffic" is a cliché, but it is also something new. traffic is people’s attention. “people, followers, and crowd” hide the school’s target customers and gold mines. therefore, for most schools, in addition to the continuous improvement of academic strength, what they strive for is the ability to obtain traffic more pragmatically, rationally, and methodically through various channels such as brand building, market launch, and enrollment methods.

conclusion

at a time when international schools have to get a head start in the "student war", the importance of brand, market, and enrollment continues to be highlighted. how to make good use of its own position to achieve enrollment growth and brand maintenance in the most cost-effective way will constantly test the professionalism of school communication. in the traffic era, it is important to show yourself, but good products and services are always the biggest prerequisite for winning over parents.

author | iris

image source | network