Catering for different audiences with your school website

The demographic of parents considering an independent school education for their child is changing.

Alongside ‘traditional boarding’ families, you now have a new generation of parents appearing, aptly named ‘first-time buyers’.

This group of parents will have completely different expectations and aspirations, and they’ll be looking to you as school marketers to demonstrate what sets your school apart from your competition.

This blog post will uncover the preferences of these differing audience groups, highlighting what they want to see on your website and how you can appeal to both.

So, what sets these audiences apart?

Traditional boarding families may themselves have been privately educated, and as such, are familiar with the offering of an independent school.

This audience typically responds well to traditional marketing such as print, think high-end brochures, prospectus’ and advertisements in targeted publications.

They will have the emotional connection through their previous experiences and thus, there is already an element of trust that has been established, even before they have delved deeper into your school offering.

‘First-time buyers’ on the other hand, are perhaps a vast contrast to this.

First-time buyers, largely (but not limited to) millennials, have grown up in the digital age, and are hyper-connected, relying heavily on their digital devices for all things internet related.

The challenge with this demographic is that they may have not been privately educated and are ultimately less-trusting than any other age group, so are able to recognise insincerity and misinformation.

Instead they look for you to prove yourselves in your school marketing, as they have to believe in you to emotionally engage with you and your brand.

You may now be thinking, how can I appeal to two very different groups of people?

To effectively engage both audiences, your school website needs to address 5 key points.

1. Who you are – Your school website requires a strong brand which reflects your school’s personality, culture and ethos, critical to both parent groups. This will include a prominent logo, paired with media that embodies your school’s essence. This, when done well, can be incredibly powerful! Imagery and video of your school’s grounds and facilities can be great at reinforcing your reputation (typically favoured by the traditional parent), whilst visual content featuring your pupils can be far more emotive, and will appeal more effectively to both groups.
2. What you do – Whilst the overall service you provide may be similar to the competition, how you present that service on the website, and deciding upon which areas you focus on, may help appeal to each parent group. Nicely designed animated stats counters that promote your academic reputation, will help to engage both audiences. For first-time buyers, they may favour information around pastoral care, co-curricular activity, all of which should be communicated via documentary style media or dynamic social media feeds.
3. Who you are targeting – It’s vital to identify the different types of content that each group will want to see. Traditional parents who may have already established trust with your school brand, may perhaps favour process based factual content, such as term dates, school fees and academic stats. First-time buyers will likely favour concise content supported by visuals. Remember this audience requires more convincing, so if you boast of an excellence in pastoral care, where is the proof?
4. Why you? – Your key strengths and USPs are what differentiate you from your competition. Different audience groups will identify with different strengths. Presenting them via a carousel of copy and visuals, may help to target different audience groups, in an efficient and streamlined way.
5. What next? – Now that each parent group has the information they need, what are their next steps? If you would like them to build on their understanding, why not utilise an online form, to allow data capture and a follow up call. If you offer a prospectus, consider a digital version to appeal to first-time buyers, alongside a physical version more inline with a traditional parents preferences.

The proof is in the pudding!

Our client, Godolphin and Latymer, have a website experience that effectively engages multiple audiences.

From prospective and existing parents and pupils, to staff, alumnae, the local community, the media and so on.

With the school recognising that each audience group has different preferences and needs, we were tasked to create a rich and engaging experience that communicated and addressed them all.

We built a scalable, and fully editable website on WordPress, that aesthetically embodied the G&L brand, and that engaged each effectively, within their own specific areas of the experience.

We identified and analysed that for the sixth form offering in particular, the audience comprised mainly the students themselves.

As such, we created an experience that adopted a slightly different design, structure and layout, more representative of what this audience group may expect, yet in keeping with the wider website design.

You can see the full website experience here.

Lasting thoughts.

The task at hand for a school marketer looking to effectively engage different prospective parent groups, isn’t and has never been, an easy one!

Unfortunately, there isn’t a one size fits all approach.

Great school websites are those that consider each parent group, and tailor their experience to each to appeal effectively to both.

Having a school website that allows you to be fluid so that you can create tailored experiences for both your traditional parents and first-time buyers that educates, informs, inspires and ultimately converts, is the key to success.

And hopefully, it alleviates some of the stress of your role along the way!