Building the Ultimate School Video Marketing Campaign

by Joe Monzo | Dec 22, 2021 | General

The Final Installment of the School Video Deep Dive Series

If you’re just tuning in now, welcome to our comprehensive guide to the ultimate school video marketing campaign. If you’ve been reading from the beginning, congratulations on making it through our entire School Video Deep Dive Series! While our previous blogs explained marketing videos for schools according to type, this blog provides an overview of how the different videos work together.

Whether you’re just beginning to explore video marketing for your school, or you’ve already begun producing assets, we recommend reading this guide to using school marketing videos in a campaign to improve enrollment.

Understanding School Video Marketing Funnels

Achieving a basic understanding of marketing funnels will help you better align your marketing assets with your goals. A marketing funnel is typically represented by a funnel-shaped diagram explaining how your marketing assets should work within your campaigns. This diagram is separated into a few sections, usually labeled awareness, interest, consideration, and intent.

At the top of the funnel, there is a “wide mouth” meant to catch as many prospects as possible. A marketer builds out  “awareness” with marketing assets meant to capture attention and introduce prospects to the brand. 

Further down the funnel, marketing assets offer niche resources directly related to the brand to narrow down the audience. As a result, the target audience becomes more refined as only truly interested prospects continue through the funnel while others exit.

Overall, your school’s video marketing funnel should capture attention and then slowly weed out prospects who do not fit your target audience. At the same time, these videos should convince prospective families to enroll by overcoming common objections and barriers.

Types of School Marketing Videos in the Funnel

Now, let’s talk about how each school marketing video type fits into that funnel. Different types of school marketing videos naturally lend themselves to certain sections of your video marketing funnel, starting with awareness and following through the stage of intent.

To begin, your general admissions video should be the first video marketing asset introducing prospects to your school. This video captures the attention of prospective families looking for a new institution and offers a general overview of the school and what your school’s value proposition is.

Once prospective families decide to learn more, they enter the stage of consideration. Here, we recommend providing more detailed information combined with emotional content about your school.

Here’s a brief recap of the types of school marketing videos that can help move prospects further down the funnel: 

Student-parent experience videos are testimonial videos from real families with compelling stories about their experience with the school. These videos are inspirational and highlight the school’s success, focusing on the institution’s core mission and values.

Program and curriculum videos specifically target prospective families according to their intracurricular and extracurricular interests. You can choose to have a few videos, each one focusing on a facet of the academic curriculum, athletic programs, and other activities. Your faculty are also given the opportunity to shine, and interested students can “meet” the teachers they’ll encounter once enrolled.

Finally, prospective families still in the funnel will enter the stage of intent, looking for detailed information about enrollment and the logistics of attending your school. Questions about applications, tuition, and transportation should be answered in barrier videos. Here, offer solutions to any objections prospective families might have.

How Do I Use School Marketing Videos?

Once you’ve successfully produced all your school’s video marketing assets, you’ll need to distribute them to your target audience. Your marketing funnel should inform how you use each type of video on your social media feeds, website, emails, and more.

When it comes to the awareness stage, where your prospects discover you, you should focus on distributing your general admissions video through social media and on the homepage of your website. More detailed videos, such as your testimonials and curriculum videos, should be embedded in specific pages of your site and distributed to leads, such as through email marketing. Barrier videos should appear on the informational pages of your site, such as your tuition assistance page, and should be provided to prospective families who have inquired about a visit and ultimately enrollment.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule of marketing engagement, and you should strive to be creative with your video marketing strategy! 

If you’re looking for further professional guidance, whether to produce your school marketing videos or to learn more about how to build your marketing funnel, contact Monzo Media Productions today.

How to Use Barrier Videos for School Marketing

by Joe Monzo | Dec 7, 2021 | General

Part V of the School Video Deep Dive Series

One important reason to set up a school video marketing campaign is to offer information for prospective families who are still exploring all their options. The general admissions video provides an overview of the institution, and school program videos highlight specific aspects of the curriculum. However, you’ll likely find that your marketing campaign doesn’t end simply by convincing prospective families, through an overview video, that the institution is a great choice.

Commonly, families researching schools will find a few excellent options but refrain from enrollment because of some unfortunate barriers or obstacles. Therefore, a video marketing campaign is not complete without barrier videos. You need to convince these prospective families who are otherwise interested in your school to enroll using content that addresses their concerns and pain points.

To avoid leaving these interested families behind, let’s explore how you can include barrier videos in your school video marketing campaign.

Where Do Barrier Videos Fit into School Marketing?

Too often, schools leave money on the table when their marketing materials promote the school but don’t address the barriers that keep interested families from enrolling. Barrier videos are the tool that are towards the end of the top of your marketing funnel, targeting families who already know lots of aspects about the school but have a few issues standing in the way of enrollment.

While previous school videos, such as general admissions videos and testimonial videos, speak to families early on in their research process, barrier videos should be saved for families who require that last push towards conversion. As a result, barrier videos best serve prospective families when used as:

●      Embedded videos towards the end of email drip campaigns

●      Posted videos on school website pages — for example, those that address tuition assistance

●      Resources provided by faculty when families explain their concerns about the school if applicable

Overall, think of barrier videos as one of the final chances in your video marketing campaign to become problem solvers. Ask yourself how you would want to be addressed if you presented concerns about applying to the school.

What Makes An Effective Barrier Video?

In order to create effective barrier videos, the first step is to identify and evaluate exactly which problems are discouraging families from enrolling. Barrier videos must address your target audience’s concerns so that you systematically overcome objections to enrollment. 

To properly address your prospective families’ barriers, it is best to have one video dedicated to each of their pain points. Families should feel that you fully understand their needs and have taken the time to thoroughly address each of them.

If prospective families have a difficult time affording tuition, create a video that walks them through the financial assistance process at your institution. If they worry about having the means of transportation for students to attend school every day, use a barrier video to explain opportunities such as signing up for school bus pickup.

These videos are also more factual rather than emotional, presenting statistics and offering solutions. Barrier videos should ultimately highlight the school’s process for solving the pain points and how effective these solutions have been for other families. 

A great example of a barrier video is one of our tuition assistance explanation videos, in which we used motion graphics along with statistics and facts to reassure families that the school could help them afford tuition. This barrier video showcases the tuition assistance application process, provides examples of average household incomes and percentage of tuition waived, and explains exactly how the school is able to accomplish this level of financial aid.

Create Barrier Videos for Your School Marketing

At the end of your barrier video, families should be left without any doubt that enrolling in your school is the right choice. With a deep understanding of your target families’ pain points, thorough answers to their concerns, and compelling video marketing assets to communicate your solutions, you’ll be able to significantly increase enrollment.

We are proud of the several successful barrier videos we’ve produced for schools. To get started with fleshing out the end of your school marketing funnel with helpful barrier videos, connect with Monzo Media Productions today.