25+ Marketing Tips for a Successful Open House
March 18th, 2020
Holding an Open House provides the perfect opportunity for new families to learn more your school, meet your staff and faculty, and begin a relationship leading to enrollment. It’s also a great time to nurture relationships with current parents, students, and alumni.
An Open House requires a lot of planning and school resources, so you’ll want to do everything possible to attract a fantastic turnout. To ensure a successful event, the following is a suggested checklist of 25+ marketing tips and promotional actions to take Before, During, and After your Open House.
BEFORE
To create excitement, raise interest, and fill the halls at your Open House, you must first CREATE AWARENESS. Get the word out about your Open House utilizing every avenue available. Here’s a list of attendance-boosting ideas to implement in the weeks and months leading up to your event. Most are FREE, so be sure to utilize them!
Make the Most of Your Website
(2 Months Before the Open House)
- Create a Landing Page that includes event details and a Registration form
- Add a Calendar Event on your website and feed into your homepage
- Add a News Announcement or Blog Post on your website and feed into your homepage
- Add a Site Alert on your homepage and Admissions page announcing the Open House. Link to the Open House Landing Page/Registration Form.
- Send an automated “Thank You for Registering!” message when the Registration form is submitted (easy to set up using SoSimple’s Form Builder)
Spread the Word on Social Media:
(6 Weeks Before the Open House)
- Post an Open House invitation on all your social media accounts (with a link to the Open House landing page on your website). Do this twice a week, every week leading up to the event.
- Add an Event to your social media accounts
- Create a paid advertisement on social media.Specify your demographics for greater effectiveness.
Send Email Invitations & Reminders:
(2 Months Before the Open House)
- Send an email invitation to your parent database (remember to ask them to invite their friends).Repeat 1 Month Before the Open House.
- Send an email invitation to your alumni database. Repeat 1 Month Before the Open House.
- Send an email invitation to your prospect database. Repeat 1 Month Before the Open House.
1 Week Before the EVENT
Send an email reminder to everyone above plus everyone who signed up via the online Registration Form. Repeat the day before the Open House.
Send Bulk Text Messages
(2 Months Before the Open House)
Send an invitation via bulk text message to your parent database. Repeat 1 Month Before the Open House.
1 Week Before the EVENT
Send a reminder text message to your parent database and to everyone who signed up via the online Registration form. Repeat the day before the Open House.
Leverage Low-cost Advertising
(2 Months Before the Open House)
- Hang signs and banners at your school, outside and in the halls.
- Print and place yard signs throughout town (including the front of your school)
6 Weeks Before the EVENT
Create paid advertisements on social media. Specify your demographics for greater effectiveness.
Foster Free Publicity
(1 Month Before the Open House)
- Contact the local newspapers and request coverage
- Send a press release to local area newspapers
- Send a press release to area radio stations
- Parochial schools – be sure to include an announcement in your church bulletin and ask the priest to announce it during mass
1 Day After the EVENT
Send a re-cap press release to local area newspapers. Include photos from the Open House.
DURING
The day has come for your Open House event. While you want to MAKE A GREAT IMPRESSION on visitors, you also need to use this opportunity to COLLECT VISITOR INFORMATION. This collected data will be imperative to your follow-up marketing and enrollment communications.
Visitor Questionnaire:
Whether you collect this data directly into a computer database or by paper forms that you later input into your contact database, the following information is critical to acquire. This needs to be done at the entrance of the Open House as visitors arrive. If not, you risk losing parents’ attention as they begin touring your school, talking with staff, etc.
- Parent information: name, address, phone#, email
- Student information: prospective student’s name, age, birthday, current school, grade level, interests such as clubs, band, sports, etc.
- Who referred them to your school? (you’ll want to thank the referrer)
- Where did they hear about the open house? (helpful in tracking promotion results)
Hand-Outs:
Give visitors materials to take home. This will keep your school’s name top-of-mind even after they leave the Open House. The following can be handed out after the visitor questionnaire is completed, arranged on a table at the entrance, or inserted into a school-branded tote bag given to each attendee.
- School brochure
- School fact sheet
- Parents’ and students’ testimonials
- Athletics game schedule
- School-branded gift items (hat, pen, notebook, team pennant, tote bag, etc.)
- School application and other entrance forms
AFTER
Promoting your school doesn’t stop at the Open House. Now’s the time to FOLLOW UP with visitors and remind them why YOUR SCHOOL is their best choice! Whether or not a family filled out an application at the Open House, follow up with every family in attendance.
Mail thank-you letters
Make a lasting impression with a personalized “thank you” letter mailed via postal service on school letterhead. Be sure it’s hand-signed by both the Admissions Director and the Head of School. Thank the prospective parents for their time in attending the Open House. Remind them of why your school is the best choice for their child’s education: List benefits, facts/statistics, clubs/teams, and several parent testimonials.
Email thank-you letters
In addition to a mailed thank you letter, send a thank you email that includes links to your website, photos and videos, student and parent testimonials, and application form. This gives attendees another opportunity to engage and discover more about your school.
Supportive phone calls
Have current parent ambassadors, coaches, and club directors (based on the student’s interests collected during the Open House) call prospective parents to answer any further questions and provide assurance in their decision to select your school.
Additional Follow-up Communications
Continue to keep your school’s name front and center by sending a series of follow-up communications, including emails, mailed brochure with application, and packages with school-branded items.
Need help with your upcoming Open House events? SoSimple’s website management and communications platform assists you in nearly every step of the process. It empowers you to easily create website site alerts, add calendar events, send bulk text messages, email invitations, create social media posts, build landing pages with registration forms that upload to your database, automate follow-up emails, print labels for print mailings and packages, and create follow-up call reports – everything you need for a successful Open House.
SoSimple is your complete Open House marketing and communications solution. Request an online demo.
