How to boost your school lettings – Tip 5…

Although lots of our day-to-day activities are electronic or online, don’t overlook the power of traditional marketing. Combined with your digital presence, traditional marketing can make a huge difference to your venue’s visibility and awareness. 

Firstly, what is traditional marketing? – most forms of marketing that are done offline, typically involving a tangible piece of material or collateral, such as a poster, banner, newsletter or billboard. 

You don’t have to have your school lettings advert plastered on a 14-foot billboard to get the maximum reach. In fact, advertising in your school’s newsletter could have the same, if not better impact as you are directly reaching your target audience. Those taking the time to read your newsletter are already engaged with your school whereas the billboard achieves more of the ‘mega phone’ effect. 

To engage with your local community, you may also consider designing and printing a banner you can fix on the school fence where your local community pass by.  

Below we have comprised a list of other methods of traditional marketing we would recommend and how you can apply them to the greatest effect:

Printed advertising – consider creating an attractive graphic that can be printed as a flyer or poster. Canva is a great design tool, perfect for beginners, with its selection of ready-made templates. Once you have created a design, you can resize it to any size in just one click. You can then select a local printer to print your item, distribute to your local community by hand (or by post if you have the budget), pop in school bags or leave at your school’s reception desk, available to be picked up by visitors.

Signage and banners – establish where your high-traffic areas are, such as the school’s main entrance, and mount a banner on the fence showcasing the facilities you have available. This is a great way to reach parents but also any visitors to the school, and passers-by. Canva can also be utilised to create your banner, however, Adobe Illustrator could be a more sophisticated option, if you have some basic graphic design skills. 

School newsletter – many schools print and distribute termly newsletters so be sure to create an appealing graphic (again, Canva can be used to assist you here) to include in the newsletter to attract potential hirers. You could also use this outlet to go into more detail about your lettings, giving insights into your dedicated lettings team, some of your hirers, the activities on offer at your school.

Our top tip: Don’t forget you can save time and effort by re-purposing some of your social content, such as blogs, into forms of traditional marketing! Why not include a special offer discount code in your traditional marketing to monitor the effectiveness and your return on investment? 

Take a look back at last week’s Tip 4 – Utilising Google.

Interested in working together? Get in touch with Domenico Forgione, Business Development Manager, to discuss your specific lettings needs, find out about our marketing offer or any of our other lettings services.