What Are Other Schools Spending on Digital Marketing?
Earlier this year, NAIS and Metric Marketing released a report on independent school marketing – because we know that in today’s competitive environment, independent schools need powerful digital marketing to thrive. Our report was created based on in-depth surveys of independent school marketing professionals – and it covers everything from effective digital strategies and essential software to how schools are staffing their marketing teams and allocating budgets.
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Curious? Here’s a sneak peek at one of the questions we asked, what we learned – and how you can use it to improve the marketing efforts at your school.
What percentage of your media budget is spent on digital channels?
15% Less Than 11%
10% 11% – 20%
13% 21% – 30%
12% 31% – 40%
7% 41% – 50%
8% 51% – 60%
9% 61% – 70%
18% More Than 70%
8% Not Sure
We know from other questions that private and independent schools’ marketing budgets vary greatly (more about that here). These percentages give us an idea of how they are prioritizing digital marketing within those budgets. Our report includes additional insights into how digital marketing spending is affected by school demographics, as well as information on school marketing teams’ familiarity and experience with digital marketing.
If you’re questioning how much to allocate for your digital channels, the best approach is to map out your family journey and identify the traditional and digital channels your audiences rely on at each stage when making decisions about a school. Check your analytics to identify which channels are better at moving leads down your funnel. Balancing the benefit-cost ratio of these channels against your acceptable cost per acquisition (or the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign or channel level) will give you a sense of the best places to allocate your budget.
You will likely end up with some traditional channels in the mix, particularly at the awareness stage of the customer journey. If you believe in the role of thoughtful, actionable marketing data, your strategy will lean heavily toward the digital space.
Want to learn more about creating a customer journey for your prospective families – and how to leverage it to make better marketing decisions? Read Understanding Customer Journeys and Attribution Modelling and Reaching Prospective Private School Parents at the Awareness Stage.
Want to learn more about independent school marketing — and how the 2024-2025 recruitment season went for your colleagues at other schools? Download our free report, available now from NAIS and Metric Marketing.
Get your free copy of the 2024-2025 State of Independent School Marketing report.
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At Metric Marketing, we develop measurable and practical strategies to help private and independent schools like yours to make the most of your marketing efforts. We’d love to discuss your private school’s marketing requirements with you. Contact us today to speak with our marketing professionals or sign up to receive more marketing tips in your inbox.
