TECHNOLOGY

Running virtual open events

Amid the disruptions to oncampus events this year, schools have been tapping into a new way of attracting prospective families and securing ongoing enrolments: virtual Open Days. Here’s the perks – and the how to’s – to get your school on the digital event train.

BY MARA ROBERTS

SCHOOLS across Australia and the world are in a season of adapting to an uncertain environment and are finding the need to try new things to keep their marketing and enrolment momentum going. Some schools have quickly taken up offering virtu al open events to prospective families, while others are not so sure and are still waiting it out. As a sc hool marketing agency we have now had the opportunity to run and market our fair share of virtual open events and we’ve learnt a lot about what is working and what is not. We thought we would share our insights from running events across the country and give you a few pointers in the right direction to run your own school virtual open event. Firstly, let us look at some of the hid den benefits of virtual open events for schools.

Lower cost registrations

The advertising spend per virtual event registration is on average up to a third of the cost of a traditional open event. We’re finding that the convenience factor and great engagement on digital media is resulting in a much lower cost per registration, meaning that your advertising spend is working a lot harder for you during this time.

Higher turn-up rate

Because the cost is so much lower we may make the conclusion that an online event registration is not as valuable as an in-person event registration, but what we are actually finding is that our events are getting higher show-up rates. Generally, around 70 per cent of our registrants are showing up for the event on the day. This is great compared to the usual 50-60 per cent show-up rate for tradi tional in-person open events. The convenience factor really helps us out here.

“Some schools have taken up offering virtual open events to prospective families, while others are not so sure and are still waiting it out.”

Engagement

If done correctly, virtual open events provide you with a wealth of data on how engaging your event has been. Our favourite number to look at is the video viewers over time, as this will give you an indication of how long families are stay ing engaged for, and possibly which content r esulted in a drop in engagement. Engaging families on the day is the secret sauce to making it all work and we will go through our recipe for

keeping families engaged in the ‘creating your virtual open event’ section later.

Families feel confident enough to enrol

Most importantly (and surprisingly for us) we have found that parents are feeling confident enough to submit their enrolment applications after attend ing a virtual Open Day. The key to getting these a pplications in is to engage in individual conversations after the event.

Ther e are so many benefits to virtual open events and there is no doubt that they are here to stay, even when restrictions have ceased. Virtual open events are now an expected norm in the market place that parents will continue to request. There is no time like the present for schools to get on board and run their own event. How do you run a successful event? We have got a few top tips for your school.

Keys to running a successful event

Running a successful virtual open event is about so much more than pushing information out there or providing a temporary measure for families until they can visit you in person. In our experi ence, the best virtual open events give families a behind the scenes look at your school and enable two-way conversation. Here is how you can do this:

Real trumps produced

The videos that keep families engages are real face to camera discussions with the principal and teaching staff. There may be small segments where you use pr ofessionally produced videos to show off your campus, but try to keep these to a minimum and switch them for live Q&A style videos where parents

“There are so many benefits to virtual open events and there is no doubt that they are here to stay, even when restrictions have ceased.”

curate the content that is presented.

Keep it short

We find that virtual open events that stick to within an hour hold attention a lot better. If you find that you have too much content to keep it short, think about segmenting your content and allowing families to curate the content that they want to watch with a media library.

It’s about two-way communication

Our best tip for a successful virtual open event is to enable parent participation and two-way communication. One of our favourite ways to do this is to enable live chat on your platform, so that families can start a one-on-one discussion during the event.

Our clients have also asked families for their ques tions during the registration process so that they can curate their content for their audience. Group chat is also another excellent way to enable engagement during the event.

Plan your next step

It is important that you have a strategy drawn out for the next step a family will take once they have attended a virtual open event. This may be an

opportunity to book a one-on-one visit, or a personal talk with the principal. Clearly guide participants to this next step throughout your event.

Build your own virtual event platform

Schools often ask us how they should host their event. While Zoom and YouTube live provide you with some capability, our most successful plat forms are custom-built as long-term enrolments t ools that our schools can continue to reuse. A custom build website platform will enable you to get more detailed data on attendees, enable you to add a variety of content on one page, and give you features such as live chat, virtual maps, video libraries and enrolment enquiry forms that com plete the feel of your event.

Plan out your full campaign beforehand

It’s important that you plan out your entire campaign from start to finish to optimise each step of the process. Plan your advertising campaign, preevent reminders, the virtual event platform, and also the follow up after the event for both families that attended the event and those that didn’t.

With so much to be said about virtual open events, I hope that this article has inspired you to get on board and stay with the trend in schools market ing. Our clients have not only used their virtual open event platforms for one-off events, but have found a new evergreen way to engage families and influence their decision making process with max imum convenience and connection. There is so muc h to embrace about this newfound source of ongoing enrolments.

MARA IS A SCHOOLS’ MARKETING SPECIALIST AND THE DIRECTOR OF ROBERTS DIGITAL – A DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY FOR SCHOOLS. SHE IMPLEMENTS CREATIVE DIGITAL CAMPAIGNS FOR HER SCHOOL CLIENTS, AUTHORS A SCHOOLS MARKETING BLOG AND RUNS FACEBOOK GROUP – MARKETING MASTERY FOR SCHOOLS.