Sausage meat, the sales funnel, and Krispy Kreme donuts

The more meat you pack in the sausage maker (or meat free alternatives if you are vegan or vegetarian) the more likely you are to make decent sausages. Much like sausages, sales success relies on lead generation; leads go in, sales come out. The more leads go in, the more sales come out – at least that is the theory. However, there are some very effective ways of ensuring that you maximise your conversion rate and get the best sales output possible from minimum lead generation. The secret ingredient for guaranteeing such success is the effective application of a sales funnel strategy.

Evaluating your sales funnel

A sales funnel is a method used to manage your customer's journey throughout their dealings with you. From the initial touch point when someone first learns of, your school - right up to the point of commitment, signing on the dotted line or committing their child to your teaching. Sales funnels map the route to conversion and beyond. By evaluating your sales funnel, you can create an extremely effective marketing strategy to better exploit your marketing spend, potentially driving greater sales, more loyalty, and stronger brand awareness.

A sales funnel is a step-by-step process that allows you to bring your prospective parents one step closer to committing, via a series of marketing actions such as automated emails, videos, articles and social media posts that do your selling for you. In our current climate where each lead is hard fought, competition is high and economic factors conspire against us, a sales funnel is worth its weight in gold. Think as your sales funnel as a virtual salesperson that works 24/7, 365 days a year without complaint.

To create a successful sales funnel, you need to understand the four phases of the funnel. These four phases included the awareness stage, the relationship stage, the sales stage and the upsell stage. Each stage has a different goal.

Awareness Stage

Most independent schools are pretty good at the Awareness Stage, at least most have the necessary assets required, even if they are not actively marketing them. Here your goal is to let people know that you exist. Ask yourself, “What can I do to make people aware of our school?”

There are many ways to reach your target market audience and build brand awareness. Here are a few examples

Content Marketing: this is a great way to build an audience and create brand awareness. Writing articles can drive traffic to your website through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and social media, while also allowing other people to see you as an expert in your field.

Video: another tool that can help build awareness. Videos allow people to see who you are, to get to know the personality behind the brand and to form a deeper connection with you. Videos can also be used to demonstrate your school facilities (or ethos) or share other ideas.

Paid Ads: advertising can be a good way to reach your target audience quickly. Paid ads often allow you to target people by preferences or demographics and thanks to social and digital media platforms, can be extremely cost effective and immensely measurable

Word of Mouth and Referrals: these will start to generate awareness for your school if your reputation and results are good. This is also the most cost effective and valuable way of increasing your brand awareness.

As part of our A to Z hints and tips to recovery blogs which can be found on the blog page of our website, D stands for Market Domination. The blog and accompanying video outline many of the ways to increase your school’s visibility - https://headspaceacademics.com/blog/2020/4/1/d-is-for-market-domination.

Relationship Stage

Once people become aware of your brand, and you are being talked about, you need to continue to build a relationship. In this stage, ask yourself, “How do I build trust and authority so that people will feel comfortable enough to commit?”. Think about which channels will allow you to communicate with prospective parents most effectively.

Social media, webinars, sponsored videos, and email marketing are popular media choices as they are relatively inexpensive. Once someone gives their permission for you to email them, you can easily keep the lines of communication open with them. Ask your admissions team, “How often do we connect with prospective parents? How often do we remind them how fantastic the school is? Did we ask them to connect with us via one or more social media platforms?” – if potential parents are considering more than one school, it is really important that a number of weeks aren’t allow to pass without reminding them what is special about your school and why it meets their needs better than others. You can even use re-targeting to deliver digital adverts to those who have visited your website, so you can continue to build brand familiarity with them each time they are online.

During the Relationship Stage, you need to decide on the buying beliefs you wish to instil. For example, if we go back to considering our sausages again, a vegan shopper might need to believe that a vegan sausage has been made from 100% plant ingredients and is an effective source of protein before buying it. A belief system comprises of the beliefs and biases a person might have regarding your school and the services it offers (see also our blog on whether you and your target market speak the same language and why it matters - https://headspaceacademics.com/blog/2020/6/3/do-you-and-target-market-audience-speak-the-same-language).

Sales Stage

If your Relationship Stage strategy has been well designed and is full of quality content, selling should be easier as your potential parents will already want to commit. It is important to try a trail close to test your potential parents to see if they are ready. By doing so, you move those who are ready into the next stage, the Sales Stage – where you can close the sale. Those who are not ready simply return to the Relationship Stage, usually with at least a better understanding of what it is they are looking for.

Once in the Sales Stage the content of the message changes to underpin and endorse the qualities the potential parents hold dear. You can still improve your results by having a strong Sales Stage, as this is where those who have any doubts can be resold to.

Upsell Stage

Finally, the Upsell Stage is where your school can offer related services which the parents may not have previously considered. Breakfast club, after school club, holiday club, extra teaching support, additional tutoring, specialist sports coaching… it’s not sausages, but McDonalds grew into a multi-billion dollar company by simply asking their customers “Would you like fries with that?” after they purchased a burger. Which just leaves me to address the Krispy Kreme Donuts mentioned in the headline.

Whilst one donut is pretty much the same as another, Krispy Kreme can charge a pretty penny for their donuts through a strong brand, clever marketing and a perceived range of speciality pastry to suit pretty much any palate. The wide taste range appeals to a wide market, another ingredient for success. It is important that you ensure that you also offer wide appeal, don’t be too narrow with your offering or you will narrow your appeal. Consider messages that would appeal to younger parents, older parents, Grandparents; don’t just focus on academic achievement, or the great outdoors, or sporting accolades – make sure you cover all angles.

Headspace Academics; fresh thinking. Helping school leaders to establish solutions for their school’s long-term security and here to help you too.