Your open day campaign needs a better idea than ‘come and see us’
By Mark Hooper
Your open day campaign needs a better idea than ‘come and see us’
By Mark Hooper
An open day is not a proposition.
“Come and see what makes us special.” Friendly. Welcoming. Entirely reasonable. And something almost any school could say. An independent school open-day campaign has a more interesting job than announcing a date. It needs to give the right family a reason to stop, notice and imagine. That means finding the thought before finding the headline.
Start with the perception you want to shift. Perhaps the school is academically stronger than people realise. Perhaps its size is seen as intimidating when the lived experience is remarkably personal. Perhaps families know the name but have an outdated picture of the school. Perhaps the school is entering a new market and needs to give people a reason to reconsider it.
That tension gives the campaign something to work with. Without it, school advertising tends to fall back on the familiar ingredients: smiling pupils, beautiful grounds and a collection of perfectly reasonable claims. None of those things is wrong. They simply need a point of view.
A useful test is to remove the logo. Would the campaign still feel like it could only belong to your school? If not, there is probably more work to do. The campaign also does not end when somebody clicks “Book now”. If the advertising promises individual attention, registration should feel personal. If pupil voice is central, pupils should play a meaningful role on the day. If the campaign celebrates curiosity, the visit should allow families to experience it.
The landing page, confirmation email, signage, tour, presentation and follow-up should all feel like parts of the same thought. Otherwise the campaign is making a promise the experience does not keep. And then there is measurement. Registration numbers matter, obviously, but they are not the whole story. Attendance matters. Quality of enquiry matters. Subsequent applications and conversion matter.
A campaign that generates fewer but better-matched families may be doing more useful work than one that produces a large volume of casual interest. The objective is not simply to fill an open day. It is to begin the right relationships.
An open day is not a proposition.
“Come and see what makes us special.” Friendly. Welcoming. Entirely reasonable. And something almost any school could say. An independent school open-day campaign has a more interesting job than announcing a date. It needs to give the right family a reason to stop, notice and imagine. That means finding the thought before finding the headline.
Start with the perception you want to shift. Perhaps the school is academically stronger than people realise. Perhaps its size is seen as intimidating when the lived experience is remarkably personal. Perhaps families know the name but have an outdated picture of the school. Perhaps the school is entering a new market and needs to give people a reason to reconsider it.
That tension gives the campaign something to work with. Without it, school advertising tends to fall back on the familiar ingredients: smiling pupils, beautiful grounds and a collection of perfectly reasonable claims. None of those things is wrong. They simply need a point of view.
A useful test is to remove the logo. Would the campaign still feel like it could only belong to your school? If not, there is probably more work to do. The campaign also does not end when somebody clicks “Book now”. If the advertising promises individual attention, registration should feel personal. If pupil voice is central, pupils should play a meaningful role on the day. If the campaign celebrates curiosity, the visit should allow families to experience it.
The landing page, confirmation email, signage, tour, presentation and follow-up should all feel like parts of the same thought. Otherwise the campaign is making a promise the experience does not keep. And then there is measurement. Registration numbers matter, obviously, but they are not the whole story. Attendance matters. Quality of enquiry matters. Subsequent applications and conversion matter.
A campaign that generates fewer but better-matched families may be doing more useful work than one that produces a large volume of casual interest. The objective is not simply to fill an open day. It is to begin the right relationships.