Best Practices
How To's
Two Fantastic (Yet Overlooked) Marketing Opportunities
If you’re like many programs, you’re running a tight ship with a small team. You are looking for ways to maximize your marketing impact in every area you can. That’s why we’re taking a moment to highlight two often-overlooked places that you can subtly market your program.
These tools are available 24/7 —and best yet, they won’t cost you a penny.
Voicemail
Voicemail is so standard that it’s easy to overlook as a way to inform your audience.
Everyone has a voicemail greeting. But, in addition to just asking someone to leave a message, you can also deliver additional information, like your website address. This simple reminder help direct callers to a place that is open for business at any hour of the day. You could also let callers know that class registration is open and where they can register.
“Thank you for calling Roberta Smith at Happy Valley Community Education! Please leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you soon. Did you know that class registration is now open? Visit happyvalleyed.coursestorm.com to register for class online anytime day or night!”
It’s quick, easy, and free.
Email Signature
Your email signature is a great place to let people know what’s going on with your program, too!
In addition to your contact info, you can add a call to action text link or button inviting people to register for classes and link it to your online registration site. Or you could get fancy and include a thumbnail image of your catalog cover as well.
York Adult Education in York, Maine has had great results by simply including the cover of their current catalog linked to a pdf of their print catalog. Each class in the pdf catalog is linked to its CourseStorm registration page. This simple, classy signature was created using links and images in York’s Gmail account.
You can also use an online service to generate one for you, like this one created for free with Gimmio. The free version offers several templates and easy-to-follow instructions for adding it to your email program.
For the best results, we recommend helping each staff member set this up for their own voicemail and email signature. You may find that little details like these make a big impact over time!
Nic Lyons
Nic is skilled in scaling start-up edtech and education organizations to growth-stage success through innovative marketing. A former journalist and copywriter, Nic holds a postgraduate certificate in digital and print publishing from Columbia University School of Journalism's publishing course.