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PROLOGUE
The Budget You Ask for in February Is Decided in September
Sometime this winter you will sit across from your head of school or your business officer and ask for money. More for ads, maybe a video, or a part-time person so you can stop doing everything yourself.
You will make a good case. Then they will ask one question: "What did we get for what we spent last year?"
If your answer is followers, open rates, and website traffic, the meeting ends politely, and the budget stays flat. You walk out feeling like leadership does not value marketing.
I sat in that chair. Most heads value marketing just fine. What they cannot do is approve spending they cannot connect to enrollment, and nobody ever handed you a way to connect it.
Why this is a September problem
The numbers that win that meeting cannot be assembled in January. They have to be collected while the season happens, and inquiry season is starting right now. A family who inquires this week and enrolls in March is the story you will want to tell in February. You can only tell it if someone wrote down where that family came from.
This is not negligence. At most schools, the inquiry list lives in the admissions office's system, and the marketing spend lives in a spreadsheet on your laptop. Putting the two side by side is in nobody's job description, so it waits until a budget meeting makes it urgent. By then the season is over.
Three numbers to start tracking this week
Where each inquiry came from. Add "How did you hear about us?" to the inquiry form, and have whoever answers the phone ask it too. Imperfect answers beat no answers.
Cost per inquiry. Take what you spent on marketing this month and divide it by the inquiries that came in. Rough is fine.
Inquiry to enrolled. Of the families who inquired, how many enrolled? You will not know this year's answer until spring, which is why you should start the list now.
You do not need new software for any of this. One shared spreadsheet with a row for each inquiry, updated every Friday, is enough to walk into that meeting with.
By February, those three numbers change the sentence you walk in with. "We need more for ads" becomes something like "Google Ads brought in 41 inquiries at $85 each, and nine of those families enrolled." Multiply nine families by your tuition, and a head of school can take that to the board.
Which of these three numbers does your school track today? Hit reply and tell me, even if the answer is none. I read every one.
Thanks,
Brendan
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Shape and Sharpen Your Marketing: 2 Questions to Ask Your 3 Audiences
It's the perfect time of year to set your school up for the enrollment season to come. Instead of guessing what marketing will resonate, ask two critical questions across three of your key audiences. Their answers will shape and sharpen your marketing strategy for years ahead.
Because it's not marketing if you're not gleaning insights from your market. And that's work AI can't do. But you can. Get your message right, and everything else follows.
In our time together, we'll share these two questions, discuss how to customize them, and cover what to do with the answers. You'll leave with the most valuable anchor tool for an effective marketing strategy.
Bio
With over three decades of experience across large agencies and boutique firms, Barbara has collaborated with clients spanning a wide range of industries. For the last twelve years, she has focused on education, partnering with school leaders to increase community engagement, apply effective market research, and train communities in storytelling strategies — work that drives enrollment, strengthens strategic plans, and deepens trust. That focus reflects something personal: as a proud Loomis Chaffee and Rumsey Hall alumna, Barbara's career has come full circle, branding over 60 independent schools (including higher ed institutions) from coast to coast with expertise forged in the very institutions that shaped her.
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