School PR pros, are you ready to guide overwhelmed parents into excited, newly enrolled school families? Or turn job searchers into excited teaching candidates? The secret might be simpler than you think, and two school marketing experts recently shared their proven strategies with me on “Mastering Social Media for Schools”!

I had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa Losasso Jackson and Veronica V. Sopher from Elevate Marketing System on my podcast. With over 40 years of combined experience in school communications and marketing, these powerhouse consultants shared so many actionable tips, that I just had to bring some of them over to the blog!

So today, let’s focus on two game-changing concepts that we discussed in our interview: Lead magnets and landing pages. If you’re wondering why a school district needs to produce lead magnets and what, exactly, needs to go on a landing page, you’re in the right place! Lisa and Veronica shared real-life examples that generated actual results for schools just like yours, and I’m eager to break down their strategies for you.

Let’s dive into how you can use these powerful marketing tools to attract more families and staff to your schools!

Lead Magnets for Schools

Many school communicators come from a journalism background and are taught to write from a neutral perspective, but now your role calls for a marketing skillset, and marketers simply think differently! 

A lead magnet is a marketing tool that you can use to help attract families to your school. It’s something valuable that people want to sign up for online, in exchange for their email address.

You see this on Instagram all the time! It could be a workout PDF or free webinar, and in exchange for your email address, the brand sends it to you for free. Now, the brand has your email address, and its marketing team will send you newsletters and sales emails. 

How does this work from a school perspective? 

Let’s take a look at a couple of success stories. Lisa shared this enrollment example: 

“A small school district in Texas had an enrollment goal, and we created a lead magnet that just provided a quick overview of how to register your child. We advertised this on Facebook and Instagram, with a primary focus on Facebook. We put a couple of hundred dollars into it for about two months, targeting local zip codes and using the lead magnet form on Facebook. We were able to get close to 50 families who downloaded that! All of them wanted to know how to go through the enrollment process.”

Veronica had these excellent results with a different target audience and goal: 

“I worked with a district that had an incentive program for teachers with master certification. We built a landing page and lead magnet specifically for these master teachers. We even did an open records request of nearby districts to help with targeting. Here’s the thing – we’re all competing for the same pool of talent and students, so it’s okay to sell. Being ‘salesy’ can be classy, helpful, and valuable. We created targeted content and reached out to potential candidates at a micro level, using data we had collected. The results were phenomenal – by the end of April, before the hiring season was over, we had filled every open master position. We could track that these hires came directly from our landing page and lead magnet.”

As you can see, lead magnets are a simple yet powerful way to attract warm leads! After you have their email addresses, you can email information about your school, such as enrollment details, open house invites, and more. 

Types of Lead Magnets for Schools

Lisa and Veronica stressed the fact that no matter what lead magnet you choose, it should provide real value to your target audience. Start with identifying your core goals: Are you looking to increase enrollment or improve teacher recruitment? That will help guide your decision on the type of lead magnet(s) to develop. 

Here are some proven ideas that have worked well in school settings:

• “Top 10 Things Master Teachers Wish They Knew Their First Year.” This could be a great resource for recruiting quality staff while providing genuine value to new educators
• “Career Planning Conversation Guide.” This checklist outlines the most important questions parents should discuss with their students about career planning, making it ideal for promoting CTE programs in your district.
• What about putting together a Kindergarten reading list? It could be “The Top 50 Books Every Kindergartner Needs in Their Home Library,” a teacher- or librarian-curated checklist that helps new parents prepare their child for school success.
  
• Don’t forget the tried-and-true “Pre-K Registration Checklist.” Every district should have a personalized, step-by-step guide helping parents navigate the enrollment process.
• “[District Name] Teacher Benefits Overview.” Use this to showcase what makes your district special to potential staff members.
• Create program-specific guides that outline detailed information about specialized programs, such as: 
  • Five Ways Dual Language Programs Can Benefit Your Child – cognitive, language development, and academic performance
  • Special Education Assessment Guide – testing, questions to ask, and qualifications
  • Gifted and Talented Checklist – see if your child might qualify

Remember, the best lead magnets solve a specific problem or answer a pressing question for your target audience! Lisa and Veronica also suggested using AI tools to help brainstorm lead magnet ideas.

Keep in mind that you can also offer these resources to the people with whom you already have relationships. Provide them to enrolled families (or staff members) as helpful guides, and share them with the wider community on social media. Lisa and Veronica suggest placing the lead magnets as posts, as well as running targeted ads.

Best Practices: Landing Pages for K12 Schools

Landing pages are another powerful tool to engage your audience. Think about how frustrating it is to click around a site, hunting and pecking for the information you need. On a landing page, ALL of the information about a particular topic is laid out in an easy flow. 

For a school, for example, your landing pages could be “About Us, “Enrollment,” and “Employment.” Each page serves almost like a sales page for that topic. It also features calls to action that prompt the user to take a specific action. That might be to enroll, apply for a job, or attend an event. 

The great thing about a landing page is that you can direct users directly to that page, ensuring they get all the information they need. And yes, you can add your lead magnet to the landing page! 

A great landing page structure includes things like:

• Introduction/Welcome
• The Benefits or the Why
• Testimonials
• Case studies
• Data points
• Helpful tips

When creating a landing page for your school, remember this golden rule: People hate clicking more than once! So, whether you’re using QR codes on yard signs or links in emails, make sure they take visitors directly to your landing page, not to your general website, where they’ll have to search for information.

According to Veronica and Lisa, here are the essential components of an effective school landing page:

• Direct Access: Your QR codes and links should go straight to the landing page, not your district’s general website.
• Visual Impact: Include big, bold, beautiful photos that capture attention
• Easy Navigation: Ensure the page flows logically, from “about our school” to “benefits of our school” to “things your child will learn” to “where we’re located” to “how to enroll.”
• Comprehensive Information: Provide everything visitors need to know about that specific topic on one page
• Testimonials: Include testimonials from teachers about why they enjoy teaching at that school, but especially feature parent testimonials talking about why they love sending their children to your district.
• Clear Call-to-Action: Feature prominent buttons that take visitors exactly where they need to go (like “Register Your Child Here” or “Apply Now.”)

The goal? Build trust with prospective families or job applicants by making the process as simple and straightforward as possible.

Ready to see all of this in action? Head over to the Elevate Marketing System website for a free guide, templates, and examples! 

Time to Take ACTION!

All right, friends. You’ve got this! As you take action on all of these great tips, I’d love to hear back from you on what you’re working on. Message me over on LinkedIn! 

And if you want more ongoing tips and tricks, subscribe to my podcast, “Mastering Social Media for Schools.” In addition to exclusive interviews and step-by-step strategies, each episode is designed to inspire and empower you on your journey to master school social media. Find it wherever you get podcasts!!