All school districts are looking for ways to make their school websites more relevant. They are designed to be the go-to resource for parents and community members as well as to serve as the primary marketing tool for your school.
So, let’s discuss some fun and unusual ways to increase your website traffic while improving the effectiveness of your school communication and possibly your school enrollment.
Beyond yearbook quotes
Many high schools include a section for senior quotes within the pages of their yearbooks. Those funny yearbook quotes are enjoyed by students and parents. Some senior quotes are profound, others considerably less so and, in retrospect, students regret them 20 years later.
However, an exceptional senior quote can serve multiple purposes, including for school marketing purposes. Quotes that highlight school spirit, individual student growth, teacher appreciation, successful programs, and educational enthusiasm are tremendous examples to prospective parents looking for the ideal school for their own students.
Not only are quotes from graduates considered trustworthy, delivered by reliable sources who provide sincere, often heartfelt evidence for the best your school provides, but these quotes are the kind of marketing you can’t pay for, so don’t overlook them.
Make good use of those senior quotes each year by repurposing them in your school marketing, to strengthen your school brand, and to improve your online communications.
But first, help students come up with great senior quotes that you’ll be proud to use and with which they’ll be able to impress their peers.
Encourage inspired yearbook quotes
Senior quotations are a popular way to have them summarize their academic career (so far), thank teachers or peers, and express their individuality. However, this can be a stressful experience for students.
I remember feeling quite overwhelmed about it, knowing it would be in my yearbook forever and I certainly didn’t feel I had anything inspirational to share.
But, school leaders can provide inspiration, ideas, and examples to those seniors to help eliminate this pressure (while possibly encouraging some higher-quality quotes in the process).
Here are a few examples to share with seniors that might help. Create a list of possible ideas to get them thinking about what has influenced them so far in their educational experience or made their school experience memorable. Include topics that are smart, inspiring, or funny.
Possible topics:
- Thank your parents
- Honor your friends
- Share a favorite song lyric or line from a poem that reflects your personality or values
- Give a shout out to a teacher
- Share some humor
- Inspire someone
- Thank someone who has inspired you
Consider providing links to sites and articles with memorable quotes used by others. As long as students give credit to whomever they are quoting, that is a perfectly acceptable option.
Encourage students to be themselves and be sincere. Remind your students that choosing a memorable quote or catchphrase can leave a memorable impression.
Create a few lists for the students to read and get ideas from. Here are a few of my favorites that I found online with a quick search.
Inspirational quotes:
- How can I sum up my amazing time here in such a short space?
- When the last bell rings, I might actually miss this place!
- If you’re reading this, future me, put down this book and do something productive.
- Dear future self, ‘Always remember who got you where you are today.’
- All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.
- Thanks for all the memories. I’ve had the time of my life. I’ll miss you all.
- I’ve learned from the bad times and was humbled by the good. Thank you for all of the great life lessons.
- Thank you, teachers, for never giving up on me.
- Your future is only as good as the work you put into it.
- Futures don’t make themselves; you have to create them.
- Graduation is the first step of the next chapter of your life.
- Yesterday is what brought you to today.
Humorous quotes:
- “Remember to always be yourself, unless you suck. Then pretend to be someone else.”
- “I want to thank Google, Wikipedia, and to whoever invented copy and paste. Thank you.”
- “100 character limit for our senior quote? That seems unfair. We refuse to be constrained by these ru.”
- “See kids? I told you I was sexy in high school.”
- “When life shuts the door, open it back up. That’s how doors work.”
- “Master has given Megan a high school diploma, Megan is freeeee!” -Megan
How can you use senior quotes on your website?
We have a few suggestions for how to use some of your best senior quotes, so see what works for you:
- Create a senior quote page on your high school website.
- Link to the senior quote page from the enrollment page of your district-level website.
- Write a new article for your high school website and your district website describing the graduation class or the upcoming graduation festivities, and link it to the senior quote page.
- Write multiple social media posts about graduation day, the graduates, and scholarships awarded, and include links to the senior quotes page.
- When you find an exceptional yearbook quote that discusses one of your school’s strengths, use it as “proof” to blog about and add it to your enrollment area on your school website.
- To include more students than just seniors, put “What Do You Think?” forms in high visibility areas of the school (or hand them out in person) with questions that let students give their opinions on various topics of interest. For example, “What do you think about the new ball field?” “What is your favorite cafeteria food?” “Where is your favorite place to shop here in town?” Include student quotes with their name and grade (and possibly their photo) throughout the website or dedicate a page to it titled “What Students Think.”
Marketing…done well
Now that we’ve given you lots of examples and ways to use quotes, we want to be sure you understand why this matters. It begins with marketing. And not with the sleezy “trying to sell you something you don’t need or want” type of marketing either. I’m talking about how using quotes, like reviews or testimonials, can provide a myriad of marketing benefits. Let’s discuss a few of those now.
Branding
Your school has a brand, or at least it aspires to a particular brand image. But, ideally, the brand you aspire to should actually represent what you are and what you deliver.
So, if your school aspires for students that achieve inclusivity, what evidence for that can you provide to show evidence of achieving that brand goal?
If your school produces students who are prepared for college success, does your website and social media demonstrate that proof?
Maybe your school’s goal is to prepare students to be well-rounded, contributing members of society (as, I assume, is the goal of all schools), then you’ll provide examples of that every chance you get.
That is what branding is all about. You are living up to your desired goals and providing evidence of just that. You can use some of these student quotes as evidence that supports your branding goals. Use quotes that support your brand as we’ve outlined earlier in this article.
Branding proof may be as simple as showing examples of student life or the values represented in student quotes that are encouraged by the education you provide. It may be the sense of humor your student demonstrates or the inclusivity they feel.
These senior quotes will help build trust, which will encourage enrollment.
Loyalty and trust
By providing proof, in the form of actual quotes and reviews from your students, your school will build trust and confidence that you deliver what you claim to offer. You will share evidence that you do indeed deliver, through your programs and the education your school offers, what you promise.
Loyalty is what will keep parents talking about and supporting your school to friends and neighbors. It is what creates referral marketing, which is the best kind of marketing there is.
Trust and loyalty are invaluable forms of marketing. The type of marketing you simply cannot buy. So nurture it.
Testimonials and reviews
A student quote, whether it is a senior quote or a yearbook quote, is similar to a testimonial or a review. Because they are provided freely, without payment, they are often more trusted than any other form of advertisement around.
And, when we know the person providing the testimonial or review, their comments carry even more weight. We trust those we know. Especially when they have nothing to gain by sharing their opinion with us.
Customer Service
Another aspect of powerful marketing is the degree of customer service you provide. One aspect of outstanding customer service is recognizing and valuing students and their strengths and value. Imagine the degree of loyalty this provides to your existing parents when their students are publically recognized.
Make use of social media and website articles to recognize students and their achievements. This should include writing stories about awards, scholarships, athletic accomplishments, volunteer work or service-related work, and other areas of student progress and accomplishment.
Download our FREE eBook: How to Create Sensational School Customer Service.
Using student quotes as another way to reinforce your school’s values, goals, and the successes related to those goals is just smart marketing and an ideal way to build trust and confidence.
Use all the tools
Senior quotes are only one of the many ways to show off the fun, uniqueness, values, and successes your school has to offer. We hope you will look at this common high school tradition a bit differently moving forward and use these ideas in your public relations and marketing efforts.
Also, don’t forget to apply many of these same methods to testimonials and reviews. We’ve provided a few more articles on each of these important tools as well, so check out:
- Pick me, pick me! How to use reviews to increase enrollment.
- Collecting testimonials. A school marketing success story.
- School branding: how to stand out from the crowd.
Oh, and don’t forget that if you need help with your website or social media, we’ve got you covered, so reach out to us at School Webmasters and request a quote or call Jim at 888.750.4556.
Bonnie Leedy, CEO, School Webmasters, LLC.