Leveraging Your Web Presence to Turn Stealth Shoppers into Independent School Applicants

The Web Presence Audit contains a series of exercises to conduct collaboratively with your school’s admissions, communications, and marketing teams. By working together, you can examine various aspects of your school’s web presence and think strategically about how best to communicate key messages online to prospective families that may not be directly reaching out to you to learn about your institution.

Use this audit to assess your school's broader web presence and ensure your website contains critical information about convenience factors and pricing that will appeal to parents at the top of the enrollment funnel.

Historically, prospective families learned about an independent school through their interactions with a school’s admissions team. Events such as open houses, parent coffees, or school tours were essential interactions as families made schooling decisions for their children.

But today’s parents no longer need to rely on these events for information; instead, online searches are often a parent’s first source of information about school options. This online search behavior is referred to “stealth shopping” because prospects are essentially invisible to a school. Over the years, the number of stealth shoppers has increased for independent schools, resulting in fewer inquiries from prospective families:

9

Inquiries per enrolled student at independent schools in 2005

5

Inquiries per enrolled student at independent schools in 2020

As prospective parents’ priorities shift and more families research their children’s educational options online, independent schools must consider how effectively their web presence is attracting prospective families. To do this, they must assess their broader web presence and ensure that their own websites contain information, such as convenience factors and pricing, that will appeal to parents at the top of the enrollment funnel.

Your school’s web presence includes information…