Can advertising boost enrollment at Analy and the district’s other public high schools?

Online marketing and advertising has become a central pillar of the West Sonoma County Union High School District’s approach to attracting prospective students

Collateral from the marketing presentation at the WSCUHSD board meeting on August 19.

Last October, the WSCUHSD school board received a presentation on how to use a marketing campaign to increase enrollment. Now, a year later, these campaigns have become a vital part of the district’s constant struggle to keep enrollment numbers up.

Nearly a year ago, Jessica Albavera, WSCUHSD’s communications specialist, created a plan to use social media, district newsletters, and countywide advertisements to give families everything they need to send their child to one of the district’s schools. Though common among private schools, marketing and advertising is a bit of a new frontier when it comes to public education. Albavera is spearheading a movement to bring local schools in front of the eyes of prospective families.

At a board meeting last October, District Superintendent Chris Meredith explained that the district gets about $14,000 per student, so if this program could bring in a few new students with relatively low cost, it would be worth it.

“You can see the work that we are doing, exploring uncharted territories for this district,” he said, explaining the novelty and uncertainty of this marketing strategy. Later that evening, the board approved $15,000 for the pilot marketing and advertising program.

Now, nearly a year and $12,000 later, Albavera presented a slew of good news at the board meeting on August 19th. Among the many other items discussed, Albavera shared the results of her hard work, including multitudes of statistics and the numerous strategies she had employed in her quest to get the word out. She still has roughly $2,600 left to work with and did not request additional funds for the marketing program at this time.

Budget breakdown from Albavera’s presentation to the WSCUHSD board in August.

One of the most important ways of advertising—a partnership with the Amaturo Sonoma Media Group (AMSG)—was discussed last October and put into place in November.

“We had reached out to them originally to inquire about radio advertising,” Albavera said. “When we met with them, they told us the other things that they do, which included digital advertising as well as email marketing.”

AMSG’s digital marketing incorporated placing advertisements online in many local news sites, including the Press Democrat, Yahoo News, SFGATE, and CNN. These advertisements fared extremely well, acquiring over 250,000 impressions and 58 post-impression conversions, meaning that the user interacted with the page—such as filling out a form or submitting their email—after clicking on the ad.

Similarly, ASMG’s email marketing campaigns proved effective in getting engagement with users. Over the course of two email deployments, the campaign received 39,000 impressions and over 9,000 email opens.

Albavera also employed sponsored content in the Press Democrat. Instead of static ads placed on the page, which readers often skim, these were full articles that viewers could read. These pages held valuable information about the various schools in the WSCUHSD district. Albavera ran two such stories in June. Viewers spent on average over a minute reading the posts, and the stories each got over 100,000 views.

“With the sponsored content we did with [the Press Democrat], they also posted about it on socials. And I think that was what was really successful,” Albavera said, describing how important it was to get a publication like the Press Democrat to post on their official social media about WSCUHSD.

In the realm of social media, Albavera had also been hard at work with the school’s official social accounts.

“Posting on Instagram and Facebook is a little bit more relaxed, and it’s something we can do more frequently,” she explained. With these posts, she often used the “boost” feature on Facebook and Instagram, which displays the post more often for a fee.

“You can choose how much you spend on that, so sometimes I just do five dollars a day and just run it for a week and see what happens,” she said.

She also made sure that these posts were being marketed to the best audience. “What I do with any Facebook and Meta [the company that owns Facebook and Instagram] stuff is an age range that would be people who have high school-age children, or even grandparent-age too,” she explained.

Posts on the Analy High School Instagram account got around 1,500 views. Perhaps even more importantly, Albavera’s posts were often viewed by non-followers (meaning people who didn’t already follow Analy’s Instagram) nearly as much as followers, so the posts were landing in the eyes of people who didn’t necessarily already have a connection with Analy.

Other social accounts, such as the district Instagram account or the respective accounts for the Academy of Innovative Arts or Laguna High School, got fewer views but a higher non-follower-to-follower ratio. Some of the posts on these accounts were viewed by over 90% non-followers.

While promising, it is difficult to tell the true effect of this marketing campaign. “Thus far we have not found a way to know what that conversion rate is between people interacting with our ads and students enrolling in the schools,” Albavera acknowledged.

She mentioned that although many Sonoma County residents might already be considering Analy, the district’s other schools, such as Laguna High School and the Academy of Innovative Arts, were more under the radar.

“A lot of people don’t know enough about the Academy of Innovative Arts to even begin looking into it,” she said.

In terms of future marketing work, Albavera was clear that nothing was certain yet. “We don’t have any concrete plans to continue with any kind of advertising. We probably will. It’s just a matter of determining how often we want to do it so that we can go back and ask for a specific amount of money or whatever we need to make that happen.”

If the district decides to continue with the marketing, they will likely request further funds from the board at a future meeting.

With the remaining $3,000, Albavera is continuing her social media work and is considering another advertising campaign. In particular, she is working to showcase the work of the district's teachers.

“I started reaching out to folks on who to go visit and when they’re doing fun projects … I really want to highlight the teachers and the work that they’re doing,” she said.

Familiarizing prospective students and families with the work of WSCUHSD teachers and students is key, said Albavera, who talked about wanting to spend more time on campus and interacting with everyone there.

“For me it’s not so much a marketing strategy as it is a relationship-building strategy,” she said.

Lawson Gaylord is an Analy student and publisher of the West County World, Analy’s student newspaper.

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