5 Things the Top Beauty Schools Did in 2022 for More Leads and Enrollments

Every beauty school has their eyes on their competition. I’ve seen some schools set the standard in a great way when it comes to marketing and social media, and I’ve also seen some schools where it’s the blind leading the blind. You don’t know what you don’t know sometimes. Hopefully this article helps schools be more in the know of what the most successful beauty schools in the country are doing with their marketing and admissions and can follow it the best they can.

We at Oozle Media and SalesComm would like to share what some of the top schools are doing to edge out their competition. Here are just 5:

1. Flexible Budgets
2. Strategic Blogging
3. Conversion Rate Optimization
4. Hiring the Right Admissions Reps and Having Accountability
5. Investing in a Culture that Includes Ongoing Training in Admissions

1. Flexible Budgets

The top beauty schools who saw more leads and enrollments pay close attention to trends in their Google Ads budgets. This means they’re paying attention to dips and rises and know the seasonal months. With this constant information gathering and running tests with their ads, they’re seeing lower cost per leads and a higher number of quality leads. These schools are flexible with their Google Ads budgets. It’s not a set it and forget it strategy, and it’s certainly not a talk to their ad agency once a month, or once a quarter. They don’t just look into the dashboard of fluff data. These schools are consulting with their in-house or outsourced Google Ads experts on a regular basis. 

EXAMPLES

• A school with 6 locations increased their budget in January 25% and saw a 50% increase in leads and enrollments from their Google Ads. January is a seasonal month for beauty school search volume
• A two campus school in Florida increased their overall monthly budget here and there by 26.75% from 2021 to 2022 and saw in return a 41.7% increase in average monthly leads and enrollments

2. Strategic Blogging

Schools who blogged frequently saw up to 41.67% more revenue as opposed to those who didn’t create blog content! Top beauty schools know that traffic from blogs (mostly organic) converts at 12-15%, which is higher than your Google Ads and social media traffic. 

EXAMPLES

Do you want to be like this school who when they stopped blogging saw a dip in traffic and leads?

Or do you want to be like this school who gained traffic and leads when they started to blog?

If you’d like to learn what the 5 most important blogs every beauty school should have, book an appointment with Cole Ashby, and he’ll be glad to show you! You can book by visiting this link.

3. Conversion Rate Optimization

The top beauty schools know that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. The bird in their hand is the traffic they’re already getting to their website. It’s a lot cheaper to get more out of the traffic you already have than it is to pay to get more traffic from places like Google Ads. Do what it takes to get the most out of the traffic you’re already getting to your website. This is the lowest hanging fruit, other than referrals, a school can take advantage of. 

Most of the top beauty schools have a website that is proven to drive a high website conversion rate. If you would like to know how to calculate your website conversion rate, and what Oozle Media websites convert at, in comparison to your website, watch this video.   

What makes a beauty school website convert better? Watch this video about how one school increased their leads by 69% by implementing a few simple changes on their website.

EXAMPLES

Check out below what happened when a school changed some of their buttons. Just by changing the verbiage and colors, they saw huge gains. 

Here’s another example of a beauty school with several locations who was getting roughly 1950 organic visitors to their website each month. They paid $13,000 for a new website and in the first month it delivered 127 more leads, which resulted in 13 more enrollments that next month, which made the website pay for itself in roughly 2 months. This school started to see an additional 152 more enrollments year over year! Investing in a website that is built to convert and rank in Google will pay more dividends than having a website that you think looks cooler than your competitor. Often, flashy websites don’t convert as well.

If you’d like a free website quote, book some time with Cole here.

4.  Hiring the Right Admissions Reps and Having Accountability

I met with Rob Thatcher who runs SalesComm. SalesComm has been specializing in admissions training for close to a decade. I asked him what the top schools are doing to enroll as many of the right students as possible, and his first response was that the top schools know how to hire the right people. Here are three things they look for when hiring:

1. Time Management Skills
2. Charisma
3. The Look

Admissions reps are spinning a lot of plates at once. They have to be good at managing their time, and being good at the Eisenhower Decision Matrix. They have to know what’s important, and those tasks are typically not urgent. It’s easy to get a lot of urgent things done, but not get close to hitting those enrollment goals. Having a great CRM can help this. More on CRMs later.

Most of the successful admissions reps Rob trains have that charisma and look. Reps need to build relationships of trust. Charisma can help those relationships and if they can look the part, i.e., the hair, makeup, dress, etc. this also helps with the trust factor. It’s the beauty industry and admissions reps should look the part too.

No matter the charisma and look, everyone needs accountability. Without it, nothing ever gets done or improves. What gets measured, gets improved! The top schools record all their admissions phone calls, and have daily, weekly and monthly meetings where measurable leading indicators are reported. 

5. Investing in a Culture that Includes Ongoing Training in Admissions

More things Rob told me his top performing schools do is they create a great culture. The admissions reps believe in what they’re doing and are invested in the goals of the school. Do your admissions reps know what the mission, vision and values are of the school? Do they understand how important their role is in all of it? Do you know their personal goals and how they tie into their role at the school? 

Do your reps have great working computers and phones and a good CRM? These things are important to them. Do they work in an environment that looks (including great lighting) and smells great, or is it time for an update? These things are important to them. 

When the right person is hired, who you know will fit well in the culture you’ve created, you need to make sure to invest in ongoing training. Employees in any position desire ongoing training. When you do this, they know you’re investing in them and their career. They feel appreciated and it’ll help with employee retention. Do you have talk tracks (playbook) for every aspect of the admissions process? This playbook will change overtime, but will go a long way with current and future admissions reps. Often third party training companies have proven to increase the success of admissions reps and overall enrollment. This adds an additional layer of accountability. Sometimes reps need to hear the same thing you as an owner say from a third party for better validation. 

EXAMPLES

What are some numbers you can actually compare with the top schools? No show rates is one. We all know that if you can get someone to show up for a tour, your chances of enrolling them increases exponentially. Below are the no show rates of top schools who pay for ongoing third party training that you can compare your numbers to.

Beauty School Admissions No Show Rates  

• Rural Area = LOW SINGLE DIGITS
• Suburban Area = HIGH SINGLE DIGITS
• Urban Area = LOW TEENS

If you feel like your admissions reps could be taken to the next level, or you’d like a free secret shop on how your admissions reps are doing, you can contact Rob Thatcher at rob@salescomm.com, or visit his website at www.salescomm.com. 

Conclusion

Oozle Media works with the top beauty schools in the country. Although we’d like to take full credit for this, this just isn’t true. Most of the successful beauty schools, in terms of enrollments, are really good at processes and systems, which helps them execute well. They don’t start something good and let it fade away. There are clear goals and objectives, and they know their finances well. With this knowledge, they have flexibility in their marketing budgets. 

They also understand that content is king and Google loves great content and favors those sites who write content people actually want to read, and when these people are consuming content on a school’s social media and website, they take action. Some of these actions are texting for info, or filling out a form for more info, or taking a quiz to see if beauty school is right for them. They understand that there needs to be more thought or investment into getting more out of the traffic they’re already getting, which allows them to actually save money on ad spend. 

These top schools save money when it comes to employee retention. Smart school owners know that it’s more expensive to hire new employees than it is to invest in the ones they already have. Ongoing training in admissions has proven to help schools hire and retain talent. This leads to more enrollments and profitability. 

If you’d like to take your successful school to the next level, or even see what other things top schools are doing, contact us and we’ll set up a time to talk. You can schedule with us directly by booking a time right on our calendar here.