CASE STUDY
Calvary Christian Academy
Growing enrollment and community from 32 students to 160+
When Calvary Christian Academy first contacted North Star Marketing in 2019, they were known as Oaks Christian School and had been serving kindergarten through fourth-grade families for just 15 months in Charlotte, North Carolina. Almost one-third of applicants did not understand the school’s positioning and believed they served students with special needs due to the school’s small class sizes, screen-free environment, and integration of learning readiness techniques in the classroom.
As a new private school with a misunderstood value proposition, they knew they needed a full school marketing plan that would improve name recognition and generate inquiries, as well as a website that focused on helping prospective families understand the school’s distinctive program offerings.
Challenges & Opportunities
- Low brand recognition with right-fit families
- Need to increase enrollment to help with school budget
- Structural problems with the original brand and website
Partnering with an agency experienced in the education industry, particularly with young schools, was crucial. Equally important was the flexibility to leverage their internal team’s specific skills.
Generating inquiries for specific Ages-and-Stages®
From the start, increasing enrollment was important to help with the school’s budget. After developing a new brand and launching under its new name, Calvary Christian Academy (CCA) utilized paid search advertising to connect with prospective families. The strategy was effective, but North Star knew that optimizing the school’s website had the potential to also increase organic leads and conversion rates from inquiries to applications.
In an effort to improve SEO, increase traffic to their school website, and generate more inquiries, CCA added inbound to their engagement in 2022. The North Star team developed a Parent Information Packet — a downloadable guide for prospective parents — and strategically placed it throughout the client’s website with engaging calls to action. Additionally, website content was developed to communicate the strengths and differentiators of their program and the Ages-and-Stages® that the school serves, such as kindergarten and middle school.
Parent Information Guide
Since then, the school has seen a 34 percent increase in overall traffic and a 37 percent increase in organic search traffic year over year, with organic lead generation increasing by 20 percent.
“Our goal was to double enrollment for kindergarten for the 2023-2024 school year,” shared the CCA team. “We met that goal, with a third of new enrollments coming from leads generated through our work with North Star.”
At the time of publication, CCA’s total investment of $134K, which included paid search and social, generated 1,593 inquiries and 129 enrollments. When only considering the first year of each student’s enrollment, that’s $1.7 million in tuition generated for a return on investment of 1,190 percent.
RESULTS
1,593
INQUIRIES
129
enrollments
$1.7 M
tuition revenue
1,017%
return on investment
“We would not have the enrollment we have today without our partnership with North Star Marketing,” said Emily Pollok, former CCA Communications Manager. “Half of our new enrollments last year were a direct result of their work on and management of our digital marketing campaigns. We’re grateful to North Star for helping us to find the right-fit families for our school!”
Building brand equity
As a newer school, CCA was already experiencing the challenge of building brand awareness and improving the perception of its offerings. At the start of their engagement with North Star, nearly 70 percent of inquiries came from word of mouth (WOM).
When the school moved to Calvary Church, it knew it needed to expand its audience to reach more families under the new name and brand. At the same time, it did not want to lose loyal families or the gains it had made in the community.
“The DNA of the school was very much going to stay the same,” shared CCA. “We wanted the new branding to keep the feel of who we are and integrate some things that were important to Calvary.”
Academic Brand Design
During the rebrand, CCA emphasized the importance of showing the value of screen-free learning without shaming parents. The oak tree — a powerful image in their previous brand — was carried over into the new brand as an ode to their roots and a way to communicate their Christ-centered approach to active, experiential learning.
Leaning into team strengths and agency expertise
Because CCA had a team member who could develop content, collaboration during their 35+ projects with North Star was important.
“The freedom to be as involved or hands-off as we want to be has been a pleasant surprise,” shared the CCA team. “North Star is always open to our ideas, and we have good synergy. We’ve benefited from North Star’s expertise, and they’ve helped us balance and prioritize our school’s needs well.”
Each month, the CCA team meets with their North Star education marketing manager to discuss strategy, review results, and assess trends.
“We’ve always had good, open dialogue and have never felt like they were pushing a sales pitch or trying to get us to pay for something that didn’t benefit our school,” shared CCA. “They are in tune with our needs as a young school, and we’ve benefited from their expertise in working with other schools like us.”
Working with a team that has collective experiences in the marketing agency and school admissions settings was a bonus.
“North Star knows schools,” shared CCA. “School marketing is very different from any other kind of marketing. It is really helpful to work with a team who understands our needs, what parents are looking for, and can help us navigate trends in education.”
