Why aren't you get more bookings from your website?

Did you know that up to 70% of website visitors that come to your website won't ever return if they don't find the info they need? Just think about that for a second! 70% of potential students are lost because your website isn’t set up correctly. 

Just because your visitors are not ready to buy from you now, it is essential to capture their contact details to follow up with them. You will build a relationship, and your school can stay "top of mind". When they are ready to move forward, you will be their school of choice.

It is widespread for schools to waste a lot of their marketing budget because they have not optimised their website to do exactly this. We call this lead capture.

What is lead capture?

Any potential student visiting your website is a "lead". If you don't have the essential elements in place on your site to capture their contact details, then you're wasting a lot of money. Try to think about it from a student's perspective. When a student is looking for a school, the initial search phase is all about research. They most likely have not come to your site with the clear intention to purchase from you yet. 

The typical buying cycle goes like this:

1. The student realises they need to improve their chosen language

2. The student starts to check for schools online and compare them (courses, prices)

3. The students ask friends for a recommendation

So assuming most of your visitors are just evaluating your school when they visit. We need to make them think about your school more seriously. The best way to do this is to become very familiar with your school. The key to this is to get their names and emails.

There are many ways to capture potential students' contact details, and we will talk more about this later, but first, let's talk about why you should. (You need to make sure your contact form is GDPR compliant)

The importance of email for your school

• Email is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping your business acquire new customers. (McKinsey)
• You can send people back to your website again to see offers 
• Email is personal; you can reach out to these potential students in a more personal way
• You can add these contacts to your email list and follow up on your latest news and offers
• You can build a very targeted audience on Facebook using these email addresses
• You own your email list; Social media platforms will change their policies, but if you have your own email list, it will always be yours

There are many more reasons to collect potential customers' email addresses, but these are the main ones.

Lead capture and how to collect email addresses

The easiest ways to collect email addresses

• Adding a contact form to your website pages - you should have a contact form at the bottom of every page. Try to entice students to sign up with an offer. You can offer a discount on upcoming courses, news etc. 
• Pop-ups and overlays - most people hate these, but if you are making a great offer, they are effective, and they will get you a lot more sign ups & email addresses. Read this article for more information.
• Lead magnets - a lead magnet is a marketing term for a free item or service that you offer for gathering contact details. For example, lead magnets can be free trials, free testing's. eBooks about certain aspects of grammar are great ways to collect contact details.
• Scheduling software, like Calendly, allows a student to book a time online to talk with you; they also collect contact information. Use this to enable students to book testing's or trial lessons.

Don't underestimate the value of collecting your potential customer's emails. Lead capture is an essential part of your marketing. Without it, you will not be able to follow up with potential new students. It gives you the advantage to be proactive, reach out to them and shape the conversation.

Lifelong learning as a way to grow self-confidence

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” — Henry Ford

What is Lifelong Learning? 

Well, it’s something we do all our lives whether we realize it or not. We learn every day either in formal or informal ways. Formal learning is what we get in schools or universities and is structured to lead to a certificate or diploma, while informal learning is what we learn in everyday life either at work or through relationships such as family life or friendships.

Every time you learn a new way to do something or deal with a certain situation you are learning, and as long as you live you will continue to learn, so it makes sense to find out the best ways to learn and the things that will benefit us the most. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever to keep up with the almost constant changes in technology, both at work and in society in general, as seen with the increased use of social media for communication and interaction.

Increased choices in everyday life

Let's look at what we can get from lifelong learning and the ways we can achieve the best results from this fascinating and rewarding journey. The first and most obvious way we can benefit from further education is at work where extra skills can lead to better job prospects and consequently to better pay, which in turn gives us more choices in our everyday lives, i.e. where we can live, where we can eat or socialize, and the people we choose to socialize with are all connected to our position in society and our financial position. Whether we like it or not, society has levels and our education and financial position dictates our place in it.

"Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace." – Confucius

Learning helps grow confidence

Lifelong learning helps grow self-confidence, as we have all heard the phrase that knowledge is power, so it makes sense that the more we know the more confident we feel. In life, nothing makes us feel more helpless than being in a situation we have no idea how to get out of, when the solution to our problem could be something simple but our lack of knowledge keeps us from it.

So the more we learn, the better equipped we are to deal with life’s problems, and the more confident we become.

Physical benefits of lifelong learning

It has been proved that people who continue to learn throughout their lives live longer and tend to be healthier than those who do not. Studies have also shown that lifelong learners are less susceptible to degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, often by quite a large percentage. So there you go, continuous learning leads to a longer and healthier life.

Social benefits of lifelong learning

One of the best ways to meet people is in local education courses where you not only get to meet people who have the same interests as you (which makes interaction a lot easier), but you also can socialize with them after lessons. Common interests are a great help when meeting people for the first time and can help you to improve your social skills in a safe setting where personalities take second place to the subject being learned.

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t." Bill Nye

So what else do we get from lifelong learning apart from better career prospects, longer and healthier lives, and more interesting social lives? Our own self-development as individuals is largely based on the knowledge we acquire and the relationships we cultivate in our lives, and the more we learn and share with like-minded people, the richer and more fulfilling our lives become. We grow into more stable and more interesting people who have the confidence to truly become the best possible versions of ourselves.

Communities grow as a result of lifelong learners, as the more skills and knowledge we acquire, the more we have to offer to the communities in which we live. As stable and successful individuals we provide better role models to the younger members of the communities we live in .

There are a lot of negative influences in society today, which include political radicalism and intolerance, so now more than ever stable and educated individuals are needed in communities to provide balanced and sensible solutions and discussions that address whatever problems that may arise within these communities.

"I never lose. I either win or learn." Nelson Mandela

So there we have it, lifelong learning not only helps us grow and develop as people, creating fuller and more interesting lives, but also creates safer and more inclusive communities which are far more fun to live in, where we get to live with a more diverse and interesting society that offers us more varieties of culture, food, music, and people with which we can interact. Everyone benefits from this approach to living and we constantly evolve as individuals and communities.

Alan Honan