CCA Recap: Building a Reputation Through Community Involvement

Over the last 10 years the career college space has grown exponentially; helped by the internet and online marketing. What many schools tend to overlook are the opportunities in front of them. It’s easy to focus on lead generation from an online perspective, but there are many schools that benefit from their increased involvement in their communities.

A CCA session on this topic was lead by Sean Pittman of PlattForm Advertising and Eddie Colon of Pinnacle Career Institute. Eddie brought a number of phenomenal ideas to the table that any school can take back to their communities and implement. I am going to list the as many of the ideas as I can here and hopefully you can find a few actionable ideas for yourself.

According the Mr. Colon, it’s important to take inventory of your resources first. What do you have at your campus that you can leverage?
- Employees
- Students
- Chambers

What is going on at your school on the weekends? Some schools have weekend classes, but for most schools there is not a whole lot going on. This could be a perfect opportunity to offer up your resources (i.e. parking lot, class rooms, computers, etc) for public use. Maybe the local church or community group could your space for a special event or community fair. The impact you your school’s brand will have on the people that visit these events will be priceless. It is possible that many of these new visitors will have never known about your school or the classes it offers, but by having these events at your school, and having them on a regular basis, they will build a personal bond with the school.

Mr. Colon strongly encouraged schools to get involved with their community leaders. (i.e. Senators, Business Leaders, Law Enforcement, Civic Advocate groups, American Cancer Society, etc). He gave the example of how he took an unused room and turned it into a break room for the local police department. After a few months Mr. Colon had police officers stopping by the school for coffee and short breaks. Over time these officers began promoting the schools criminal justice program by way of word-of-mouth. What a better way to generate quality leads!

The session was excellent and reminded schools that it is not only about generating leads online. It’s also about making a name for yourself in your community. At GearyPMG we take a strong look at local promotions similar to the ideas that Mr. Colon raised. Marketing a school goes beyond aggregating leads and it was great to see this being discussed at an event like CCA.