Canberra Grammar School

So where does this assortment of interest come from? The school’s in- roads have come from not only its strategic marketing, but also the word of mouth that happens when students and their parents who feel they’ve been well looked after, start to spread the word. It’s word of mouth that Downey has seen to be the most powerful mar- keting force for Canberra Grammar School: “When a parent is considering send- ing their child to boarding school, it’s a pretty major decision. The school they choose and the care and atten- tion that’s given at the school. It’s a big deal to send your child away like that, and often, for many, thousands of kilo- metres away.” For these families, to put their kids into someone else’s care, and then those people to make decisions the parents usually make, Downey has found that word of mouth from trust- ed family/friends/acquaintances, has definitely been the strongest market- ing driver. Patterns emerge where a boarder comes from an area new to Canber- ra Grammar. Downey explains that the school did a little bit of analysis on where its boarders come from. “For example, if we had never had any boarding students enrolled from a particular town in rural New South Wales, and a student from that town enrolled, we saw a sudden spike in en- rolments from that same town. From there, we get one student, then all of a sudden we get three, four or five. It’s all word of mouth, and parents sharing their positive stories with their friends and family.” For Downey, this kind of success comes not solely from word of mouth though. It’s the strategic stages it takes from converting this interest into actual pupils that want to attend. He works with marketing to produce promotions, goes through the usual meet and greets on open days, sport- ing expos and national and interna- tional boarding expos. “I guess that meeting them and talk- ing to them and showing them around is the best form of marketing,” says Downey, adding “It’s the highest con- version rate, whereas when you’re us- ing above the line marketing strate- gies, like ads, it’s very difficult to know how successful it is.” The school had a few success stories from Hong Kong, then all of a sudden it had students trickling in from there. “You get this sort of an almost viral thing happening where you can see ground zero, this middle area where we’ve been successful, and then it spreads from there.” Its success is in the numbers. Board- ing is full, and it has waiting lists for year groups that haven’t even yet start- ed at the school. Being in this kind of strong position opens the school up to financial and academic planning.