Seeing is believing – not enough anymore! In an increasingly competitive marketplace, educators are pressed to show what makes them the best in certain areas. So, please use the fam (familiarization) trips to show, rather than just tell.
There is a growing number of international educators who use familiarization (fam) trips to showcase the great things about their school, staff and students, as well as their home city and location. Such tours also strengthen working relationships between schools and student recruitment agents. Nevertheless, there are still educators, especially the ones working at full capacity, that see fam trips as work disturbance and/or waste of money.
We at PRODIREKT believe that fam trips are very important for both academic advisors and schools. In fact, educators should be much more proactive in that respect and include the cost of such trips in their annual marketing budgets, rather than wait until the competition and/or economic and political developments force them to do promotions like this. Regular fam trips are not only good for schools’ and universities’ branding and presentation; they are also a good way to keep the school’s management and staff at their best all the time.
Here’s an example of one of our fam trips which shows how this experiential marketing should be done – see at “In search of best boarding schools in the UK – we have found Stonar”
What is your experience with school visits? Do you think that fam tours are unnecessary cost for schools or an excellent marketing tool? What type of educators can benefit from fam trips?