Darlington School: Private Boarding School in Georgia Wester and Chaffin featured in Blackbaud K-12 podcast
Darlington School: Private Boarding School in Rome, GA
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Wester and Chaffin featured in Blackbaud K-12 podcast

February 19, 2016 | 377 views

Director of Communications Tannika Wester and Content Manager Luke Chaffin are the featured guests on Blackbaud K-12's latest Get Connected podcast, hosted by Peter Baron

"Peter reached out to me in the fall because he had heard about some of the things we are doing with inbound marketing here at Darlington," Wester said. "After our initial conversation, he invited us to be guests on his podcast to share more about our work developing content offers that have helped convert website visitors to admission leads."

The episode is titled "Get More Leads and Enrolled Students Through the Art of the Content Offer."

"In our transition to a more inbound marketing strategy, we have been purposeful in creating content that solves problems and/or answers questions that prospective parents and students may have during the admission process," Wester explained. "These content offers, made available on landing pages once a visitor fills out a simple form, have become critical not only in garnering new admission prospects for Darlington, but also in nurturing (providing relevant content to) those who have already started the admission process. We promote them via calls to action on our website, in email marketing and on social media." 

Some of Darlington's top-performing e-books include "13 Essential Questions for Choosing a School," "Why Not Boarding School?," "The Boarding School Parents Guide" and "8 Tips to Help You Ace Your High School Scholarship Interview."

"Thirty-four percent of Darlington's new customers for the current school year downloaded at least one content offer at some point during the admission process," said Wester. "We also saw an average of 16,000 new unique visitors per month in 2014-15, a 15% percent increase over the previous year." 

Baron also highlighted Darlington's marketing efforts in his presentation, "Moving Beyond Mailmerge: How to Use Marketing Technology to Personalize Your Admission Process," at SSATB's annual meeting in September. 

"Content marketing can mean different things to different people," said Baron. "What drew me to Darlington’s work was the way they’ve used content offers to be both helpful and drive leads. Their work makes for an amazing case study."

Wester said she is grateful to Baron for shining a spotlight on Darlington's inbound marketing efforts.

"Peter is well known in the independent school marketing world, and it is truly an honor that he has not only noticed what we are doing here at Darlington but taken the time to connect with us and highlight our work in various ways," she said.

In addition to his work as senior product marketing manager for Blackbaud K-12, Baron is the founder of edSocialMedia, a community-driven site dedicated to exploring the role of social media in education. He also serves as a trustee for Wolfeboro, The Summer Boarding School and is an Executive Committee member of TABS’ North American Boarding School Initiative.

Click here to listen to the 30-minute podcast episode.