Chosen because Sage Hill School won Silver for COVID-19 Enrollment in the 2020 Brilliance Awards. Torrey Olins, Director of Communications and Marketing at Sage Hill School at the time, explains the project in detail with InspirED.

It Started in March 2020

For most private school marketers, the world turned upside down in March 2020. Sage Hill School’s team was among them.

In April, the Admission and Communications/Marketing teams knew that they could not count on being able to utilize their normal fall admission events including the Admission Open House that typically brings nearly 1,000 parents and prospective students to campus.

Their beautiful campus and warm and welcoming community are two key selling points of the school (more than 80% of prospective families who attend their on-campus events will submit an application for admission) and the team realized that they would have to pivot to an engaging online format to bring Sage Hill School to prospective candidates and parents in their homes. 

Drive to Suprise and Delight

Whether in person or at a distance, Sage Hill School always aims to surprise and delight their prospective families. They knew that they did not want just another Zoom call or webinar with talking heads discussing Sage Hill’s value proposition.

Capri Campeau ‘18 brought life to the empty campus by sharing her experiences as a Sage Hill student as well as highlighting their beautiful facilities. Capri was not scripted — her entire narration was impromptu, based on just a few bullet points. A shorter version was incorporated into the Virtual Admission Open House invitation through the use of VR goggles. Watching the video through the goggles made viewers feel like they were actually exploring the campus in 3D.

Partner with a Creative Firm

Working with their creative partner, GearShift Advertising, Sage Hill School designed a theme and suite of materials to promote the Virtual Admission Open House.

“We deliberately utilized bold graphic elements that evoked the fun of buying new school supplies and in-person learning,” says Torrey. These included notebooks, pencils, doodles, Post-It notes that tied into the theme “Sage:Next” to help families focus on what would be next for their education after the pandemic and virtual learning come to an end.

Partner with a Digital Production House

Sage Hill partnered with an up-and-coming digital production team, Director’s Cut, to create the Virtual Admission Open House website and 15 videos that were part of the online event, in addition to repurposing existing content. “Given the challenges of the pandemic, “ Torrey says, “Director’s Cut creatively suggested that we use a ‘TikTok’ style for the event’s opening and closing videos so that students could send us content filmed at home, which was then edited into the two videos.”

Give ‘Em More 

The Sage Hill School team deliberately attempted to replicate that feeling of “too much” by programming 10+ hours of content into an online event that was two hours long. The centerpiece of the presentation was a series of three, 30-minute live stream Q&A sessions featuring Sage Hill students and faculty/administrators discussing various topics (including each academic department and co-curricular programs such as arts, athletics and student life).

Four sessions ran during each 30-minute block, and users were encouraged to jump between any of the four sessions that interested them. Users could submit individual questions at each session. The abundance of content helped to alleviate online boredom because if a user wasn’t interested in participating in any of the live stream Q&A sessions, they could instead view the extended 360-degree campus tour, watch videos from the video library, listen to the student-generated Spotify playlist, or go back and watch Q&A sessions from the prior time period.

To view the Sage Hill School Virtual Open House website, please email Kelly Abbate for a link and password.

Be Open and Personal

Finally, Sage Hill followed up the online event by personally responding to nearly 200 user questions generated via Google forms that were submitted during each of the 12 different live stream Q&As. Whether or not a question was answered in a Q&A session, each person who submitted a question received a personal and customized response, as if they had been able to ask the question at the in-person Admission Open House.

Timeline

The bulk of production took place from late July to late September, and the Virtual Admission Open House was held on October 10, 2020.

Torrey says, “We were fortunate to have two amazing partners.” GearShift Advertising was responsible for the creative look and feel, 360-degree campus tour video, invitation and advertising campaign, and website creative assets. Director’s Cut was responsible for event website production, the welcome/introduction video, the how-to apply closing video, 12 Q&A live stream videos, and day-of-event management. There were four members of the Admission and Communications/Marketing offices who spent most of the summer and early fall working on this project.

Start With An Idea. Then Change It.

As mentioned above, Sage Hill began to explore options for online events in early spring. They attended admission events sponsored by other independent schools and colleges, as well as online events that were outside the education sector. Their user experiences helped them to determine the direction of their own event. They started with a vision of a multi-day “Welcome Week” production and ended with a one-day event. See progression below.

Measure Results

The RSVP numbers and prospective family attendance at the Virtual Admission Open House were on-par with Sage Hill’s usual in-person event. While the 2020-2021 admission season is still underway as of this writing, they have seen strong application numbers and a positive response to the Virtual Admission Open House from prospective families. Families were particularly pleased to receive the customized follow up emails to their questions in the week after the online event, which helped to generate more personal relationships between prospective families and the Sage Hill Admission Office, despite the online environment.

Silver Lining

Because Sage Hill did not have the constraints of limited seating capacity in the School’s usual venue for the in-person event, they were able to open the virtual event to younger families who would not normally be eligible to attend, thus potentially expanding their future admission funnel.

In addition, because all content was recorded, they were able to host an “Encore” Virtual Admission Open House in January 2021, to provide another opportunity for families to explore content they did not have time to view during the original event, and to give families who had inquired after the October event to attend. Sage Hill had several hundred additional attendees at the January 2021 Encore event.

Costs

The overall budget for advertising and Virtual Admission Open House production was approximately $80,000 for all creative work (note: 360-degree tour video was budgeted separately.) Sage Hill amortized this budget across two events, both the live Virtual Admission Open House and the Encore event. They have also re-purposed this content in numerous follow-up communications with prospective families. They will likely utilize the on-line event format for at least some portion of their admission programming in 2021, so the investment is across two years.

Sage Hill initially investigated working with large corporate entities that were hosting virtual events for major corporations. The costs were well beyond what they could afford as a small independent school. This led them to utilize Director’s Cut, an up-and-coming production company staffed with younger creatives. “Their fresh perspective and creative problem-solving helped our event to connect with our younger audience,” says Torrey.

Change the Password  

The only thing Torrey says they would have changed would have been the password for the Virtual Admission Open House.

The password utilized the name of the School’s athletic team — “Lightning” — and we didn’t realize how many people would have trouble spelling it!

Advice For Others

Sage Hill’s advice for a small shop executing a project like this is to stay open to new ideas, 180-degree shifts, and take risks! “Know that you will be working harder than you ever thought possible,” says Torrey. But they report having a lot of fun along the way and take pride in knowing they did the best possible job under challenging circumstances — which itself is a huge reward. Torrey adds, “As is being named a Brilliance Award winner!”

Congratulations, Sage Hill School! You are brilliant!

Sage Hill School also won Silver in the 2020 Brilliance Awards for Special Event.

TEAM
Torrey Olins, Director of Communications and Marketing

Elaine Mijalis-Kahn, Director of Admission and Financial Aid

GearShift Advertising – Analise Kalpakoff and Lindsay Fajardo, Account Executives

Director’s Cut – Josh Kaufman, Producer

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