Published on 3rd October 2024 | 2:00 PM

When building an Education Franchise, we often focus on marketing support, available resources, student testimonials and achievements. But there's an untapped resource that's equally powerful: parent networks. Imagine parents as active partners in growing your educational institute franchise. These parents could help you expand your brand’s reach in ways that ads or promotions never could.

But how exactly do you unlock the potential of parent networks? Let’s explore fresh ways in which they can play a pivotal role.

Why Parents Are More Than Just Stakeholders?

Parents are decision-makers when it comes to their children’s education. But their role doesn’t stop at making that initial enrollment decision. They can become loyal advocates, offering your education franchise something money can’t buy—trust. And in education, trust is everything.

Parents who are satisfied with their child's education always cannot help but boast about it. They talk. They recommend. Finally, and most importantly, they pass this information and their positive experiences with others – to another parent, for instance, at a PTA meeting, a family function or even online. This type of brand awareness can be helpful in terms of adding more enrollees to your institution and building your reputation in the community. That’s the true power of parent networks.

Building Relationships with Parent Networks

So, how do you get parents on board as your biggest supporters? Here are some key strategies:

Engaging Local Parent Leaders: Building a Core Community

In every community, some parents naturally take on leadership roles. They are the parents who are highly involved in their child’s school life—organizing PTA meetings, volunteering, and becoming the go-to person in WhatsApp groups. These parents wield influence, and their opinions are trusted. By identifying and collaborating with these parent leaders, you can create a “core team” of advocates who spread the word about your education business franchise with genuine passion.

Social Advocacy: Parents as Champions for Educational Causes

Modern parents are incredibly connected—not just online, but in their values and aspirations for their children. Many are passionate about social causes like better educational access, innovative learning methods, and child development. Your educational institute franchise can align with these causes and invite parents to become advocates.

Also read: Marketing Strategies for Education Franchises

Peer Education: Parents Teaching Each Other About Educational Choices

By the time parents start to school their children, they are constantly exchanging different recommendations – which school is the best, which curriculum is most useful for student’s learning, or how to navigate online learning tools that are used nowadays. You can leverage this peer education to your advantage.

Organize workshops or webinars where experienced parents share their journey with your educational institute franchise—how it has benefited their children, the unique features of your learning programs, and even how they’ve navigated challenges. Such sharing between peers establishes a layer of trust which cannot be garnered through an advertisement. Parents recognize true positive stories from others in similar situations as credible; trust is naturally earned.

Interactive Digital Spaces: Building Online Communities for Parents

Today, people are not just a part of local communities- they are part of global virtual communities. It may also be useful to build closed online groups, such as Facebook or WhatsApp, which let parents discuss and communicate directly with each other and your education business franchise.

In these online communities, parents can organize discussions and Q&A sessions and share the available information, inviting other parents to participate. This engagement is useful because it gives the parents a platform to learn, ask, and even meet others who may have had firsthand experience with your education franchise.

Creating Collaborative Feedback Loops: Ongoing Improvement

Parents need to feel that their views are valued. It also helps that parents can constantly provide feedback on curriculum enhancements and teaching strategies, as this demonstrates that your education franchise is indeed flexible and only too willing to adjust for the better. You could hold weekly or bi-weekly meetings involving parents or even conduct anonymous surveys, which allow the parents to be candid.

Related Articles:

Unlock the Power of Parent Networks Today

Parent networks pose the greatest opportunities for expanding your education business franchise through mere referrals and active involvement in communities. Self-organizing parent leaders, identifying values and key messages, peer education, and co-designing are some ways you can turn parents into evangelists for your franchise.

Begin cultivating such relations now and witness how parents become your staunch partners towards developing a prospering education franchise.