If We Build It...

In 2021, Prep announced that it would be adding a Lower School. Beginning August 2023, we will serve students in PreK-3 through grade 12. Though we have been accustomed to welcoming students in our Middle and Upper Schools, we are now actively enrolling and encouraging applications at all grade levels. This has created a new marketing opportunity.

This year’s primary goal has been filling classrooms with bright young minds. We were therefore tasked with reimagining a marketing approach that would attract a younger audience. Our Lower School promotion has been both strategic and focused. Through ad campaigns, evening gatherings for prospective parents, recruitment tents at selected events, coffee and conversation mornings on campus, and individual hard-hat tours of the Lower School, we have been able to reach a multitude of interested families.

by Emily Myers Garner Director of Marketing and Branding

Priority number one was rebranding collateral materials to present Prep’s softer side: to show our “warm and fuzzy.” Our first project was the creation of an application packet featuring the new JPLS logo, brightly-colored tabs with smiling faces on informational pages, and a soft-blue outer folder with signature red accents.

PHOTO BY HUBERT WORLEY

Once a prospective family started the process, their child was invited to an interview/playdate with the Head of Lower School Amanda Slack. After the playdate assessment, children who had been accepted were notified of their status as an inaugural student. Special gifts were then hand delivered to each new student.

In addition to taking a personalized approach with new students and families, we determined that reaching out to the community through grassroots marketing efforts would be beneficial. After researching demographics from our digital and on-demand television campaigns, we found that the highest performing zip codes were in our own backyard. Rankin County–specifically Brandon and Flowood–was fascinated by what was going on at Prep.

These efforts, combined with traditional marketing strategies of print, television, and transit advertising, have helped us secure strong start-up numbers for inaugural classes at the Lower School. While we continue to promote Prep in these ways, they do not replace the best advertising of all: word of mouth! If you know of a potential student, please help us recruit him or her. Invite interested parties to visit. Direct them to our website. Give them our phone number. Bring them to an event. Share your own success story. You, too, can be part of our marketing efforts.

With JPLS on the horizon, the future is very bright. Help us spread the word and watch our Prep family grow.

Digital Extra: Jackson Prep Lower School teachers wrote their favorite Bible verses on the floors of their classrooms before tile was installed. See the video here.