91. How To Create Impactful and Effective Tuition Pages on Your School Website with Dale Seabury

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Tara: Welcome to the Mindful School Marketing Podcast. I’m Aubrey Burch. And I’m Tara Klaes. Today we’re joined by Dale Seabury. Dale has been working in the independent school space for the past 17 years, 13 of which were spent at the Pingree School, a K 12 independent co ed day school of more than 1, 100 students in New Jersey.

She wore many hats at Pingree, including Assistant Director of Admission, Director of Financial Aid, Teacher, Coach, and most recently, Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing. Combining her business experience, she has an MBA, with her deep understanding of schools, jobs, and experience with independent school admission counseling for families applying to K 12s and colleges.

Dale delights in helping schools optimize and elevate their practice to strengthen their brand, build their community, and enroll more mission aligned students. Wow, thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here, Dale. Thanks. 

Dale: Thanks for having me. I have two disclaimers to start and one is I apologize for my raspy voice.

I have whatever summer virus is going around for the past week and also apologize if you hear some barking. I have a new puppy. Several rooms away, but working nonetheless. We love puppies. We love, we are 

Aubrey: animal friendly here. So yay, congrats on your new puppy. I am so excited to have you on, Dale. I know Tara’s as well.

Dale, I’ve heard you speak many times. You’ve been, you know, a guest expert for some of my programs, and I’m really excited to talk to you today about this hot topic, tuition pages, because It’s a hot topic and it’s something I know our audience is really interested in, you know, having worked with independent schools on their online presence and their user experience.

I really know that the tuition page is often one of the most visited pages on the school’s website. I’d love to hear, like, if you could share with our audience, like, why is a tuition page so crucial for schools to like focus on and what happens Transcribed If the time and focus isn’t spent on optimizing this page, can you speak a little more to that?

Dale: Well, this is the one page that literally every prospective family is going to visit at some point during their exploration process. So I don’t know how much more important than that it could get. And if you don’t believe me, you should check your Google analytics, which already should be an ingrained.

Part of your data informed marketing process. I think the data shows across the board. It tends to be the number two or three most visited page after the home page for most schools. And it is also notorious for. High bounce rates and high exits and low average time on the page. So, you know, you asked about the risks, Aubrey.

I think the risk is you lose a family due to sticker shock before they’ve even had a chance to learn about the value that your school offers. And that’s a huge risk. And we have to keep in mind that our competition is not just independent or private schools. We’ve also got low cost or no cost options with public schools, charter schools, and online school.

So these Options and this landscape, I think, makes the tuition page even more important than it used to be.

Tara: Absolutely. As a, as someone who makes websites for schools, I know this to be the case. And I think we spend so much time. Myself included, we really, we start with the homepage always. And that is the, you know, the home landing page is the focus of a lot of attention and creativity because typically that’s where people will land first.

But then as you start working on content, you kind of get into a routine and that tuition page is often treated as just kind of put the numbers there. And I think school leaders get confused about what to call that page. Should it be called, should they combine it with tuition and financial aid?

Where to put it in the drop down menu under admission, if it should be its own top level page to highlight it somehow. I see a lot of schools kind of want to hide it and, and bury it because they don’t want to Turn people away, but we know that people are looking for it. So maybe, you know, I don’t know what your thoughts are on, on how to display that, where to locate them and, and what to call them.

Dale: I think we’re aligned here, Tara. I don’t think this is an area for creativity, either in placement or in name. I think we need to think about who’s most likely to need this information. And when I consider that, I land in the admissions section every time. Our prospective families need to be able to find tuition info very, very easily.

And in terms of the name, again, I don’t think creativity is great here. I think we need to Figure out those people who are unfamiliar with private or independent schools, how are they best going to find the information? What search terms are they going to use? And my mind goes right to tuition, tuition and financial aid, maybe tuition and value, tuition and affordability.

I’ve seen many schools using affording xxschool, and I think that works too, but I think we could be even more direct than that, personally. So, I think having tuition in the name is wonderful. And, in terms of whether it’s separate or combined with a financial aid page, it’s not as important to me as, Are we going to feature financial aid information on that page?

I think that’s an absolute must. And so as a former director of financial aid, I think that there is enough complexity to the financial aid process. That it, it warrants its own page in almost all cases. But again, if you don’t feel the need to do that and you don’t feel like your process is that complex, I think it could be combined.

But either way, if you’re going to have it separate, I think financially, it needs to be very prominent on the tuition page so that once families are seeing what your school costs. They’ve already seen that there is financial aid available and they’re starting to understand that it could be something that’s within reach for them.

Tara: Yeah, I agree. And I think I’ve had schools who want to call their tuition page affording our school. And to me that seems Almost intimidating, because you’re already starting out with the fact that you need help affording this so I think that that term, I, I think people are moving away from that, but I, but I’ve seen that a lot over the years, so thank you for mentioning that.

Dale: I completely agree. I personally find it a little intimidating. Oh, my goodness. I need to be able to afford you. I haven’t even seen your prices. 

Aubrey: Yeah, thanks. That’s such a key topic for sure. And yeah, I, I think people get confused really easily if we start getting too creative. So I really appreciate both your perspectives on that.

I’m curious you know, at speaking about like the user experience and how, how people search and like, Digest things nowadays, prospective families included. We talked about there are many options in the market, lots of options, right. And how their experience online, and especially when they hit that tuition page, as you indicated earlier, you know, that can be the difference between them scheduling a tour or like saying, I’m out of here.

I’m going to go to the competitions. You know, a website because they had, you know, X, Y, and Z. I would love for you to share some tips and strategies for how schools can kind of go about rethinking their tuition page with the customer in mind. For example, you know, should they feature social proof?

Should they make it easier to access and find things? Like, what are you seeing in terms of like, tips and strategies for schools to, you know, improve that user experience? 

Dale: I think we use this page to present the school’s strongest value proposition in an engaging way. And what I have seen in the, in the market is that most schools, the tuition page is more of an afterthought of.

We need to present this chart of numbers. Here they are. And it should be the absolute opposite. We need to sell the value of the school before we name our price. And don’t force the visitor to go to another page of the website to digest all of your wonderful Martini messaging. Serve it up on a silver platter right there, where you already have the family.

And I don’t think schools should risk a visitor’s exit after they’ve seen only the cost and none of the culture of the school. So along the lines of what you just mentioned, Aubrey, I think social proofs are a must. Let families hear from current families who are similarly grappling with the investment and finding it worth it.

You know, right now you can let them hear from students whose lives have been transformed by the school and even faculty who are just surprisingly committed and dynamic. That is what parents are willing to pay for. And so the tuition page should really showcase those wonderful social proofs, in my opinion.

Tara: You touched on this earlier. We talked a little bit about financial aid being its own page. And sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes it’s almost a footnote. And sometimes it’s featured really prominently on the tuition page or linked from the tuition page into its own as you, as you recommended.

What suggestions do you have to best showcase tuition? financial assistance page. And I’m thinking also about what this says in the message to this, to prospective families who are looking for maybe a diverse school. And so knowing that there is an endowment or that there is an opportunity for families of all socioeconomic levels to participate in the school, that can be a marketing message that comes through, I think, on this financial aid page.

But how do you, how can you, Present this information effectively and do you agree with what I just said? I guess I do. I do 

Dale: agree. I’m really passionate about educational access. And again, as as a former director of financial aid I think it’s so important that schools put focus and energy into this area.

And treat socioeconomic diversity as its own type of diversity that is valued and appreciated and not tie it to other types of diversity, for instance, racial diversity, which I think can get very tricky for schools. But, but I think we need to highlight the financial aid opportunities at the top of the page as I mentioned before where tuition or before where tuition is listed.

And also present infographics. That are very engaging to families, for instance. income ranges of families who receive any level of aid at the school. As someone who worked in financial aid, I found that to be really helpful to families who were very new to independent schools or to the process of applying for aid thinking, wow, so you get families who earn more than 250, 000 a year, household income, some level of aid.

Okay. You know, this is, this is encouraging to me, it’s just an example. I think You need to be clear. And I’m a big Brene Brown fan. She says clear is kind. This is a way that institutions can be kind. And so we need to be really clear about how much is available, who it’s available to, and really concise and clear about the steps to access financial aid.

It can be really complicated. I think for admission and financial aid offices, sometimes it’s hard to work out the changing landscape. You know, you’ve changed tools from, you know, one application to another, and you’re working out the different deadlines year to year. You’ve got to clear on that so that families can be clear on that and distill it really, really well.

And I’ve found in every institution, there’s at least one or two people who are just really, really good at those operational directions. Find that person, you know, even if they’re not in the communications or admission office, and get their help if you are doing this process. Maybe even have them apply, you know, and follow these instructions.

Do they make sense? And then I think offer multiple ways to learn about the financial aid process And get personalized help like you can offer a brief video tutorial maybe offer a web, a webinar for live questions with the director of financial aid, very clear FAQs on that web page. I think that’s all really important so that you’re offering multiple options to a family.

Here’s how you can access some help. And Probably what I’m most passionate about is just authenticity and transparency, pull back the veil on this very murky process as much as possible. And I realize that there are some ways that we simply can’t because it’s a confidential process and et cetera, et cetera.

But if you can share who makes the decisions, like who’s on the financial aid committee. What percentage of the student body is on aid? That’s helpful. Are admission decisions affected by financial need? Oh, don’t get me started on that. But so many schools I’ve noticed say that they are need blind when that’s impossible for almost every institution that has a budget or doesn’t have an endowment like Harvard.

So let’s be honest about how the two processes interact. So that families are not blindsided and they have accurate expectations. I think that’s all just really trust building in your institution. And that just helps with the entire experience and with your enrollment numbers. 

Aubrey: I love what you said here about the transparency.

I can’t tell you how many sites I end up on and I’m like, I have no idea how I would apply for financial aid. I have no idea what the deadlines are. What are the steps? Where are the forms? What, what’s going on? So I think, you know, as clear as, as, as much clarity as we can provide, it is, it is being kind and it actually reflects well on your school.

You’re not having someone get frustrated or they’re sitting there doing it at 11pm because 11pm is the only time they don’t they have like to work on this and you’ve, you’ve nicely provided a tutorial about how to navigate financial aid and like they could sign up for a webinar then like that, like, you know, this happens later, but they could sign up for now and they have all these FAQs that are You know, these are the questions that are in their head and, oh, look, the FAQs are there to help them navigate the situation.

So I really appreciate everything you’ve said there because it is true. And we definitely need to be as, as clear, just like I talk about admissions process all the time. Like, what is the first step? What is the second? Like, let’s not make this, this, this whole big thing. Let’s, let’s definitely guide people through it.

And I think the same as with financial aid. So thank you so much for bringing that up. That’s really helpful. I’m going to switch gears a little bit in terms of. You know, as, as, you know, working with a lot of schools, you know, one of the things they always ask is like, so is there, you know, when we talk about tuition pages, is there like this magic formula for tuition pages like that, that really work has worked for schools, right.

And like for multiple schools so, or are there, you know, school examples you could share. So, you know, thinking about like what. would, what would be the ideal magic formula? And obviously it’s going to differ for each school. Like, what would you say? Do you have a particular formula that you found helpful or particular school that you’d like to highlight that kind of has captured or found success with their tuition page?

Dale: I look around a lot and I have not seen a ton of schools that are really knocking this out of the park. And I would love to hear from any schools listening that do feel that they have waved that magic wand and, and done it well, because I’m always wanting to learn and see new examples. But there are some schools out there that, that do great things and I think there are some, some basic elements.

that that should be considered at least to be included. I can think of nine. Starting with an overview statement at the top of the page that is a really clear value proposition and language that’s very investment or value centric. I think our schools tend to shy away from money language and this is not the place to do it, you know, just be direct.

I think that’s, that’s helpful. Another option to consider would be engaging media, especially if you have a strong video and a lot of schools save that for their homepage. But even if you don’t have two videos. Put it on the tuition page as well. You’re more likely to get someone to watch it if it’s on that page, I think.

And You know, really highlight what makes the school special. If you could have a customized video that talks specifically about value, even taking video footage that you have and doing a new voiceover or text overlay that is specific to value. I think repurposing is really helpful and budget conscious.

That’s a great thing, but there’s no shame in just. using a video you already have, because this page needs to engage its visitors more than any other. Then you should be thinking about stats and infographics and facts, because we’ve probably all seen the research, people don’t read. And it’s so hard not to write words and words and words all over the website, right Tara?

It’s like everyone wants to write paragraphs, but people are going to digest images. I don’t know, it’s something like 60, 000 times faster than, than text. And so give them, give them what will be most easy to digest. And when I think about stats to share most schools have a fast facts page. It could be some of those things, but I would steer away from the sort of standard student to teacher ratio and a hundred percent of graduates matriculate to four year colleges.

Those are table stakes. for private schools at this point. So what’s specific to your school? That is really interesting. And as a hook, like, do you have a signature program or do you have a really impressive facility or some sort of curriculum that sets you apart? Do you specialize in learning differences or whatever it is?

Do some, some infographics about that. That will really engage the user. And then we already talked about testimonials, the social proofs. Absolutely. Those have to be on the tuition page and a video would be ideal, but that tends to be more work, right? More money. So just do, just do a nice headshot and, and some brief texts, if you can handle that.

And When you have the opportunity to interview members of your community, I, I always advocate for try to hit as many birds with one stone as you can. So ask them lots of different questions for lots of different areas of the website or publications that you’re working on, but ask them for this page, specifically about value.

You know, why was this school worth it to you or for your child? What did you get out of it? That made the tuition price, You know, things like that, I think families are willing to talk about that and appreciate the directness. And then I think, Aubrey, you asked about, you know, do there be links? Yes, I say to schools who maybe don’t have the money to work with a consultant to help them do a makeover of sorts on the tuition page.

If you don’t have the time or the money to get some help on this, you can really do a quick fix by linking to other areas of your website that have great information and that should include outcomes, you know, whether that’s college counseling or high school placement or whatever it is links to pages with those signature programs and those really And thanks so much for but we’re counting on you.

surprising and, and dynamic curricula, all those things, those could be links until you have time or the wherewithal to really do a full overhaul of the page. So don’t make it too hard, you know, don’t make it too huge. If you can do some links and make it a little more engaging as a first phase, I think that’s wonderful.

And then as we already talked about, Easy access to financial aid and payment plan information. And I think affordability needs to come before fees. So that could be at the very top of the page. It could be on the right hand column so that you’re seeing it as you scroll down the page and you can’t get away from it.

This is how affordable it is. Here are some initial infographics about who receives aid and a big old link to the financial aid page where you can get all of the details. And then I think there should be at least two relevant calls to action. So I would suggest. One being lower commitment like subscribe to our blog or listen to our podcast, take our virtual tour and then maybe one or more that are a little higher commitment and lead them down the admission funnel.

So schedule a tour, start your admission journey by launching your portal, whatever, whatever. And then you need a brief statement about how tuition doesn’t cover the full cost of educating a student. Okay, I said you need. This is a rather unusual strategy that I saw Charleston Collegiate do and I thought it was so neat and effective that they actually introduced the idea that tuition doesn’t cover the full cost of educating a student Right there on the tuition page.

And then they talked about who helps bridge that gap and they name all of the constituent types that are donors to the school. And what does that do? That actually introduces the idea to prospective families that, oh, it is a part of the experience that you’re going to be asked to give to the school at some level.

And that is how invested our community is that they’re willing to give. to make this experience accessible to our students. I thought that was great. And finally, I think this is the ninth thing I’m mentioning. Obviously you need to list your tuition and your fees. And I think that comes at the bottom.

I’m not advocating for you hiding that information. I do think it’s fine to put it in an accordion, you know, so that people have to do a little bit of clicking to get all the details. I think it’s more about. Let the family see all of the value, all of the offerings, why this is worth it before they get through the numbers.

And by that point, hopefully they’re in the mindset of, wow, this school is so valuable. look at what my child is going to experience and receive here. Of course it’s going to be expensive. So that would be, that would be the goal. 

Tara: Yeah. I love the idea of visuals and videos and social proof because I think people, they’ll, they’ll go to the bottom and they may skip over content above, but when you have a visual that gives you that feeling, it might invite them to participate more in the rest of the content on the page.

And I think that’s often overlooked. So I appreciate sharing those ideas about videos and testimonials and things. That’s great. Wonderful. Yeah. So I’m going to shift gears a little bit because our podcast is called mindful school marketing and we We always kind of sum up with a little bit of mindfulness, which usually is threaded through all the things that we talked about prior to this question, but the idea is to is to ask our guests what mindfulness means to you and, and how it applies to the process of creating this content that we’re talking about and a positive user experience, not intimidating experience for for schools who are reaching out to prospective families.

So can you talk a little bit about mindfulness and what it means for you? Well, specific to 

Dale: this topic, I think it’s helpful for me to frame mindfulness as being conscious or aware and as marketers to achieve effective marketing, it’s critically important that we are conscious and aware of our market and that to me is listening well.

So I think we need to, as schools be listening to our current communities. For authentic feedback and and listening to what the market primarily perspective families finds valuable and then Only then will we have the information we need to develop marketing messaging that will best connect with This or connect the life changing experience that our schools offer with the families that are going to benefit from it most and listening is is a way to do that.

It’s also just a mindful practice to me. I think it’s it’s the way to live life in addition to to market. So after listening and discerning what’s important to the market, then we can highlight exactly what prospective families is. value that we offer as a school and show them that the investment will be worth it.

Aubrey: I’m a big fan of that. I love that you brought that up as someone who does surveys and interviews of prospective families and current families and everything like that. It’s amazing what You can glean from listening and, you know, that’s where it all starts is listening and then figuring out, okay, yeah, this is, this is the value we offer and this is what, you know, prospective families are looking for.

So thank you for bringing that up as a very mindful practice. I’m going to shift gears and this is one of my favorite parts of our, you know, podcast episode. It’s the rapid fire questions. Are you ready? 

Dale: I’m ready. 

Aubrey: All right. Let’s go. I think this is Tara’s, probably my favorite question to ask. So, if you could put one book as mandatory reading in the high school curriculum, what would it be?

Dale: Can I break the rules and choose more than one? 

Aubrey: We are pro rule breakers. So yes. Okay. 

Dale: Oh, good. That was going to be an impossible question for me. Okay. First, I think I’d say digital minimalism. By Cal Newport. He is a Georgetown computer science professor, and this book was really helpful to me during a time when I was reading a lot of different things about how to manage my digital life and and keep things in balance.

And I don’t think just adults need that. I think our students need that more than anyone. Thank you And this idea of how to, how to be intentional with our digital lives and put boundaries around them so that we’re getting what we want out of technology and not experiencing a lot of the distraction from it is, is just.

So necessary. Okay. Number two for me would be Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown. I mentioned her before. I think the subtitle is Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience, something like that. It’s a book that overviews, I think like 80 different human emotions. and shares a lot of research behind them.

And the reason I would choose this book for high school curriculum is that I think emotional intelligence is so important for students to learn. I think in some cases it’s more important than facts and knowledge. In terms of navigating adult life and professional life. And so I just think it’s a terrific book and I found it fascinating.

I quote it all the time or go back to it and share things from it. And then, okay. One more, sorry. Unbroken. It’s the story of true story of Louie Zamperini, who was this defiant and incorrigible child and teen and And he ultimately channeled all that delinquent energy into running, took him to the Berlin Olympics, then he became an airman in the army during World War II, and he was stranded on a tiny raft for weeks.

In the middle of the ocean, and he was ultimately imprisoned and tortured. And then his story ends in redemption and forgiveness and restoration. And it’s, it is amazing. I think it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. And so I was sad that it took me until adulthood to read it. And that’s, that’s why I would put 

Tara: it in this category.

Great. Thank you. Yes. All of those are good. I just heard Cal Newport on a podcast this past week. Okay. Next question. What is one app you couldn’t live without?

Dale: I’d say both for professional and personal reasons, Canva. I love Canva in general, and you can really do so much on the app. Surprisingly. a ton of design right there on your phone. And so whether it is, you know, a graphic for a social media post for my business, or I want to just send a little something special on a friend’s birthday.

I love Canva. It’s wonderful. 

Aubrey: I love that you mentioned the Canva app. Because I think a lot of the school leaders use Canva. I love Canva. We use it for everything. It’s amazing. But not many probably use it as an app. So thank you for bringing that up. I think that’s awesome. What is, what are you reading right now?

Dale: Okay. Again, this is going to be a longer answer. It’s not rapid fire because I’m always reading more than one thing at a time. That doesn’t mean that I necessarily finish them all fast, but. Okay, so my rule in general is I read nonfiction in the morning, fiction in the evening, and so I’ll tell you one nonfiction book so as not to make this go too long.

I have been reading for quite a while a business nonfiction book. It’s called Free Time by Jenny Blake. Subtitles, Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business. And it’s all about creating a life giving, joyful business through heart based operating principles and, and it gives practical tools to operate more efficiently and intuitively.

And the amount of time I’ve been reading it is not at all an indication of how good it is because every time I read a chapter, That’s something fantastic from it. It’s just so much to implement and it’s so applicable that I find like bite sized drugs is, is most helpful for me. And then, oh, and before I go on, I should just share that Jenny Blake, if you don’t know, worked at Google. She I think was the co creator of one of their, one of their big projects related to related to business. So she’s, she’s just really amazing. I appreciate her. And then in the evening, I switched to fiction and right now I’m reading The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, and it’s a collection of personal essays Green is reviewing aspects of the human experience, and and the Anthropocene, I had to look this up you probably know, it’s the current geological age, so it’s referring to, you know, human experience, and he goes, From everything from the QWERTY keyboard to a hot dog joint in Iceland.

And each one of these is this essay where he ends up giving whatever the thing is a review on a five star scale. And it is just fascinating and you don’t have to read it consecutively. You know, they’re all unique little, topics. So that’s really good for my current season of life where I I’m not reading as consistently as I sometimes have.

And so I can just pick it up and go with it whenever I have 

Tara: time, which is lovely. Sounds great. Thank you. Okay. Last rapid fire question. What is one great piece of advice you can leave us with today? Oh, 

Dale: such a good one. Well, I consider myself a lifelong learner and, and I’m always picking up pieces of great advice, but I think the one that has probably been the most helpful to me in the past five years or so is.

Do the next right thing. And it’s a saying that is so common. I know it’s, it’s significant in recovery community. I think it apparently originated two years before the founding of AA. Psychiatrist, Carl Young, sometimes given credit for it. And maybe even a poem published in the late 1800s. I mean, it’s everywhere, but I specifically have connected with it from a podcast called The Next Right Thing by Emily P.

Freeman, and she also wrote an excellent book by the same name. And she says that her goal is to create space for your soul to breathe so that you can overcome decision fatigue and chronic hesitation. And discern your next right thing and excuse me for me, as, as a person of faith, the statement means being able to quiet all the noise to be able to listen to God’s wisdom and discernment.

But regardless of your worldview, I think there’s universal insight in, in that simple phrase. And so whether it’s marketing or parenting or what am I going to make for dinner, the simplicity of do the next right thing, it’s just such a life giving practice. 

Tara: Great. Thank you so much Dale. Thank you for everything you’ve shared today.

Where can people find you online? 

Instagram. I am 

Dale: Seabury Consulting LinkedIn. You can find me at dale Visier seabury or Seabury Consulting llc. And my website is seabury-consulting.com. Great. Thank you very 

Tara: much. We really appreciate your time. 

Dale: Have a great 

Tara: day. Yeah, it’s been great. It’s been such a pleasure.

Thanks for having me. Bye.