A marketing plan earns its place when it forces decisions in the right order: how many new pupils you need in each year group, which families you want to reach, when the admissions year turns, which channels reach those families, what it costs, how you will measure it and who owns each part. This template asks for them in that order. It is written for the Head of Admissions or Marketing Officer who takes the plan to the Head of School, the Bursar or the board, and it follows a family’s path from first search to re-enrolment, the path we plan around in admissions marketing for international schools.
Every example on this page comes from one illustrative school. The sample PDF further down previews its filled plan, and the editable spreadsheet is free through the form on this page.
What should a school marketing plan include?
The spreadsheet has seven working tabs, with instructions at the front and sources at the back. Each tab answers one question and feeds the next: the goals decide which audiences matter, the audiences and calendar decide the channels, and the channels decide the budget and KPIs.
The template’s tabs, what each asks for and the question it answers:
| Tab | What you fill in | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Instructions | Nothing: read it once | How do we use the file, and what stays out of it? |
| Goals by year group | Places next year, returning pupils, the waiting list, the goal and a priority, by year group and campus | How many new pupils do we need, and where? |
| Audiences | Segments by curriculum, nationality or community, language and family stage | Which families are we trying to reach, and what do they need first? |
| Admissions calendar | Open mornings, deadlines, the re-enrolment window, breaks and holidays | When does each admissions moment happen, and what must be ready? |
| Channels | Each channel’s type, families, stage, work, timing, owner, budget line and KPI | How will families find the school, enquire and visit? |
| Budget | A percentage split, then amounts, timing and approval | What will it cost, and when is the money spent? |
| KPIs | Definitions, data sources, last cycle’s figures and targets | How will we know the plan is working? |
| Owners and review dates | An owner, a review rhythm, the next review date and a status for each workstream | Who does what, and when do we check? |
| Sources | Official calendars and guidance, with the date you checked them | Where did our dates and methods come from? |
Owners are named by role (Head of Admissions, Admissions Officer, Registrar, Marketing Officer, Bursar, Head of School), so the plan survives staff changes; replace them with your school’s own titles. The plan never needs a pupil’s or parent’s personal details.
How do I write a school marketing plan? Tab by tab
Work in this order: set new enrolment goals for each year group from the places you have and the pupils you expect to return; describe the families who fill those places; put every admissions date in one calendar, checked against the official source; choose channels for each stage of the admissions path; split the budget; define KPIs with targets from your last cycle; and give each part an owner and a review date.
The illustrative school is a British-curriculum international school with one campus, FS1 to Year 13, planning for the 2027-28 intake. It is an archetype, not a real school, and every figure below is illustrative, not a benchmark.
Goals by year group
Start with places, not channels. For each year group, enter next year’s places and the pupils you expect to return; the difference is the number of new places to fill. The goal can be lower than that where filling every place is unlikely, for example in an exam year. Note the waiting list as well: a year group whose waiting list already covers its goal may need no marketing. Agree the goals with the Head of School and the Bursar before planning anything else.
Rename the year groups to match your school: the template works with FS1, FS2 and Year 1 to Year 13, or with Pre-K, KG1, KG2 and Grade 1 to Grade 12. A group of schools can use the Campus column or keep one file per campus.
Four rows from the illustrative school’s Goals by year group tab:
| Year group | Places next year | Returning pupils | New places to fill | Goal | Waiting list | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FS1 | 40 | 0 | 40 | 36 | 0 | High |
| Year 2 | 48 | 45 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Low |
| Year 7 | 72 | 44 | 28 | 24 | 0 | High |
| Year 12 | 50 | 30 | 20 | 16 | 0 | High |
Illustrative figures for an archetypal school.
Even four rows change the plan. The largest goals sit at the entry points (FS1, Year 7 and Year 12), so that is where audiences, events and budget should go. Year 2 needs no marketing, because the waiting list covers it. And returning pupils are the number to protect: every family that leaves is a place to fill again, which is why re-enrolment also appears on the calendar, channels and KPIs tabs.
Audiences
Describe the families you want as segments, not as one audience called parents. The columns cover the curriculum a family wants, its nationality or community, the language to use, its stage (relocating, moving schools locally, starting school, moving to secondary, joining sixth form or high school, or already at the school) and its year groups. Two columns do most of the work: where the family looks, and what it needs to know first.
The illustrative school lists six segments. Families relocating with an employer need places by year group, fees, transport and start dates, and find schools through search, directories and employers’ HR teams. Families starting school need the age of entry, class sizes and visit dates. Current families need re-enrolment dates, fee changes and sibling places.
Use nationality and community to choose the language, the timing and where to be seen, not to guess what a family values, and take the main groups from your own enquiry records.
Admissions calendar
The calendar decides whether the rest of the plan happens on time, because families do not move their decisions to suit your campaign. Enter the school’s own dates first: open mornings and tours, the application window, assessment days, offer and acceptance deadlines and the re-enrolment window. Then add the breaks and holidays that close the admissions office, plan cover for enquiries that arrive during them, and mark any unconfirmed date as Verify. Check official dates against the source that applies to your school.
Official academic calendar sources by market (checked 30 September 2026):
| Market | Official source | What it publishes | Where to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | Ministry of Education | Regulations that let international and private schools set their own semester and holiday dates within the Ministry’s controls, which include keeping the holidays in the approved academic calendar, once the Department of Education or the Global Education Office approves the plan; its academic calendar, in Arabic | Regulations for international and private schools and academic calendar (Arabic) |
| The UAE | Ministry of Education | The academic calendar for public and private schools for 2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29 | Academic calendar for public and private schools |
| Dubai | Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) | A calendar page for private schools, with separate dates for schools whose year starts in April and schools whose year starts in September | KHDA academic calendar for Dubai’s private schools |
In Dubai, if your school’s year starts in April, run the plan on that cycle. Eid holidays depend on moon sighting, so enter the expected dates, keep them on Verify and update them when they are announced. In the illustrative plan, the re-enrolment window runs from early December to early February, so its reminders are scheduled around the winter break, and a summer relocation campaign starts in May.
Channels
Now choose channels, and give each one a row: its type (owned, earned, paid, listing, event, referral or partner), the families it serves, its stage of the admissions path (visibility, enquiry, visit, application, offer and enrolment, or re-enrolment), the work, the timing, an owner, a budget line and one KPI. The illustrative school has ten rows, from its website’s admissions pages and a Google Business Profile for the campus to open mornings, referrals from current families and re-enrolment letters.
Two checks keep this tab honest. First, every channel must send families somewhere that works: if the fees page is out of date or the enquiry form is hard to find, fix that before paying for more visits. If the website itself is the weak link, see websites with the build included in the monthly plan. Second, the social media and email rows need a production rhythm or they drift; a content calendar your team will actually use turns them into weekly work.
Budget
Agree the split before the amount. Enter each budget line’s share as a percentage, add amounts and currency once the Head of School or Bursar approves the total, and note when each line is spent, so the money is there before the open mornings and campaigns it pays for. Keep a contingency line.
The illustrative split is an example, not a benchmark: the largest share goes on search advertising around open mornings and the summer relocation campaign, then events, content and photography, and social media advertising, with a tenth held back as contingency. Your split should follow your goals: a school whose gaps are all in Year 12 has little reason to fund early years events. For the thinking behind a budget that lasts the whole year, see building a marketing budget you can sustain.
KPIs
The KPIs tab defines the numbers along the admissions path: new and qualified enquiries, first reply time, tours and visits, applications, offers, new enrolments, the rates between stages, the re-enrolment rate, enquiries by source and cost per new enrolment. It gives definitions, not targets.
Set each target from your own last admissions cycle. Another school’s conversion rates are no benchmark for yours, because curriculum, fees, location and year groups differ. Agree what counts as a qualified enquiry before the cycle starts, and count families, not messages. When the numbers show where families drop out, the admissions playbook for international schools works through what to fix at each stage.
To count enquiries by source, ask every family how it heard about the school, and tag the links you control in emails, social posts, directory listings and your Google Business Profile. Google’s guidance on campaign URLs is to always use utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign; the values then appear in Google Analytics’ traffic acquisition report.
Owners and review dates
Give every workstream one owner, named by role, and a review rhythm: weekly for enquiry replies and during the re-enrolment window, every two weeks for campaigns, monthly for the website and the budget, before each open morning, and each term for the whole plan with the Head of School. The Next review column keeps the plan alive; when a date passes without a review, the plan has stopped being used. Record decisions in the same row, so the next person to open the file can see what changed and why.