Host Family Recruitment Best Practices District/Region Introductions - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Host Family Recruitment Best Practices

District/Region Introductions

GULF ISLANDS INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM • SALT SPRING ISLAND • POPULATION 10,000 • ONE HIGH SCHOOL • 600 STUDENTS • 60 INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS NEEDEING HOMESTAYS • COMMUNITY OF ARTISTS, MUSCICIANS, ACTORS, PROFESSORS, AUTHORS, ATHLETES.

The Tri County Regional School Board is one member of the NSISP Consortium. Schools: 5 (7-12) 2 (P-12) 1 (9-12) 11 Elementary Number of students 5916 (2015-16) International Students Long Term 160 Short Term 62

Greater Victoria School District • Victoria and surrounding municipalities • Population 86,000 (Victoria) 367,000 Greater Victoria • 7 High schools, 10 Middle Schools, 27 Elementary Schools • 20,000 students • 1000 international, 700 of which require homestay

School District/Board Engagement

Community Engagement

Referral Programs

Retention and Appreciation

Digital Marketing

Homestay Environment in Victoria ● 3 Post-Secondary Institutions ● 5 ESL Schools ● 2 neighboring School Districts All institutions have well run and active Homestay Programs / 13

How Long Did This Take? ● Identify a digital marketing firm to work with ● 2 weeks of onboarding + creating of content and ads. ● 1.5 months of testing and optimization of campaigns ● 1 month confirmation of findings ● 3 months total for setup and fine tuning / 14

Optimization : Conversion Rate 1.Dedicated and topically relevant landing page 2.Focus on one primary conversion (i.e. sign ups) 3.Inform users with necessary information 4.A/B test with variants to find perfect mix for conversion (different messaging, content types, layouts, etc.) / 15

Acquiring Homestay Host Family Through Google and Facebook Avg. Cost/1,000 Avg. Cost per Ad Environments Benefit Impressions Click (Views) ⁄ User intent capture Google AdWords Search $ 76.35 $ 0.95 ⁄ Search behavior data collection ⁄ Wide Exposure Google AdWords Display $ 0.75 $ 0.41 ⁄ Awareness ⁄ Highly targeted campaigns Facebook Display Ads $ 9.39 $ 0.63 ⁄ Awareness - VIHSP Homestay AdWords + Facebook Ads / 16

In Short…. ● Avg. Cost per Lead = $90 ● Avg. cost / full sign up of new homestay family = $400~ (This number is consistenly decreasing as the campaign is fine tuned) ● Total of 40 new host families registered (July – April) ● Already 30% increase over 2015/2016 recruitment numbers / 17

Homestay Recruitment Challenges

Contact Us Sheri Wakefield – Gulf Islands School District - swakefield@sd64.bc.ca John MacKinnon – Nova Scotia International Student Program - jmackinnon@tcrsb.ca Tymon Hsieh – Greater Victoria School District – thsieh@sd61.bc.ca