How to Fill Open Seats in 90 Days

Written for the person who has eleven empty places, no marketing department, and about four hours a week.

The order matters more than the tactics. Almost every school that has empty seats is losing families it already has contact with, before it ever needs new ones. So we fix the leaks first, then turn on the tap.

Weeks 1–2: Find the families you already lost

Everything here is free and takes a laptop.

Pull every inquiry from the last 24 months — inbox, forms, event sign-in sheets, the notebook by the phone. Build one list. Most schools find between 40 and 300 names they never followed up properly.

Sort into three groups:

• Toured but didn't apply
• Inquired but never toured
• Applied but didn't enroll

Email each group once, personally, from a real person. Not a newsletter. Something like:

Hi Sarah — you came to see us last spring and I've thought about Eli a few times since. I don't know whether you found the right place, and if you did I'm genuinely glad. If you're still looking, we have space in the class he'd be joining and I'd love to have you back for a morning. Either way, I hope he's doing well. — Maria

Expect 5–15% to re-engage. On a list of 150 that's eight to twenty warm families, at a cost of a few hours.

Also in these two weeks: fix your response time. Decide who answers new inquiries and commit to same-day, every day. This is the single highest-return operational change available to you.

Weeks 3–4: Fix the two pages that matter

Not a website rebuild. Two pages.

The admissions page. Tuition stated plainly with a number. What tuition assistance exists and how to ask without embarrassment. What a day looks like. A booking calendar, not a contact form. A photo of the actual person a family will meet.

The "is this right for my child" page. Doesn't exist on most school sites and it's the page parents are actually looking for. Who thrives here. Who doesn't. What happens for a child transitioning from a conventional school. What happens at the other end. Say the uncomfortable parts out loud.

Also: claim and complete your Google Business Profile. Photos, hours, description, and ask five current parents for a review this month. For local search this is worth more per hour spent than anything else on this list.

Weeks 5–6: Turn on free and cheap traffic

Apply for the Google Ad Grant. Start it now because approval takes weeks. It's $10,000/month of free search advertising.

Run a small paid test while you wait. $300–600 over three weeks on Google Search, targeting your town plus your category, pointed at the admissions page. The purpose is information as much as enrollment: if nobody in your area searches these terms, you learn that for $400 instead of guessing for a year.

Ask your current parents. Not vaguely. Specifically:

We have space in three classes for September. If you know a family who's been unhappy with their school, would you mention us? If it's easier, forward them this email.

The parents who love you have simply never been asked directly. Making that systematic is its own piece of work.

Weeks 7–9: Get people through the door

Run one open morning, not an open evening. Evenings show an empty building. Mornings show children doing what they do, which is the actual product.

Make it easy to attend: no registration wall, come for an hour, children welcome. The formal tour comes after.

Have one clear next step at the event. A sheet, a calendar, a person with an iPad booking follow-up visits before families leave. Events without a booked next step convert badly, no matter how lovely they are.

Invite the re-engagement list from week 1 personally. Warm invitations to a specific event outperform any advertising you can buy in this window.

Weeks 10–12: Close

Follow up on every tour within 24 hours with something specific about the child.

Call, don't email, the families who applied but haven't enrolled. A five-minute call surfaces the real obstacle, which is usually money or an unconvinced partner, and both are solvable when spoken aloud.

Set a deadline and mean it. "We're allocating places on the 14th" is honest if it's true, and it's the difference between a decision and a drift. Never invent scarcity you don't have — this audience detects it instantly and never forgives it.

Then measure. Inquiries, tours, applications, enrollments, and total spend. That gives you a cost per enrolled student and a baseline you'll use for years.

What not to do in 90 days

• Don't rebuild the website. Six weeks, all your energy, no enrollments.
• Don't start a podcast, a blog, or a TikTok account. Long-payback channels are good; they're not this quarter's answer.
• Don't print a new viewbook. It converts families who were already coming.
• Don't hire an agency for a three-month sprint at $5,000/month before you've fixed response time and the admissions page. You'll be paying someone to pour water into a bucket with a hole.

By Sascha Rossaint · Reviewed by Curtis Guild · August 2026

About the author

Sascha Rossaint

Founder & Head of Growth

Sascha owns growth at HolyOps — the strategy, systems and infrastructure that turn a mission into a business that can carry it. Former COO at Activation Products, with 15+ years building structure, teams and systems for teachers, institutes and conscious brands.

Reviewed by Curtis Guild, Partner & Head of Client Success.