Think like as school run like a business
In today’s digital market, trustees of independent schools are constantly presented with increasing challenging choices when it comes to communications, marketing and research.
Have a look at these questions and try to respond them truthfully:
a. Do the board and head of school understand the attitudes of both your current and potential parents towards the school?
b. What do you know are the perceptions and or expectations of prospective families?
c. Is your understanding on the topic of Return on Investment (ROI) for your communications and marketing programs strong?
d. Are you making your resource allocation decisions by actively using collated data?
e. And lastly, are you aware of your school’s database and marketing technologies and their level of integration?
Most schools on top of their game(s), by now, should be able to answer ‘yes’ to most of these, but If your answer to any of the above questions is a no; then maybe it is time you looked at the following valuable insights and tips, to help your school better up its game.
Where many independent schools are beginning to realize the value of marketing and research, others are still not fully capitalising on the potential of these programs to significantly enhance their customers satisfaction in the following areas; enrolment, retention, community engagement, alumni participation and fund raising activities.
In this instances, some lessons from the business world can help in streamlining your school’s communications stratagem.
Often, School administrators and faculties, are skeptical of business relevance to the running and handling of what they think of as their “close” communities. They mostly single out marketing as contrary to the school culture and personal ties. However, with declining demographics, increasing competition, and other macro-economic factors already in motion, schools can greatly benefit from marketing approaches that businesses and agencies have honed during very challenging times. While trustees and administrators are rightly wary of becoming directly involved in marketing, you can better support your head of school if you are aware of the potential opportunities and how to utilise data and new marketing tools on behalf of your school.
Summarised below are some of the most critical areas for your school to pay immediate attention to.
Marketing Strategy:
Many schools have yet to define and translate their goals, vision and mission statement to their websites. This is the foundation of marketing efforts for businesses today. In addition, many schools do not communicate effectively with all their constituents, as they often tend to focus primarily on parents. To be effective in all your communications with both parents and constituents, as well as prospective families, your school must answer positively to the questions below.
a. Is your school’s culture very clear online and in print?
b. Does your website have a “mission,” or “purpose” or “values” section??
c. If yes to above, then does it speak to your faculty, prospective students, current students, past students, alumni as well as parents, grandparents and your local community?
d. Have you reviewed your school’s site carefully, both on a computer and mobile device, and given feedback to the head of school?
Remember that The web, both on a PC/laptop and now more so on a smartphone or tablet, is the core of your public representation and presentation. It is your marker and what sets you apart from the rest of them, and so, your school’s website must be closely aligned with your organisational strategy as conveyed in your school tours, printed publications, advertisements, brochures, and all social media platforms.
The two major differentiators between “communications” and “marketing” resources are; Strategic thinking and execution!!
Often these are confused, and indeed, there is significant overlap. However, as complexity and competition grows in private education, most schools need to move beyond basic, communications responsibilities. Although activities including; sending out newsletters, informing local publications of student achievements, announcing events, and updating web pages are very essential, schools now need to move on to more strategic marketing functions, such as; delivering highly targeted messaging to the right audience, hold data-driven campaigns, testing, and coaching for enrollment and campaign integration.
Check out these pointers used by businesses to ensure success to see how it can benefit your school and it’s marketing strategy.
Market research:
Most successful businesses today, if asked, would tell you that the secret to their success is mostly due to the fact that they have understood the importance of listening to their customers. On the other hand, schools often wrongly assume they know what their key constituents feel or need.
A Data-driven board should always task the head to create a “research agenda” and report the results to the board. This should be done in order to aid in strategic decision-making.
While these projects can encompass all aspects of school life, most of the others relate to marketing and communications in some way.
There are many other options that do not need to be so impersonal nor very expensive. Focus groups (or moderated parent meetings) are great for generating ideas, while surveys can quantify satisfaction or choices made by constituents and prospective visitors.
Board members should always remind the head of school of one basic principle, and that is to; “not start a project or ask a question unless you are prepared to act on the findings”.
Your school can conduct moderated parent meetings for high-level discussion and build and implement (by email or direct mail) basic surveys about communications or upcoming activities. For more complex needs like, image audits or demographic studies, the trustees will need to support the head in assessing the goals, Returns On Investment (ROI), and frequency. This is a classic case where your school may have to choose between using internal resources, with low costs but more limited capabilities, or outside consultants, which require an investment in return for their broader experience and research abilities.
Analytics:
Many schools have yet to realize or utilise the many powerful tools that they have at their disposal. Tools that they can use to understand and follow what is happening on their websites, their search engine content, emails and other social media platforms.
Many organisations continue to rely on intuition or habit for their selections of positioning, marketing channels, message frequency and even revenue collection. However, with the ever growing and rapidly evolving social media, competition and demographics, what worked in the past is definitely NOT a guarantee of future success.
The head of school must always be attuned to the dynamic marketing environment, making sure that he/she is prioritising data-driven thinking among the communications and marketing team!
Analytics however, does not just stop at tracking what web pages people visit and for how long, or what keywords they use in search, what topics interest them on social channels and in email or what paths they travel after clicking on an advertisement, (although these are also very important actions to carry out regularly). It also means understanding the reasons and implications of behavioral patterns and the best methods to translate your constituents’ actions and interests into more effective presentations.
In practical terms however, this could require a complete overhaul of any web pages with frequent exits, creating and updating pages for topics of interest, updating web copy to better accommodate search engine updates, changing keywords and themes, re-positioning landing pages reached from advertisements or engaging the community on different but relevant topics in social media.
Data Management and Marketing:
Companies have been using data-driven techniques, such as audience segmentation, targeted messaging, and large-scale trend analysis for years. Most companies have also grasped the need to integrate their databases with other key systems. Therefore, the ability to understand and optimise the use of data cuts across many crucial segments of independent schools. However, while schools have been very conscious of data for enrollment and budgeting, many still rely on anecdote and precedent in their strategic planning and resource allocation.
Here are some data-related areas where schools can learn from businesses:
1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM): The advent of systems such as Salesforce.com and Google Analytic, means that companies have become much more proficient at tracking basic customer activity, such as orders, conversations and requests.
They have features like “Chatter”, that expand the ability to capture more targeted information about customers and employees, such as personal interests and unique skills.
Your school can benefit greatly from collecting and sharing activity and knowledge, either from expanded capabilities offered by already existing and experienced database providers or new entrants.
2. Effective market segmentation of key current constituents: Schools can operate and communicate much better and with current relevance to all their constituents, when they understand the interests and characteristics of current students, parents, and alumni in particular.
3. Prospect identification: Take your current students and families, who represent your mission the most and model their characteristics, then search for those in your enrollment campaigns. The use of data-driven profiles can be used across not only academic, athletic, and economic criteria but also behavioral.
4. Demographic Trends. Marketing effectiveness and long term financial success, can be significantly improved by knowing the birth rate, socio-economic, as well as immigration trends. This can be done via geographic targeting and new services, courses or sports. For instance, try focusing on select boroughs, counties or countries for recruitment, or offering languages like Russian, Portuguese or Mandarin as part of your courses. It’s all about monitoring trends for specific targeting after all!
5. Database Integration: part two of this article will discuss the multiple platforms that many schools (just like businesses) have for customers, alumni, emails, web management and what trustees need to know about these databases and platforms as they relate to marketing and communications.
Stay tuned…!!
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