Simplify your admissions process to increase enquirers..
According to a report*, consumers are willing to pay a premium for brands that provide simple communications and experiences. Most interestingly for independent schools, the report found that….
Avoid a £500k fine on your School Website!
Get your School website sorted NOW!
On the 26th May, the new EU Cookie Law comes into effect. All EU website owners need to ensure they inform or get their visitors to ‘opt-in’ to their site, if they are collecting cookies.
Here’s a quick 101 guide to what it’s all about and what your school needs to do about it….
Telling school stories via Seth Goin
During my recent ‘hotseat’ for the NCSL’s ‘Leadership in independent schools’ course, I referenced Seth Godin. We were debating how you ‘brand’ your school, how you sell your school in your general communications and how you clearly put across your schools’ vision and values. I said that schools should ‘tell stories’, through all their marketing activities: their promotional materials, when prospective parents tour the school, during the presentation from the Head etc etc.
I then realised that perhaps the phrase ‘tell stories’ sounds like lying, or could be misunderstood if you hadn’t read any of Seth Godin’s books…..
(Source: 134marketing.co.uk)
May the Fourth be with you today.
Take time to vanquish the dark side of your marketing. Be a trooper and audit, research, plan, execute and evaluate. If you do need some Yoda like advice, get in touch (although I’m not small & green, wise I am in the ways of schools marketing!!!!!) www.134marketing.co.uk
Learning from Downton Abbey; is Carson using a telephone the same as independent schools using social media?
Downton Abbey has been a run-away success. I’ve obviously been working too hard as I’ve seemingly missed all the hype and the shows first time round. This weekend I rectified that wrong; I watched both series back to back. And to justify for such an indulgence I’ve got a few Downton Abbey tips for schools looking to improve their marketing.…..
Taking tips from coffee shops (not stealing, just ideas)
Costa coffee has been segmenting its stores into ‘recharge’ or ‘relax’ locations to provide enhanced customer experience. The premise is that some store locations are where you’d grab a coffee whilst on the run. Others are in places that you’d want to loiter for longer, enjoying a conversation and a coffee. This is all fairly obvious stuff. But they are adapting their stores to reflect their customers’ needs. For example in the recharge stores they are removing seating and increasing till space (to process customers more quickly). They are also, according to Marketing Week (29th Sept 2011), testing greeters in their busy stores.
Whilst we, as schools, can’t segment our offering as easily
Get your ducks in a row….. Tackle your schools internal marketing and improve your admissions conversions first, before searching for new customers. (Taken with GifBoom)
(Source: 134marketing.co.uk)
What independent schools can learn from ‘The Candle Problem’
Before you read this post, I urge you to watch the following video & have a read of this blog article. The video is a TED talk, that is only 18 minutes long. It’s worth it. I promise.
I’m not going to go over what Jeff Bullas has said, because he’s brilliant and I have no right to do so! But, when I watch stuff like this, or read great articles, I always sit back and think – so what? And that ‘so what’ is based in one narrow field. So what does this mean for independent schools?….
Everyone loves a quote. Better still they like a recommendation.
Have you got parent recommendations on your school website?
If not…why not?!
Thanks to a great picture originally posted by nevver:
Give your school marketing an ‘Innocent’ boost…
4 ways to learn from a successful brand and give your school marketing an ‘innocent’ boost…..
Innocent smoothies are outstanding. Their current “valentine’s smoothie’ campaign is just another, in a long line, of cracking marketing ideas that have been brilliantly executed. …
