134 Marketing Blog

Simplify your admissions process to increase enquirers..

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 +0100

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….

88% of consumers were more likely to recommend a brand because it makes their customer experience simple.

We know that parents find the process of choosing independent education stressful – so how much does your school do to help reduce this stress and make the customer experience simple?

Spend time to review your admissions process – what are the points that could be confusing to parents & give some thought as to how you could simplify them, for example the:

the language you use:
(if you have a high percentage of first time buyers this is particulary important) Do parents know what a ‘Registrar’ is? Do you have unusual names for your year groups? What about your terms? Consider that not everyone has come across words such as ‘Michealmas’ before. And there is that old addage ‘if you have to ask you can’t afford it’: I’ve certainly come across parents who could afford independent education but simply felt alientated by it.
timings you set:
Are your prospective parents absolutely clear what the process is to get into your school? Can they explain it to their friends? Do you, or could you produce a list that outlines the ‘5 steps to join your school’, which explains it and put dates next to the key events?
information you provide (e.g. fees)
Making your fees difficult to find, hard to read or unhelpful to work out the actual TOTAL cost your education is just unfair and obstructive to parents. Again, lets go back to the old addage ‘if you have to ask you can’t afford it’. Well, if you take this attitude you are potentially missing out, not only on parents (or grandparents) who actually can afford the fees, but also on potentially brilliant bursary or scholarship pupils. Most parents who make the choice to invest in independent educuation do so with their fixed income i.e. their current salary. They need to understand what the monthly, termly or yearly cost will be, in order to budget for this outlay. How can they do this, when your school has helpfully separated everything out into different costs (e.g. lunch, exam costs) ?! I’ve spoken to parents who have invested a lot of time setting up spreadsheets working out the actually cost of education both now and in the future (modelling for various fee increases over time). At one school, I worked closely with the Bursar to reduce the number of ‘extra costs’ to provide clarity for our ‘first time buyer’ parents. Did it work? It’s obviously difficult to work out how much of an impact this specific activity had, but many parents did mention that they liked our ‘simple’ approach and our admissions enquiries and conversions went up year on year.
forms needed to be completed (online & offline)
Quite simply: test your forms. Watch people fill them in and ask them to talk you through it. Do you leave enough space for them to complete them (very annoying if not)? Do you have separate forms that are tailored to different year groups so that parents don’t have to wade through questions they don’t need to answer?
exam or entry processes
Prospective parents and pupils often worry about exams: so communicate, communicate, communicate! Tell them what will happen, explain to them, help them through it to avoid worry. And if your school does this better than your competitors, then might parents begin to think that perhaps your pastoral care is better too?!

So, if you can spend time on simplifying your admission, according to this survey, your School could increase the amount of recommendations it receives. This really is ‘free’ schools marketing - it only costs your time to work through and rewrite things and yet potentially has a good return. Great news for independent schools that have small marketing budgets!

Louise aka 134marketing provides pratical and tactical marketing advice to independent schools. If you want to find out a bit more about me visit my website, follow me on twitter or go mad and google+ me (I’m practicising on it at the mo - so there’s not much on it if I’m honest!!!

*(Marketing Week Magazine published the results of this report, by Seigel+Gale, To read the full article on the Marketing Week Website, click here)

Avoid a £500k fine on your School Website!

Mon, 14 May 2012 21:17:00 +0100

Get your School website sorted NOW!

On the 26^th 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….

Start here for a basic overview that tells you everything:

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/new-cookie-law-what-you-need-to-know/3026836.article

Here is the official information:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx

And here is some information about how to interpret the law for your site (what I’ve used, rightly or wrongly!):

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2012/04/27/the-cookie-law-clarity-at-last-but-not-from-the-ico/

Now let me get one thing straight – I am not an internet guru – nor do I have a ‘set’ answer on how your school should action this information. It depends on your website and what you do on it (e.g. Do you use Google Analytics? Do you have a school shop on your site for uniform? Do you have adverts on your site? Do you have a login area?)

But I would suggest that doing nothing is NOT really an option!

If you website provider has not already informed you of this change, I would firstly challenge them for not providing you with this information! If they host your site, but haven’t kept you up-to-date with this major change I wouldn’t be impressed with their knowledge, capabilities or perhaps their concern for your business. (Sorry if this sounds harsh but I’m cross on behalf of many of the schools I work with who were not informed, until I let them all know!)

Here’s what I suggest:

1. I would ask your web provider what they recommend, what they are doing for their own site and whether they can provide you with guidance or a solution (and what, if at all, this cost will be)

2. Ask your association (ISA, HMC, GSA, IAPS, ISBA etc) what they recommend.

3. Take a look at other sites, to see how they have tackled it…
- Have a look at other school websites and what they have they done?

- Have a look at commercial websites to see how they have approached it e.g. John Lewis’ information page http://www.johnlewis.com/Help/Help.aspx?HelpId=15

Or BT’s pop up box that comes up once (stating that they’ve opted you in) http://www.bt.com/

(I’m not saying these are perfect - I just chose two well-known commercial companies that have different approaches)

6. Obviously if you run your own site or have your own content management system, you could read the above advice guides and do it yourself: but just make sure you do it before the 26^th May!

For my 134marketing website, we’ve added a “Privacy & Cookies” page as I think I’m only using ‘performance cookies’. Have a look here www.134marketing.co.uk But I will be monitoring the enforcement of the Cookie Law and make sure that I’ve interpreted this correctly….

If I do get any further information about this directive, I’ll be posting it up on twitter and letting client schools know. If you don’t ‘do’ twitter you can email me and I’ll just put you onto my ‘helpful marketing info’ email that I send out occasionally. Just email me on louise@134marketing.co.uk and I’ll ‘cc’ you into it!

I hope this helps and let me just re-iterate - I’m not a technical internet/web ‘expert’, but I do know schools (how busy they are and perhaps not able to keep up with changes like this!) and I know about marketing (which obviously includes digital marketing). So this was meant to be a helpful prompt or guide: I’m not legally responsible for advising you in this change of law!!!!

Telling school stories via Seth Goin

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:30:00 +0100

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…..

So here’s my explanation the phrase ‘tell stories’ via an extremely concise introduction to Seth Godin:

1. Seth Godin is a marketing guru/legend/officiado. Yes, he is a commercial marketer, but what he has to say is ‘marketing best practice’ so it all applies to schools too.

2. He has written numerous books; which are all very interesting and accessible to read. My recommendations for newcomers to the world of Seth would be to start with: ‘All Marketers are liars/tell stories’ and then to read one of his many others including: ‘Meatball Sundae” ‘Purple Cow’ and ‘Permission Marketing’.

3. In “All Marketers are liars/tell stories” he states very clearly that “either you’re going to tell stories that spread, or you will become irrelevant”. He outlines that your story should be compelling, true, make an exceptional promise, be subtle and trusted, appeal to our senses (and I’d add our ‘gut instincts’) and should be targeted to a small audience (who then spread the story for you). In the first chapter he outlines the questions he’d like you to ask yourselves: “what’s your story?”, “will the people who need to hear this story believe it”, and “is it true?”
So why not ask yourselves these three simple questions about your School at your next management or marketing meeting?

4. Seth has also recently moved into discussing education. He has a ‘manefesto’ (or short book) that is free to download http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams This is a really interesting and provocative discussion on the foundation of education and its future. I think it’s interesting for schools to just be able to discuss or answer the (seemingly) simple question: “what are you doing to fuel my kids dreams?” And how is this answer different to your competitors, either fee paying or private?

As well as his books, I read his blog, which gives little daily tips to keep you thinking (http://sethgodin.typepad.com) Or if you prefer, follow me on Twitter where I often repost his articles that are interesting, but with school slant on them: #134marketing

Or if you are more of a visual learner - watch Seth in action on one of his numerous TED talks like this one: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread.html

May the Fourth be with you today. Take time to vanquish the...

Fri, 04 May 2012 09:31:21 +0100

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?

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:23:00 +0100

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.…..

Remember the scene where Carson is testing the new telephone out? He’s practicing his answer, in his distinct pompous style, when he gets ‘caught out’ by the operator answering him. It’s amazing to think that people were nervous of the telephone. That they felt they needed to practice using it. But for many schools it’s exactly the same for social media.

I’m not an advocate of social media just for the sake of it, or because everyone’s doing it. Just in the same way that the telephone has it’s place in communications; sometimes things are better done face to face, or by letter.

Schools need to learn about social media, understand what opportunities it presents (be it in the classroom or in the marketing department). To do this, they need to give it a good bit of ‘Carson-style’ testing. Pick it up. Use it in a personal capacity in the comfort and privacy of their own office. Learn to understand it. Once they are familiar with it, they will then recognise what parts of it could be useful for their particular circumstances and they can begin to plan their activities.

But first things first, just concentrate on taking a pompous ‘Carson-style’ breath and speaking into the receiver.

I’ve got a few more Downton Tips coming next week - look out for them!!!

Taking tips from coffee shops (not stealing, just ideas)

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:45:00 +0000

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 (unless of course you run more than one school), we can segment our market, parents and events. Why not take a sip out Costa’s prosperous cup and consider tailoring your events in a similar way to their store personalisation:

Do you segment your open events into different groups of parents and pupils (e.g. according to year of entry or age of entry) to ensure the messages you are giving them is clear and memorable?
Have you tried segmenting your admissions events to have a different feel or tone? For example; an information event will have a very different tone or experience than an informal first look around.
Do you segment the outcomes you want for your events? For example with pupil taster days, what do you want the students to go home and tell their parents? And will this differ at different events during their admissions stage?

Louise aka 134marketing provides pratical and tactical marketing advice to independent schools. If you want to find out a bit more about me visit my website, follow me on twitter or go mad and google+ me (it’s my new shiny toy - not much on it if I’m honest!!!)

Get your ducks in a row….. Tackle your schools internal...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:23:00 +0000

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)

What independent schools can learn from 'The Candle Problem'

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:23:00 +0000

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?….

If people are more likely to do something well because it matters or is important to them (rather than for rewards or sanctions) then getting a good system of INSET/training sessions that encourage teachers and school staff to understand and buy into school marketing is VITAL. They need to clearly get why it’s important and actively motivate them to take it into their hearts, their minds and their forthcoming actions. So how often do you do marketing INSETS for your school?
If management is all about staff complying, but giving people autonomy encourages them to work better/more creatively, then how does your school facilitate this? Can you give your school staff time or freedom to work on developing the education on offer or improving the marketing approaches? Ok 20% of your staff time, like Google, is probably not tenable. But how could you schedule in some regular time to give them the autonomy to be creative and to improve what your school is doing
Do you know what is your ‘candle problem’? Is it to recruit more pupils? Is it to improve family satisfaction? To increase educational standards? Are you clear on this? Are all your staff/governors? And have you got plans in place for how you can get the school community to think creatively about to tackle your ‘candle problem’.

Louise aka 134marketing provides pratical and tactical marketing advice to independent schools. If you want to find out a bit more about me visit my website, follow me on twitter or go mad and google+ me (it’s my new shiny toy - not much on it if I’m honest!!!)

Everyone loves a quote. Better still they like a...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:00:06 +0000

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:

Rubbish

From: http://arrestedmotion.com/2012/01/streets-world-roundup-jan-23-jan-29/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=streets-world-roundup-jan-23-jan-29

Give your school marketing an 'Innocent' boost...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:11:00 +0000

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. …

1. They are adding value to the customer/loyal follower. Something that doesn’t cost anything, to either party. It’s a free download to print out your valentine message onto one of their smoothie bottles.

2. It’s fun. And that is the nub of their brand. Who wouldn’t have fun making their own label to give to a loved one?

3. It’s engaging. Innocent give their customers the tools to have fun. They then have fun with it themselves (they show you examples the guys have come up with in the office). Who cares if this is all a very cleverly constructed marketing machine – I buy into it and I’m usually exceptionally cynical about most things. They encourage their followers to share their labels on Twitter. There feed is always compulsive reading!

4. It’s makes good business sense. There is no point printing off a label without having a bottle to put it on. So the lovers have to go and buy an innocent smoothie. Kerching. And imagine if you were asked out, or to be married on a smoothie bottle – it would engender quite strong customer loyalty!

And this is just another one of their competitions, conversations and call-to-actions. Brilliantly set behind a tone of friendly, healthy fun.

So what could we as schools marketing experts learn from this? Well…

1. How do your school add value to your potential, current and ex parents/parents/staff?

2. Which of your marketing activities, events or literature can you say, hand-on-heart, epitomise your brand? And does this come first when you’re planning your activities?

3. Do you engage with parents/pupils/staff/community? And when I say engage, I mean have a two-way communication. When your school actually takes part too? Answer this question: if you had a marketing activity like Innocent’s label maker, how many of your staff would take part? Willingly?! Without being prompted?! I’m guessing that at Innocent, their staff would take part because they wanted to. And that’s probably because they always place marketing at the centre of what they are doing and probably recruit and train people who are open to it. Does your school?

4. Do your admissions and marketing team, as well as your governors, senior management team and staff, understand the business part of your school? I don’t mean that your teachers need to focus on this or have an MBA, but there does need to be a general understanding that admissions is a vital part of the school. Here’s another tester question: if you ask to put an additional open event on, what is the response? Is it a quick succession of complaints? Or an acceptance that this is obviously needed to secure the long-term financial viability of the school (and with it, their department’s resources).

There’s a lot we can all learn from Innocent. I’ll no doubt be covering other aspects of their marketing in a future blog….

Louise aka 134marketing provides pratical and tactical marketing advice to independent schools. If you want to find out a bit more about me visit my website, follow me on twitter or go mad and google+ me (it’s my new shiny toy - not much on it if I’m honest!!!)

Sweat the small stuff…. becuase this is the stuff that...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Sweat the small stuff…. becuase this is the stuff that matters to parents.

And I’d say that the small stuff to focus on is your communications with parents. What you tell them about the education their child is benefiting from, how you tell them, when you tell them, how often you tell them etc etc….

Ok - so maybe it’s not that ‘small’ but if you break it down to each letter, email or text - then it is the small stuff!!

Thanks to the this rather cool picture, originally posted by nevver:

Sweat the Small Stuff

It’s ‘snow’ joke how far communications have come…

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:34:00 +0000

How quickly we forget. When snow used to descend upon England, ALL PARENTS would be glued to the local radio station. Usually, for the first time since the last snow we had, scrabbling to pick up the elusive signal (remember it’s analogue!). Listening attentively for the scrolling new-reel of which schools were open and which were closed.

Imagine that – having to actively go and find the information out for yourselves? Rather than it being… delivered to you personally via text, email, twitter or any of the other social networks. Or it not being a simple ‘click’ away on the school website, helpfully updated by one of the teachers, at home probably, via a content management system.

We have so many blooming amazing communication systems and tools available to us now, with more being added every day it seems.

All of which should be helping and benefiting parents – to know what is going on at their school, to feel involved and to keep them up to date. It’s just up to us to work out the best ways of doing this for our school and for our parents (there isn’t a one size fits all).

Especially as we ALL quickly forget about cramming round the ‘wireless’. Everyone’s expectations have risen- independent school parents want and expect more communication. So please don’t assume just because you’ve got the tools in place that you are ‘done’.

Let’s take snow as an example:

Do parents know how they can / will be informed about school closures?
It’s all very well putting it up on Twitter or Facebook, but if your parents aren’t using these tools, then they won’t be aware of the situation or your efforts to tell them!
Have you communicated to parents that the reason you use Twitter/Facebook is to keep them informed of ‘snow’ or other emergencies? (It might drive interest/sign ups)
I assume you’ve got answer phone messages, text messaging, emails, urgent news sections of your website sorted and use these to inform parents?! But have you got all the access codes / information of how to do this at your home so that you can still do it even if you can’t get out of the house?!
What about those parents who choose not to be online or have a mobile – do you have a list of those parents who need to be contacted by telephone if there is an emergency?
Do you ask your parents after snow closures/potential closures how they thought the school did in terms of communicating with them? How they could improve?

And on a more positive note… Remember to take some lovely snow pictures, if you don’t, you’ll be kicking yourself later on in the year when you’re designing the school Christmas card!

P.s if you haven’t got snow in your neck of the woods - sorry if this isn’t pertinant for you today - but hey outside my window I’ve got a great dusting!!

Louise aka 134marketing provides pratical and tactical marketing advice to independent schools. If you want to find out a bit more about me visit my website, follow me on twitter or go mad and google+ me (it’s my new shiny toy - not much on it if I’m honest!!!)

Peas, polar bears and marketing to parents….

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:04:00 +0000

What’s a polar bear and some frozen food got to do with schools’ marketing?

Not much on the surface. But if you scratch away at the ice you can actually relate the recent shift in marketing activities by frozen food brand ‘Birds Eye’ back to the world of independent schools marketing. Because parents don’t just buy education. They also buy peas. And soft drinks/alcohol/cars/nappies/trainers and everything else that can or needs to be bought….

Marketing Week has this week covered the ‘breaking news’ (read in an ironic fashion please) that Birds Eye is going to shift its marketing to ‘occasion-based’ rather than ‘product focused’. This in itself is not that interesting, but the trend behind it does have some implications for schools.

According to Marketing Week, the company “identified [that] consumers were responding best to products when they had a clear idea of the meal occasion and what to cook the products with”.

The way I interpret this report is that people like to be told what to do; it makes decision-making easier, saves time, effort and brainpower.

Whilst this may work for peas or frozen meals, does it work with less transactional purchases e.g. education?

I think so.

I’ve always said that schools need to hold their parents’ hands through the process of choosing the right school for their children. It can be a life-changing decision, for both parents and pupils! At best it can be stressful making sure you’ve gone through the process correctly and successfully. At worst it can be a daunting experience, especially for first-time buyers who feel out of their comfort zone and don’t know what to expect.

So what does your school do to help parents save time, effort and brainpower?

What do you put in place to make their decision-making easier?
Have could you improve your events, marketing materials, admissions process and online presence = all with the goal of ‘helping parents to make a decision’?

Here’s what I would suggest:

Firstly, I’d suggest you need to audit what you currently do (what do you do that currently helps parents to feel less daunted or to make the right decision?)
Then I’d ask parents who have just been through the process of choosing your school (new joiners) how helpful they thought you were and how you compared to your competitors (focus groups or online survey).
Finally, I’d have a brainstorm of how you could use all the information you’ve collected to improve your marketing activities.

I told you that peas and polar bears had some relevance didn’t I !!

Louise aka 134marketing provides pratical and tactical marketing advice to independent schools. If you want to find out a bit more about me visit my website, follow me on twitter or go mad and google+ me (it’s my new shiny toy - not much on it if I’m honest!!!)

Small things can make a big impact. When I was looking to buy a...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:14:12 +0000

Small things can make a big impact.

When I was looking to buy a greenhouse, I ordered a catalogue off the internet. It came the next day with a tea-bag attached to the letter and instructions to ‘sit down and have a cuppa’ whilst browsing through it. Lovely idea - especially when the average purchase value must be quite high.

I’ve just seen these biscuits & loved them. Yes, because I enjoy baking and eating, but also because they are memorable. Imagine going to an open day and instead of being offered a packet biscuit getting one of these biscuits instead?! They’d even be fun for the pupils to make, or to design a school motto ‘tag’.

I’m off to raid the biscuit jar!

(found on http://thisisnthappiness.com/post/16335185440/teabag-cookies, original post http://frostmeblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/teabags.html)

Blue monday; any relevance for schools?!

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:59:33 +0000

Ben Goldacre, of ‘Bad Science’ fame, clearly demonstrates that ‘Blue Monday’ is “a corporate PR story, a piece of churnalism invented in 2004 to sell holidays for Sky Travel, and recycled by other companies since then” (read the full article here)

But whether or not you believe that blue monday has any statistical merit, it has become a part of our cultural calendar. And as with all of our marketing efforts, schools should try to be as ‘timely’ as possible…

There is a seasonality to independent school marketing. Open day season is often in the Autumn Term. A lot of entrance exams are held in early spring term. In fact there are a good number of schools that I’m currently working with that have their entrance exams around now. None of them are on ‘blue monday’, but they are at the end of January.

If we consider that ‘blue monday’ can be boiled down to the following formula (according to Wikipedia):

Where weather=W, debt=d, time since Christmas=T, time since failing our new year’s resolutions=Q, low motivational levels=M and the feeling of a need to take action=N_a.

Regardless of whether it is statistically viable; let’s just focus on the sentiment: the end of January is usually pretty rubbish for people. Their wallets feel light, the weather isn’t great and motivation can be low. Is this really the right time to be holding an entrance exam?! When families have to choose to make that financial commitment, or to get to the event via icy roads?

Don’t fear, I’m not telling you to change your admissions dates! I’m just using the example of ‘blue monday’ to encourage you, as marketing and admissions people in independent schools, to consider what might be going through your prospective parents minds. And what could you do to ‘overcome’ these possible feelings?

W= weather: Hot chocolate for the pupils, to warm them up? Some great coffee and a bacon sandwich or coissant for the parents dropping their children off?
M= motivation: your best pupils on hand to talk with families to show what the ‘finished product’ is at your school (motivation to want to choose your school)
D= debt: A team of financial advisers for fee assistance advice on hand to talk to parents?
W= weather: Well salted roads around the school, clear and easy parking and good directions?

For more random / helpful hints on marketing and admissions for independent schools, follow me on twitter #134marketing.

imaginary friends... your new best marketing tool?

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:17:00 +0000

Could developing an imaginary friend be your new best marketing tool? My son has had an imaginary friend called ‘tu-tu’ since he could talk… Given that he’s only 4 years old, he’s had this fella by his side for half of his life. He’s a constant companion who gets him out of trouble; ‘mummy – it wasn’t me – it was tu-tu’, who asks the questions he dare not; ‘tu-tu would really like another scoop of ice cream’, as well as being his comedy vehicle, comfort blanket and companion when he’s playing by himself.

It’s a complex companionship, which I don’t deny him. In fact, we’ve welcomed him into the family (an imaginary second child is much better than the real thing, in my opinion). But as ever, my little man has taught me something. Having someone (however imaginary) to talk to, or bounce ideas off, is a really useful asset.

I have been giving schools candid advice on how to improve their marketing and admissions for about 10 years now. I know what works strategically and tactically. I can work with Governors, Heads, Teachers and School Secretaries (i.e. I can find a way of talking to all different types of people and help them out). And yet, when I find myself tackling my own business; its marketing or promotion, I find it hideously embarrassing and I shy away from it. I’ve been lucky enough to just work off referrals. Writing my own web copy, or indeed starting this blog, has been a painful experience in terms of the amount of time & wasted energy I’ve put into them (writing and rejecting a lot of text!). I’m just not that big a fan of blowing my own trumpet, I find it cringy and embarrassing.

And yet, in a lot of independent schools I visit, I often advise them to be proud of what they are doing, shout about their achievements and to remind parents why or how they are satisfied. Great things often get bypassed. The press are told too late or parents are left to ‘connect the dots’ about how good they really are.

So, I’ve developed a technique for myself that I’ve been telling my school clients too; create an imaginary friend and use them when writing your promotional materials, online blogs or tweets.

Luckily, I’ve found out I’m not totally mad in doing this; as it appears others do it to! Much more so – have a read of this great copyblogger article, which outlines how to really develop the persona of your imaginary copy friend: http://www.copyblogger.com/marketing-personas/

And no, before you ask; my imaginary friend isn’t ‘tu-tu’. My son wouldn’t share him.

Communication, communication, communication

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:52:00 +0000

When my life as a parent collides with that of a schools marketing professional I find it irritatingly painful…My husband says I need to, quote, ‘back off’. But I can’t.

So the highs and lows of this week were:

A great follow up call from a prospective school – it’s refreshing to see this actually done. Well, to be done at all really. They wanted to know if I was still interested in a place for my son. When I said ‘no’, they asked if I wanted to be kept on the list for entry at a later point. I said ‘yes’, as this is definitely an option. If I were to be the critical schools marketing person, I’d say they failed on a couple of points (they didn’t ask what had prompted my decision or if I needed any further information to change my mind– i.e. they just accepted the ‘no’ when actually I am still open to persuasion!) But as a parent, I felt they had looked after my interests.
The lowpoint was what I’ll call ’Christmas Party cock-up with shiny decorations on’. WHEN will schools and nursery’s realise that you need clear information in order for your family to function effectively. (Basic stuff about telling us times, dates, what we are required to bring etc etc) That communication, communication, communication is KEY! And more than this , something FAR more damaging…..if parents feel communication is poor; they begin to question the standard of care and education. Because if you can’t communicate to us – how on earth do you communicate to, and understand the needs of my child? And, I’m so furious that I’ve already ranted to several people; this is not good word-of-mouth.

So what’s the upshot?
My current nursery irritates me so much I plan to get in touch with the one I’ve turned down. My husband won’t be happy!

School marketing advent calendar - Day 12 - wrapping presents

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:23:00 +0000

With less than two weeks to go to the big day, and with most schools already, or just about to, break up, this the last day of our Schools Marketing Advent Calendar. (Yes, I know it’s the 14^th but we lost a couple of days because of topical issues taking over!) The final advent calendar topic is about wrapping presents and how it symbolizes your school’s marketing….

I have used this analogy for some time; but it seems fitting to mention it at Christmas time.

Buying education is a fairly unique process. In many ways it is incomparable to other large investments. Parents, or Grandparents, buy the education for their children. But they don’t consume it. They don’t go to classes, gain knowledge or skills, nor do they (usually) get to use the facilities.

When people buy houses or cars they get to use them and enjoy them. Daily. They can walk around their home and appreciate why they are paying the mortgage. Or enjoy driving their car and see the benefit when the monthly payment plan comes out of their bank.

Not so with independent education. They only get to consume the packaging – i.e. the communication they receive from the School about their child’s education. They also get to take part in some events too – but again, this is just packaging.

So – if you think of your school as a present; the children get the benefit of the gift (both daily whilst they are at school and long into the future); but the parents only get the wrapping.

So how good is your wrapping?! How much time, care and attention do you give it?

Parental communications = how satisfied are they with this vital part of school life? Do you really know? Do you ask them regularly through research? And have you actioned improvements (and told your parents you’ve done it?!)
Parent teacher/fundraising groups – are they an active and inclusive part of school life? Are they and can they be ambassadors for your School? How hard do you work / listen to them to keep them satisfied?
Parent events = do you ensure they are brilliant? Do they embody your brand values? (if you haven’t already, check out my other post on this) Do you ask parents what they think and action changes?

Why not take the Christmas break to consider how good your wrapping is and perhaps plan what research you need to undertake in 2012 to find out how you could add some bows to it.

If you’d like any help thinking this through, just get in touch for a chat. I’d be happy to help out!

I hope you’ve really enjoyed the independent schools marketing advent calendar - if you haven’t read the other 13 posts - start at the beginning by clicking here.

Have a great Christmas!

School marketing advent calendar - Day 11 - the Queens' Speech

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:43:00 +0000

The Queens’ Speech is a regular part of Christmas Day. It happens every year without fail and for some it is an integral part of their day. Despite never having actually watched one, it’s made it into our Marketing Advent Calendar for Independent Schools. Why?! Well it’s not the speech so much, but more about the Queen and how you can ‘use’ her to improve your admissions….

If any of you have been lucky enough to have had a visit from Royalty, to open a new facility or attend an event, you’ll know just how much effort it is! There is a huge list of requirements that are sent through; protocol that must be adhered to during your event. It takes planning and great effort.

Another side effect of hosting a Royal Visit is that the School is usually ‘spruced up’. I mean cleaned up and improved – to ensure it looks at its very best. When I was working in a school during a Royal Visit, I found it to be a GREAT opportunity to finally push through all the changes we wanted to improve the look of the School. (As well as creating a lovely new visitors bathroom, meaning parents didn’t have to use the girls’ toilet block, we also repainted areas, mounted girls photography and artwork to brighten corridors etc).

So why not create your own ‘Royal Visit’? Plan this into your calendar of activities – to review the School and implement changes that would be fit for a Royal !

I’m certainly not saying that improvements should only be done for a Royal Visitor – I strongly believe that the School should look great every single day for current parents and pupils. However, sometimes you need to ringfence the time to step back and look objectively at your School and invest the time & money into improving how it appears.

If you missed the previous Advent Calendar posts:

The first day of our Marketing Advent Calendar was a suggestion of how to approach your admissions - just like an advent calendar!

Then we went on to discussCarol Singing, the colour of Christmas & your brand, presents, snow & being thankful

There’ll be another one final calendar door to open up tomorrow – and 12 days in total…by the middle of the month most of you will have broken up anyway ….

So follow me on twitter to get a reminder: #134marketing

If you like these seasonal blogs, comment on them, retweet them or generally give me some feedback (is there anyone actually out there?!) I’ll send you the Christmas Duck representing that day…. Thanks!

School marketing advent calendar - Day 10- Christmas Trees & Open Days!

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:03:00 +0000

Today I’m going to buy a Christmas Tree. There’s a local farm that sells them close by. They open up their barn, fill it to the rafters with trees and give you mulled wine & minced pies to quaff whilst you choose….

They’ve grown the trees themselves; they have cut each one down. The kids helping out are all friends of the family & are having a ball helping you out (sqeezing 6ft trees into a Mini – seriously!)

It’s a great family atmosphere and it feels like the right place to go and buy our tree. We go every year. And yes it does cost us a little bit more than if we went to a commercial chain.

But we GET so much more. It’s an experience that we look forward to. We don’t just get a tree. For us, going to get the tree marks the beginning of Christmas.

Would you say your admissions events are something to go through before School starts, or is it part of your School experience? Do you really sit down and consider the ‘experience’ parents and pupils will have at your open events? I don’t just mean the logistics (i.e. timings, refreshments, availability of tour guides and teachers to talk to). I mean the things that elevate from being just an Open Day, to being an experience parents and pupils want to share with others?

My rule of thumb for a large-scale open event is that pupils should actively try, or participate in at least a couple of activities. Which allows parents to see them ‘in-situ’ and increases ‘pester power’. And ideally they should take something home with them too, preferably something they’ve made or done during the event. This should help to make your open day more of an experience and less of standard event.

If you missed the previous Advent Calendar posts:

The first day of our Marketing Advent Calendar was a suggestion of how to approach your admissions - just like an advent calendar!

The second day we covered Carol Singing - on and off line!

The third day we discussed the colour of Christmas & your brand

The fourth & fifth day we discussed presents.

And on the 6th day we covered snow!

On the 7th day we discussed being thankful

There’ll be another one tomorrow – and 12 days in total…by the middle of the month most of you will have broken up anyway ….

So follow me on twitter to get a reminder: #134marketing