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MARKETING Creating Authentic Marketing Messages and a Value Proposition to Build School Enrolment
For so many international schools, the economic reverberations of the health crisis have rapidly translated to enrolment and marketing challenge for Boards, owners and leadership.
This global event has propelled to centre stage something that was already a building problem for so many schools – weaknesses in the authenticity and impact of their marketing and marketing messages. While there has been increased recognition of the potential importance of marketing in schools, they still find it difficult to define and communicate points of difference in compelling and cogent ways to various audiences. A precondition to building enrolment is an authentic, cogent and compelling identity driven by marketing messaging that impacts and shapes the way people perceive the school.
A quick search of international school websites continues to suggest that creating authentic, differentiated marketing messages is beyond most schools. Straplines and slogans on websites (i.e., integrated into brand schemes), have become commonplace approaches to try to convey a distinctive school identity. In general, despite improvements in the public ‘look and feel’ of schools, real changes in identity are rare, illusionary--and in almost cases expensive!
So, a continued weakness in schools is the lack of influence and impact of marketing messages on parent choice and the authenticity (originality) of marketing messages. It is why so many schools have weak value or woolly propositions (USPs). We live in a world of fake news, rejection of logic, illusion and instantaneous sharing. Marketing messaging in reputable institutions like schools surely has to take all of that into account and do better!
And it’s not just problems with the actual marketing messages. Schools typically have far too many messages – they tend to be too inclusive and say something about almost everything in the hope that something will connect.
A narrow and deep set of messages explained in terms of actual benefit to the student/parent, why they are valuable and matter both in the short and long term, and proof that they are a reality across the student/ parent journey is a far more compelling narrative approach for school audiences. In this regard, we can learn one lesson from the corporate world – top brands are usually associated with a very small set of attributes (not more than 2 or 3) that achieve penetrative, attractive and enduring identities.
To impact on public perception and enrolment, school marketing must be more than ‘lots of activity’ pushing out similar messages that aim to connect with increasingly diverse audience preferences and expectations.
Marketing Messaging: Pitfalls to Avoid and the ‘To Do’ List For the foreseeable future, we think that the quality of marketing messaging in schools will be a tipping point and catalyst for market success or failure. How can schools effectively address the challenge they face in the search for the ‘right’ marketing messaging, especially in a time of serous enrolment pressure?
Our work with schools on marketing over three decades manifests in six crucial guidelines for action to review and enhance marketing messaging.
Messaging Pitfalls 1. Schools struggle to distinguish or differentiate themselves, nor do they explain compelling and cogent reasons to choose them (enrol) over other alternate schools. 2. A sameness (generic) in the way schools project themselves that does little to create a sustainable identity, or connect and resonate well with diverse audiences/expectations. Messaging To do List/Metrics Clear points of difference in messages, and or messages that may be common but are known to be highly valued by parents/ students (prospective, current and past). Marketing messages that are not generic (e.g., a current or possible future innovation or theme) to build a clear trajectory. Parents/students being able to consistently offer one or two words they would assign to the image of the school, words that are that are aligned with the actual espoused school identity.
3. A lack of messaging and understandable communication on differentiation at the classroom/ pedagogy level, so essential for effective and persuasive marketing messages.
4. Weak links between the School Vision (and or Mission) and the marketing messages.
5. Lack of connectivity in marketing messaging to specific audiences.
6. Do not over-rely on corporate models to build school identity. Credible high value education messages are what the market most wants here. More needs to be said about staff quality, teaching and pedagogy in marketing messaging. Illustrating authentic school-wide pedagogies, how they are of benefit--what is genuinely being done to enhance and monitor teaching quality and learning success. An inspiring and ambitious School Vision sets the scene for messages that can be marketed successfully. That is in demand everywhere in school communities! Minimising disconnect between what schools are saying (messaging) and the realities and consistency of the holistic parent/student journey is core to building reputation. Effective marketing messages must override slick mottos which often create cynicism, not an enhanced reputation in school communities.
A Framework for Action: Market Messaging Flowing from the above, schools need an organising framework to see where and how to best build a messaging narrative that is consistent and impactful. From our experience, a market messaging development action framework should span the below, working from left to right:
Positioning Statement (Identity) Marketing Messages (the what to market) Benefits of each Message (the ‘so what’) Best evidence that exemplifies/ supports for Messages Metrics for Messaging Impacts
Such a framework will take schools on a better path toward: • More precise marketing messaging definition, and explanation. • A narrative for the future identity of the school to align internal strengths/capabilities with external audience preferences. • Credibility in marketing messages/value proposition. • Formation of performance metrics to support whether or not market messaging truly impacts on perceptions of the School. The process of reviewing marketing messaging has a wider benefit and implication for school Boards in particular. Starting with the end goal in mind (a compelling and cogent set of reasons to choose your school), the process should inherently inform three big strategic issues:
Strategic Issue 1: How Should Your School Compete? Agreement on what basis (which messages and value proposition) your school can primarily engage to appeal and be seen as attractive.
Strategic Issue 2: Where to Compete – Which Audiences/Which Messages? In terms of where (what audiences or profiles), explicitly define the audiences the various messages are most likely to attract and the most appropriate marketing messages for each persona. This will assist in targeting and creating specific examples/proof points that would resonate with specific audiences.
Strategic Issue 3: How to Refine your Education Offer to Align to Marketing Messages? Almost invariably, our diagnosis of schools with market challenges is that the problem is partly a ‘product’ matter (what a school offers including services), and partly a messaging issue (how a school externalizes and communicates that offer). So, a messaging review is best when it is informative from the education offering perspective also.
In conclusion, crafting the right marketing messages continues to be an elusive problem for schools everywhere we look. In the times we now live in, the interrelated questions of what is ‘best’ to say and how ‘best’ to say it in marketing terms can no longer be considered merely prosaic for schools seeking to survive and thrive. Perhaps the biggest question of all for schools--how do we identify and promote impactful marketing messages to sustain--is not going away nor will it fix itself. Crafting marketing messaging in schools it is not merely an act of creativity or imagination. It requires a process that includes robust market analysis.
About the Author Dr. Stephen Holmes B Ed, MBA, MEd Admin, PhD is the Founder and Principal of The 5Rs Partnership (www.5rspartnership.com). He holds a doctorate in School Marketing and Reputation. Based in Singapore, The 5Rs Partnership is a global consultancy specifically for schools in strategy planning, marketing and market research, reputation management, and effective governance, established in 2004. http://5rspartnership.com/ school-specialists/.
Please contact Dr. Stephen Holmes at s.holmes@5rspartnership.com for further details.
Welcome New Individual Associate
Dr. Ann Wagner, Head of School Southbridge International School Cambodia
GOVERNANCE School Governance in the Age of Covid-19: How Effective Boards Ensure School Survival and Continued Success
By Ray Davis Senior Consultant, The 5Rs Partnership
There has been much speculation about the longer lasting outcomes of the remote learning challenges that schools across the globe have experienced as a result of Covid-19. The pandemic has brough unparalleled challenges but has also been a catalyst for some exciting thinking and invigorating ideas on the future of pedagogy and learning. Educators, school leaders and students have responded well and adapted very quickly to a new paradigm which has tested and challenged the traditional way of teaching and learning. Education systems are not known for initiating rapid changes, however the experience of adapting teaching and learning in response to the current pandemic has demonstrated that effective change can take place more rapidly than previously thought.
As educators look toward implementing new ways of teaching and learning it is also a time when school Boards can begin to identify what they have learned about effective governance during the Covid-19 crisis. Forward thinking Boards are now asking themselves how they might turn the current crisis into opportunities and how they might implement more effective ways of operating that will ensure continued sustainability and promote continuous school improvement. School Boards have grappled with a wide range of challenges that have necessitated rapid decision making, often in realms that they previously had never considered. Good governance and strong leadership have always been key to school success. For many schools during the present crisis good governance and leadership is now a necessity for survival not merely success.
Sound Governance during Crisis Situations:
In order to emerge in the best shape possible from the current world health crisis, school boards should ensure that they have implemented the majority, if not all, of the following 25 features of effective governance: • Having a positive mindset and taking the opportunity to be aspirational and ambitious. (Considering how the school may emerge from this challenge stronger, more engaged, and more capable than before). • Ensuring that there is a genuine trust in and among the Board and the school leadership and that the Head of School/Board partnership is functioning effectively. • Creating trust amongst all stakeholders through dialogue and actions and not just through public statements. Reaffirming the Head of School as the leader of the school community and ensuring that the respective roles, responsibilities and authority of leadership and governance are fully understood and acted upon Ensuring that all Board members are engaged in the decision making and not just the Board Chair and Head of School. Ensuring that all decisions are well-aligned with the school’s guiding statements and protect the interest of students. Creating the understanding that decisions taken during the crisis may affect the school well into the future; Creating operational practices that allow for agile decision making and strategic planning – (Many of the most successful organisations have moved to 90-day strategic planning and have reshaped Board committees and committee membership to bring in specific expertise to address particular challenges). Insisting on confidentiality of Board discussions and decisions and identifying who is responsible for communicating decisions to stakeholders– (usually the Head of School). Keeping the school community connected and engaged by having a well-developed and comprehensive communication policy to keep all stakeholders, families, students and staff informed in a timely manner; Having established policy and practice in relation to privacy and the disclosure of information; Ensuring that the Board understands the pressures that school leaders and staff have been under during the crisis and supporting them with their tasks as well as supporting their wellbeing. Reviewing and adapting strategic initiatives and their timelines; Having a predetermined proactive role with risk management and compliance requirements and making realistic assessments of potential outcomes. Advocating for and facilitating staff training to manage risk. Keeping the school community connected and engaged by having a well-developed and comprehensive communication policy to keep all stakeholders, families, students and staff, informed in a timely and considered manner; Having well established and effective links with external agencies – (health, law enforcement, local and national government
agencies, social service agencies, specialised professionals and embassies). Actively engaging in dialogue and sharing information with other schools and with educational associations. Shifting development priorities where necessary to ensure that the school has the technological capacity to provide engaging distance and remote learning. Ensuring financial stability through the consideration of new models of financial planning and management: • Establishing an early commitment to the issue of refunds to parents in areas such as tuition fees, transportation, catering,
Boarding, activities etc. • Establishing future fee levels based on data as well as objective market evidence. • Identifying alternative forms of income. • Developing sound models to predict future enrolment. • Reviewing and revising future contingency commitments.
Establishing a compensation philosophy and reviewing school leader and staff salaries to ensure the retention and recruitment of staff in uncertain times. Establishing a plan to retain school leaders: Ensuring that the Head of School and senior leaders feel valued by the Board and developing a long-term succession plan for school leadership. Recognising that the pandemic has brought another dimension to the management of well-being and ensuring that strategies are implemented to manage student and staff self-care, emotional well-being and mental health. Ensuring that appropriate protocols are in place to ensure the safeguarding of students engaged in remote learning. Ensuring that appropriate support is provided for the individual needs of students.
Questions Boards should consider as schools begin to re-open to students:
As schools begin to reopen their doors to students it now makes sense for Boards to spend some time over the coming months reflecting upon what they have learned from the experiences of responding to the Covid-19 crisis. Some useful questions for Boards to reflect upon include: • How prepared were we to face the immense challenges of such a pandemic? • Did we have the organisational structure necessary to review the challenges faced and make appropriate decisions in a timely manner? • Did we have the necessary data that was required to inform our decision making Welcome New EARCOS School Springboard International Bilingual School Dr. Xiaomin(Simon) Chen, Head of School http://www.sibs.com.cn/ Did we have a communication policy that satisfactorily kept stakeholders informed? Did we have the necessary external links with experts and professional bodies to assist us in our decision making? To what extent were our risk management protocols effective in dealing with the challenges faced? Did we have a suitably nimble and agile approach to implementing our strategy? To what extent are we now prepared to meet the challenges of a future crisis? If we could go back in time, what would we have done differently?
Looking to the future, it will be necessary for Boards to consider these three questions:
Are we able to accurately gauge the effect of the actions taken over the past months on the school’s reputation? Do we have a suitably effective and renewed plan for marketing to ensure the sustainability of enrolment? Are we able to accurately assess the most appropriate level of tuition fees and ancillary fees for the coming and successive school years in order to ensure the financial stability of the school whilst maintaining its affordability for parents?
In conclusion, schools that emerge from the current health crisis in a strong position will do so because of sound governance and strong and informed leadership. The attributes necessary to govern well during the risks and uncertainties of a crisis have been outlined above. It is now time for Boards to take the opportunity to reflect upon their response to the crisis and to develop governance action plans that not only enable them to strengthen the effectiveness of their governance responsibilities but enable them to become more proactive in successfully meeting the unknown challenges that lay ahead.
About the Author Ray Davis is currently the Senior Consultant with The 5Rs Partnership (www.5RsPartnership.com) and is based in Melbourne, Australia. He has been a Head of School in three international schools and a national school in the UK and is the former Director of School Evaluation with the Council of International Schools (CIS). The 5Rs Partnership is a global consultancy specifically for schools in strategy planning, marketing and market research, reputation management, and governance, established in 2004.
Please contact Ray Davis at r.davis@5rspartnership.com for further in-
formation on governance support. Yantai Huasheng International School Samuel Goh, Head of School http://www.yhischina.com
