Recruitment, reputation & revenue: real world solutions for your school marketing
Justin Smith, owner of Chameleon Consultancy and Training Limited, has 20 years’ experience working in secondary schools throughout Norfolk and Suffolk. Here, he shares his advice and tips on how to market your school efficiently using everything from student input to following the lead on successful charity fundraisers.
One expert described marketing in schools as ‘learning about people’s perceptions and needs and then acting on that to communicate the school’s core purpose and values, both to the school community and to those outside’.
This is an important point and something that must be at the heart of any campaign.
All schools will have many stakeholders, from governors to sponsors and supporters, but we won’t succeed if we don’t include those that are at the heart of our schools and seek to ascertain why we are marketing our school in the first place.
Why should we market our schools?
When defining our marketing activity, a purpose and why we should market our school has to be established. Once those questions are answered, a robust plan can start to be put into place.
Reasons could be anything from increasing pupil admissions, building reputation, recruiting staff, creating effective communication and communicating core values.
These elements can then be built into a marketing plan, allowing you to identify priorities, acknowledge vulnerabilities, highlight threats and exploit your strengths. A straightforward but honest SWOT analysis can be useful here.
Establishing your identity
In a recent survey on what parents look for when choosing a school, ethos, communication and effectiveness of school leadership surprisingly rated higher than a strong Ofsted rating. This is important to note when considering your unique selling point (USP) and defining your brand and identity.
Looking at the whole experience you offer - the emotional responses your school elicits and the way others feel about your school, its staff and pupils - will create a powerful message and will really set you apart.
Working with your key stakeholders to decide and then promote your core values
It’s so important that your students and staff are involved in the process of deciding your core values. Once you’ve taken onboard their suggestions, ensure they’re clearly communicated in the classroom, in the corridors and outside your school community.
Asking questions such as how they want to define their school and what makes it unique is a good way to start. What makes this approach so effective is that the core values created will have come from those who will benefit the most, and therefore hold real value and meaning.
It’s also worth considering recruiting student marketing ambassadors. This involves working with young people to hone their skills in journalism and photography to promote the school’s core values via display boards, website, social media, newsletters and your prospectus.
Marketing creatively
Good marketing is about taking control. You need to have a positive approach and if you put effort into planning your marketing, then you will be rewarded in the long run.
Armed with a strong identity, core values and brand, the usual forms of marketing such as advertising, online marketing and promotional events can be powerful. However, there are plenty of often unexplored options that can really help to build your school’s reputation.
To start with, make sure you have strong consistent branding that helps to establish your identity and build loyalty. Find out which communication channels stakeholders prefer too; if you are putting all your messages on one unseen channel then it’s not worth doing - a multichannel approach is best. Having an easy to use website that engages parents as well as donors and future staff is also critical.
Engaging volunteers and alumni as well as investing in staff recruitment is important too. To be successful here, there are lots of useful things you can do including investing in ongoing training, and for new recruits, make applying for a job as simple as possible - at least in the shortlisting phase. You should also be promoting everything you are doing on your website, with key features of your school and space for prospective new recruits to register their interest.
Learning from the best - from charities to students
A key goal of marketing is to raise much needed funds. There is a natural synergy between marketing and fundraising and schools can learn a lot from watching how charities fundraise. If you’re good at promoting and broadcasting who you are and what you stand for, you are more likely to get supporters onboard.
Many schools engage people through events and grant funding but these can be hard work and unpredictable. There are other avenues that charities use well such as crowdfunding, video content, digitising funding and gift aid, targeting alumni, business sponsorship, lettings and faculty hire.
Furthermore, when it comes to fundraising, there is a distinct correlation between how involved your key stakeholders are and how much your school earns. Leaders, governors, parents and pupils are the perfect ambassadors for the school and can be invaluable in your success. If you work hard to get staff and children on board first, you really will reap the rewards and achieve the best outcomes for everyone.
To listen to Justin’s talk at this year’s Access All Areas, please visit the link below.
Or take a look at our school management software
