School Branding
What is your school culture like? How would your students describe it? What about your staff? How can you improve it? Here are some ideas!
Nationwide, schools in the United States have a public relations problem. It would seem they could fix these problems with some well managed strategic communications and marketing efforts, right? But, the problem goes deeper than that. It isn’t even entirely a perception problem; some of it is a reality. We must respond to these issues quite differently.
Don't give your power away by allowing others to define your school for you. Claim your school’s brand for future, current, and prospective students and faculty.
When many parents select a school for their child, they are selecting with their heart, not their mind. This is actually how we make most of our purchases as well. Branding is about winning the heart. It is an intangible. A feeling. An emotion.
The term “brand” is much more than a logo or school motto, and it encompasses much more than your school letterhead and newsletters. Your brand is an image that includes the ideals that you want to promote to your enrolled families, prospective families and visitors, and the community at large. A distinctive brand can be one of your school’s most valuable communication assets, especially in this time of school choice and open enrollment.
Vacant expressions, glazed eyes, confusion—these are all classic side effects of “jargon monoxide” poisoning.
As academics and education professionals, there are terms and phrases that you use on a daily basis to which you possess a much deeper understanding than others outside educational circles.
If we were to tell you just one thing that private schools do right that most public schools don’t bother to do, it would be to market their school’s differentiators. Maybe public schools see themselves as ubiquitous and feel they don’t offer anything different than every other public school in the country. However, I’m pretty sure that isn’t true.
In today’s highly-connected world, it is more important than ever to establish trust. One of the main contributors to trust is creating a culture of transparency. To most of us, being transparent means you’re hiding nothing. You’re letting others look through a window into your world, throwing the blinds wide open.
Foundations are essential for buildings, organizations, relationships, and yes, marketing plans.
As we make our resolution to market our school, the first step I suggest is aligning your school values to your school marketing agenda. Because this is such an essential marketing tip, I’d like to help you with this step. Let’s work together to lay the groundwork for marketing your school by defining your school values, mission, and stakeholders.
Telling school stories that inspire, excite, entertain, and encourage your school community is at the heart of successful school marketing and branding, and is critical to your school’s success.
In this blog, we’ll look at a scientific side of storytelling and explore how other school administrators across the county are implementing various storytelling tools.
There is so much involved in creating and maintaining an effective school website. And, to be fair, it is nearly impossible to expect your school staff to have the skill sets required to manage today’s website and social media without specialized training.
Right as I rang the bell, a concierge walked around the corner. The bell wasn’t a simple ding… It was a long, drawn out doorbell tune that played up a scale and then back down. I grimaced and looked at the concierge’s face to see if I had annoyed her by ringing the bell—I could just imagine how hearing that tune every day may grate on her nerves.
Can you believe it? She wasn’t even a little annoyed that I had rung that bell just as she appeared.
What do you REALLY need in a school website? This is actually a very important question. Different schools have different needs, so it is worth taking a few moments to think about your answer.
If we provided the following list to most other industries, it would be old news. I’m pretty sure the whole article would get a response like, “duh!” from their readers.
The blank canvas. The empty page. We want to fill print media with ink the same way we fill silence with words. It makes us uncomfortable, all that nothingness. If you are a customer, you feel cheated that you paid for, what exactly?
Managing your school website can be challenging. It isn’t enough to keep it current, informative, friendly, and positive. Handling your school website management incorrectly can land you with some expensive copyright infringement problems. Find out how to have a beautiful school website and out of image copyright trouble.
By understanding the reasons people talk and following these four simple rules to influence word-of-mouth marketing, you are well on your way to being the hot topic of conversation in your community.