Download Building your school`s brand

Building your school’s brand:
Prioritising marketing activities
to achieve objectives
Justin Barlow
25 June 2013
Overview
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Introduction
Strategic marketing
Allocating budgets
Allocating responsibilities
Marketing thoughts and tips
Marketing myths
Bit about me
• BA (Hons) Business Studies and CIM Diploma in
Marketing
• 20 years’ commercial marketing experience at ICI
plc, Alto, Sage Plc and Muckle LLP
• 2008 – 2012: governor at an independent school
for 3-18 year olds. Ran marketing committee
• Actively involved in Muckle LLP’s Education Team
Strategic marketing
• Set the longer term direction, align activities and
prioritise your focus on the key areas
• How will the marketing strategy contribute
towards the school’s vision and targets?
• Is it addressing aspects of the Risk Register?
• Concentrate on what needs to be done but plan
how it will be done too?
• How will you reach all stakeholder groups?
• What are your core messages to different
stakeholders?
Overview
• Brand Strategy: defining a brand
• Definitions
• key elements of a brand
• brand review
• Brand Strategy: developing a brand
• things to consider
Brand Strategy:
Defining a Brand
Brand strategy
• You can’t have a brand strategy until you
understand your brand
• So what is a brand?
A range of definitions
• “A brand is a customer experience represented by a
collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol
such as a name, logo, slogan and design scheme”
• “The sum of all the characteristics, tangible and intangible,
that make the offer unique”
• “Both a physical and emotional trigger to create a
relationship between consumers and the product/service”
• “A name or symbol used to identify goods or services, and
to differentiate them from those of others. Branding
protects a seller's products against those marketed by
competitors and helps consumers identify the quality,
consistency and imagery of a preferred source”
Key elements of brands
• A mutually valuable relationship
• A strategically selected group of customers
• A compelling proposition
• Deliver consistently over time
Key elements of brands
Worry if more than 12% customers fall
outside their chosen market segments.
Evidence that their brand is being diluted
A brand has one strategic
purpose and that is to
differentiate itself from
competitors
Brand Strategy:
Developing a Brand
Brand strategy
• The strategy should be rooted in the brand's vision and
driven by the principles of differentiation and sustained
consumer appeal
• The brand strategy should influence the total operation
of a business to ensure consistent brand behaviours and
brand experiences
Developing a brand
• Delivering service brands (via humans)
compared with products brands (produced
from a manufacturer’s specification)
Issues are consistency of
quality and delivery
Developing a brand
• Marketing Services:
• branding people: diverse individuals working in a
consistent manner to portray the brand
• marketing the relationship:
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not an impulse decision
need to like the way you work
need confidence in your people
need to network with Board decision makers
long influencing cycle: needs consistency
Allocating budgets
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The 3% rule...
Short term and longer term priorities
The use of marketing agencies
Having realistic expectations
• recruitment of new students / parents takes time
• need to keep filling up the funnel
• Many activities cost nothing other than
people’s time
Allocating responsibilities
• Staff can be a great resource for certain areas
• Right people, right roles
• Communication and staff involvement
• Keep momentum
Thoughts and tips for marketing
the school
• Marketing agencies:
• when to consider using a marketing
agency?
• how are you selecting yours?
• VFM – pay on output! It’s a buyer’s market
Thoughts and tips for marketing
the school
• Website: your 24/7 prospectus:
• why you? Can visitors see why they should choose
your school?
• search engine optimisation is key
• your homepage is so important
• take control with your CMS
• use Google Analytics:
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number of visitors / most popular pages visited
average number of pages read per visit
average time on website
search engine terms used to find you
Where is Greenfield Community College?
• Social media – get involved or get lost:
• Twitter:
• 20% posting means 80% responding!
• that means a lot of replies and retweets
• you are all on Twitter even if you are not influencing
what is said.
• if you decide to do things, do them well
• www.bit.ly to minimise the number of characters a
link takes
• measure your exposure with www.tweetreach.com
compared to your competitors
Thoughts and tips for marketing
the school
• PR:
• you have stories everywhere!
• great way to reinforce your strengths and
differentiation – every story should address these
• good use of a marketing agency
• set target for stories published in the press
• online coverage is easier so no need for targets
• photos increase the likelihood of publication
• advertising influences PR coverage
Thoughts and tips for marketing
the school
• Enquiry management:
• you’ve done the hard work and prospective parents
are calling to visit the school – now what?
• maximise conversions from initial contact to students
joining your school:
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analyse! Record and measure drop off points and improve
what are the points of contact?
who manages such a critical area?
consider your “welcome cycle”
Thoughts and tips for marketing
the school
• Marketing is measureable
• Targets influence behaviour
• The more output focused your marketing is,
the better your return on investment will be
for money and time
Marketing myths
1. Branding is marketing
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Branding goes far beyond marketing
The brand is everything:
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marketing
culture
vision and values
teaching standards
students, etc, etc.
Marketing myths
2. Marketing is too expensive and we can’t
afford it
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decide what to do and do it well
creativity is memorable, rather than how much
you spend
3. Doing any marketing at all, is better than
doing nothing
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what a waste of money and time
Marketing myths
4. Schools don’t need marketing staff
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education is getting increasingly competitive
make marketing part of someone’s job
5. Teachers aren’t part of the marketing
process
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nonsense – they are your best / worst
promoters
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so are the office staff who answer the phone
some may need guidance and motivation
Marketing myths
6. This year’s marketing budget is for this year’s
results
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I wish! It can be a slow process with steady
improvements over time
Focusing on key times such as open days will
help, but only if everything else is in place
It’s about sustained contact with your target
audiences so they know what you stand for
It’s a multi-media world and building positive
perceptions and understanding takes time
Marketing myths
7. Marketing can’t be measured
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most can be measured if you focus on the output
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how do you know if adverts are working? Ask
people who attend e.g. open days
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what are your key objectives? Measure these
Marketing myths
8. The best schools will do better
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What is “best?”
Best for my child is not the best school. It goes
far beyond league tables
How are you different or what makes you stand
out? Focus and reinforce marketing messages to
‘own this space’ so the perception is that you are
the best at that and will deliver it in ways that
are the best for my child
Marketing is about creating a better perception
Marketing myths
9. Email marketing is no longer effective
because of spam
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Enewsletters to parents are important because
their children are precious
School emails are never spam. It’s relevant
communication
Keeping parents informed reinforces your brand
Do it regularly (weekly? monthly?) and include
both parents as a minimum
Marketing myths
10.Partnerships & alliances are for businesses
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Never been as important as it is now and this will
only increase
Effective partnerships will make schools better
Businesses are willing but few schools ask
Are alliances with feeder schools strong enough?
Play to other parties’ strengths to increase your
offering
We are pleased to help
• Muckle LLP’s Education Team works with
schools, academies, trusts and federations,
colleges and universities across the North East
• Heart of the Community Award winner 2013
• We will always provide initial legal advice to
schools for free
We are pleased to help
• Justin Barlow
Director of Business Development
[email protected]
Tel: 0191 211 7907