Online Articles
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The following articles are concise and practical and full of real-life examples to illustrate marketing principles. They are downloadable as pdf documents, free of charge.
NEW *** Marketing To International Students
International students add global diversity to a school. They also inject funds. Marketing to overseas markets and maintaining the satisfaction of international students requires specific strategies. Prince Alfred College in Adelaide is a case study of a school that is doing it successfully.
Prize Prospectuses & Winning Websites
The CMS School Marketing Awards™ applaud quality promotional prospectuses and websites. This article provides a summary of the judges’ comments and looks at the judging process and the criteria used in this worldwide competition.
Finding Time For Professional Development
If you are thinking of a pay increase, professional improvement or career advancement, experience is important, but you also need to to upgrade your qualifications. Finding time for study can be an obstacle to professional development. The article provides 10 strategies to manage your time so you can earn a new credential, and 10 traps to avoid.
Internal Marketing
As the marketing manager, you may be the face of your school, but the staff are its ambassadors. According to research undertaken by the Centre for Marketing Schools, staff at all levels do not feel well-equipped to take on this role and promote their schools. Internal Marketing is needed.
Measuring Customer Satisfaction
What are your students and parents saying about your school? How do you find out? Is the "word of mouth" discussion about your school better or worse than it was last year, and how does it compare with other schools? A good customer survey can answer all these questions and more. This file contains the powerpoint slides that supported the talk "Measuring Satisfaction - Turning Raw Data into Valuable Intelligence" given at the 2009 Aforia in Adelaide.
Roles and Remuneration of the School Marketer
CMS is constantly tracking the school marketing profession. This presentation of 7 slides show the career experience of school marketers, their ages, responsibilities, remuneration and obstacles to marketing. It gives 6 steps for career progression.
Alumni as Advocates
Your school makes an enormous investment in its students and your alumni
represent your finished product. They should be there for all to see; they should be working in the community as your best
advertisements and strongest supporters. But all too often your hard-won customers walk away from their graduation ceremony
and are never seen or heard from again. If this happens at your school you are loosing contact with your most genuine and
powerful advocates.
Becoming a Home-Based Consultant
Retiring, exhausted and unappreciated educators are forming a growing band of people who are refocusing their careers and looking for alternatives. With a wealth of knowledge and years of experience they are not yet ready to quit the workforce. A home-based consultancy may be the answer, but you need to learn how to market yourself.
Centenary Celebrations
An anniversary celebration offers great potential as a PR event.
This article discusses 12 marketing points to consider.
Creativity - And how to get it
Creativity ranks with communication as one of the most important skills for successfully promoting your school, so how can you become more creative?
Customer Relations Training
for NON-Teaching Staff
Good manners is an old fashioned word, yet it is a highly desired form of
behaviour that adds to a school’s culture of courtesy. To make sure that positive
PR greets people at your school,
you need to provide professional development in customer relations for non-teaching staff.
This article examines three
training models.
EMAIL: The Illusion of Intimacy
The rapid explosion of email communication between schools and their customers offers many benefits,
but there are also hidden risks and a need for PR protocols for both staff and parents.
Expos and Education Shows - Making
An Expo Pay!
Expos provide fertile ground for enrolments but not every
expo is successful and not every
investment provides an immediate return. This article warns
of the pitfalls and gives advice on creating a distinctive
identity, devising a simple system to collect contacts,
promotional giveaways and the preparation of
staff.
Heritage Connections
Whether your school is 10 years old or 100 plus, it’s never too soon to start preserving the wealth of historical records that define the school’s character and traditions. This can be a valuable resource for marketing and development to maintain community connections. The article shows how two schools are managing their historical treasures using a band of volunteers.
How Customer-Friendly Is Your School?
Check out the ABC of customer
service at your school and take a look at what your silent
communicators are saying about you.
Look at your schools LOGO
Schools are full of empty logos. Lifeless crests. Soul-less brands.
Look around you.
What is the quality of your logo/crest? How can you make your logo work for your
school as a modern marketing tool?
Market Differentiation : Being Distinctly Different
Each school has its own personality but often the public is unaware of how one school differs from another. Market differentiation is a strategy that can distinguish your school in the marketplace and make it more desirable. The concept is illustrated with a case study .
Market Position
What position does your school hold in the marketplace? . . . Stop . . . This question does not ask where you see yourself; rather it is asking how other people see you. This article explores how one school gauged its market position and subsequently changed its marketing strategy.
Marketing in Hard Times
In a depressed economy, enrolments shrink, sponsorship dries up, philanthropy suffers, donations become scarce and budgets are pruned. This article looks at the innovative strategies employed by schools to cope in hard times.
Media Management During a School Crisis
Accidents, criticism and sensational allegations are likely to hit a school at any time. How you handle the media during a crisis can make a huge difference to the reputation of your school.
Money For Marketing
How much money are schools spending on marketing and PR? How much
is enough?
Learn how to prepare a marketing budget, and how to get more money to achieve
your marketing goals.
OPEN DAYS: Converting Enquiries Into Enrolments
Open Days are labour intensive and expensive to stage. For a return on your
investment it should be much more than a showcase of your pupil’s best efforts.
If well designed and targeted to the
right audience an Open Day can be a valuable marketing exercise to increase enrolments
and strengthen your school’s
position in the education marketplace.
PR At The Parent -
Teacher Meeting
The parent /teacher meeting is a first-class opportunity for teachers to promote their profession and impress parents -
their most valuable customers. To get the best out of the occasion teachers need PR strategies, in addition to educational skills.
PR for Office Staff
Office staff are the interface between the school and its customers. They are important at influencing impressions. Who are
your customers? What do they want from your school? How do parents judge office staff? What are the obstacles to good customer service? How
can the telephone be used as a public relations tool?
PR For Student Hosts
Students can make excellent hosts and guides at school functions but if you are going
to use them as image ambassadors you need to train them in the social arts.
Principal's Appraisal
While some school principals may feel threatened when required to undergo
the rigours of a performance
appraisal, the process can be be most most beneficial to a school leader.
Rule of Three (3)
The human brain can remember three things easily, so no matter what you are tying to sell, if you want to get a message across the best way to deliver it is in a run of three. This article illustrates how the rule of three can be applied to school marketing.
Satisfaction Survey - Kindergarten
Kindergarten is the starting point for a long and happy relationship with your school; or so you hope ! When a primary school conducted a kindergarten survey to measure parent satisfaction it unearthed a few surprises.
Satisfaction Survey - Year 12
Final year students are your finished product - fully processed and lovingly polished. Do you know how satisfied they are with their education at your school? This article shows how one school measured Year 12 satisfaction and how it used the information.
School Tours
The School Tour ranks with the front office in establishing the image of your school. It must project warmth, care and professionalism. The preparation for tours must be as thorough as that undertaken by an actor taking to the stage; lines should be learnt,
the cast ready and props in place. An article by Linda Vining, Rob Olston and Marcia Matthews.
Training Teachers in Customer Relations
Training teachers in customer relations is unlike any other professional development: the mere suggestion is likely to generate a high level of resistance that needs to be addressed before any meaningful instruction can take place. Some teachers fear that customer service is an invitation for parents to rule. It is not. Customer service does not mean being subservient, however, it does mean that teachers learn techniques for positive communication, to listen in new ways, identify needs, use a conflict model for handling complaints and accept criticism without becoming defensive.
Working With Parent
Volunteers In Schools
Who coaches the team? Who runs the BBQ? Who serves on the canteen? Thank heavens for volunteers.
They contribute endless hours in unpaid work. But, to keep a team of volunteers returning by choice
is not done by chance.
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