How are you unboxing your school?

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You may never have heard of it, but "unboxing" is not only all over YouTube, it may be a great way of achieving marketing success at your independent school.

There’s a video on YouTube that shows a pair of hands unpacking five cartoon branded plastic eggs each with a toy surprise inside. No big deal. There are billions of videos on You Tube. But get this. This video has over 93 million views. Now that’s a big deal.

It’s all part of a phenomenon called “unboxing” that I recently discovered after listening to an interview with Mireille Silcoff who wrote an article about it for the New York Times. There are thousands of unboxing videos on YouTube. You can watch people unpacking everything from high tech gadgets to cosmetics to toys. Wikipedia even has an entry for unboxing.

What’s going on here? Why would millions of people watch someone else unpack something?

The process of unpacking something you have just bought is a very visceral experience.  It’s pure emotion – excitement, expectation, pride of ownership. There is great anticipation. That first look at or feel of whatever is in the box can be a “oh wow!” kind of moment. And it’s so powerful that people love to watch other people unpack things. Think about birthdays or Christmas and watching someone unwrap a gift. There aren’t many other events that can provide such vicarious enjoyment.

From a marketing perspective, it’s one more reminder that sales is a transfer of emotion and that people don’t just want to buy a product – they want to have an experience. The best marketers meticulously consider those first moments that a customer spends with a product to ensure that the unboxing experience is not only fantastic but is consistent with the overall brand experience of the company.

So, here’s the question. Can the unboxing experience be replicated in independent schools? Are there interaction points and special moments or milestones that can effectively be unboxed?

Here’s one. When a student is accepted, the package that is sent to parents is an obvious unboxing opportunity. What does the envelope look like? Does it have to be an envelope? What’s the first thing that is visible when the package is opened and how does that shape the experience you are trying to create? Does it create a sense of excitement, pride and maybe even accomplishment? Is there something in the package for the student? Perhaps there should be a separate student package. If you don’t have a formal acceptance package, maybe you should create one just for the purpose of creating an experience. If your acceptance process is finalized online, there are ways of creating a web-based or email based unboxing experience. Acceptance is a key moment in the sales process. You want to completely validate the choice that parents have made and align it with your school’s brand.

Another possibility. A child’s first day of school is a watershed moment for parents. Tapping into that emotion and making it an essential part of their experience with their new school can be very powerful. How can you unbox that experience? Perhaps parents with first-time school goers can receive a kit in advance with helpful information and useful things like labels or tags as well as something for kids like stickers. Maybe it comes in a box or a special folder that identifies it as something the school has specially created for first-time school parents.

Here’s a related possibility. Every moment of a child’s first day of school is a real-time unboxing experience filled with awe and wonder. What if you use video to capture some of those moments and send it to parents. I saw a news segment the other day about a parent that had strapped a GoPro camera to her child’s chest so that she could experience her daughter’s first day of school. It’s a little extreme but there’s no question that it reflects one parent’s desire to vicariously be part of her child’s first-day unboxing experience.

Once you get comfortable with the premise, I’ll bet there are dozens of unboxing experiences that you can create in your schools – from things as momentous as grade 1 graduation to those as mundane as tuition packages.

The key is to always think about parents as customers and look for the ways in which you can create validating experiences that reinforce your school’s brand. 

What do you think?

Is it possible to create unboxing experiences? Have you created unboxing experiences in your school? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Branding gaps and 6 ways to bridge them

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Branding gaps are the most likely source of declining enrolment in an independent school. But where do you find them and what do you do about them?

First, some ground rules. For the purpose of this discussion I am using Seth Godin’s definition of a brand: “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” So, you can see that a brand is infinitely more than logo, tagline and ad copy.

Now, to define branding gaps we need to accept that organizations effectively have two brands. One is the promised brand – the one that marketing, communication, mission and other efforts have been designed to convey. The other is the delivered brand. This is the one you find out about when you survey stakeholders and ask them to characterize their experience with and perceptions of your school. In organizations that really have their branding act together (think Apple, Whole Foods), the two are aligned. In most organizations, there are going to be differences between the promised brand and the delivered brand and those differences are the branding gaps.

There are many sources of branding gaps. Most of them can and should be considered proactively. Here are some ideas for where those gaps maybe lurking in your school and what to do about them.

Teachers – There is no one more important to delivering your school’s brand than teachers. For most families, they are the most common point of communication. It’s critical that teachers know and understand the school’s brand. Clearly it should be reflected in all their communication with students and parents and that includes classroom websites and email blasts. I would contend that the brand should also be evident in the classroom. I know a Head of School that challenges teachers to consider the changes they would make to classroom content if the mission of the school changed. If mission and curriculum are married, then brand must also be part of the educational product.

Everyday Communication – Parents are recipients of what sometimes seems like an endless stream of communication from the school. While this often deals with day-to-day issues like early closings, lunch programs and upcoming events, there’s no reason that it shouldn’t reflect the school’s brand. The danger is that much of this type of communication is often written hastily by people other than marketing and communications staff. There are a number of solutions. Many of these communications can be anticipated and templates can be prepared in advance. Everyone in the organization should be brand-trained and understand how that affects even the most mundane messaging. Finally, a review system that gives the communications staff the final say could help maintain the brand.

Office staff – We all know the adage about having one chance to make a first impression and office staff are the front line of most interaction with stakeholders – whether in person, by phone or by email. Like everyone else, they need to understand the school’s brand promise but more importantly they need to know how to incorporate that into daily activity. Front-line staff in a school that emphasizes inclusivity and diversity should communicate differently than those in an elite IB school.

Board members – Lay people are often represent the greatest brand challenge. Their implicit contract with the school is not employment based and requires more refined management measures. Yet they wield tremendous influence –within the school community and the community at large. Brand training for board members is essential. What’s more is that lay people are often not aware of the ways in which they subtly make brand impressions in their everyday conversation.

Mission/Marketing Misalignment – Finally, it’s possible that everyone in the organization is delivering the brand experience dictated by its mission or even brand strategy and the real problem is that marketing efforts have missed the mark. What’s being promised isn’t what’s being delivered. Assuming that most people are satisfied with their interaction with the organization, the fix is to re-tool the marketing effort.

The real solution is the 3 M’s - You can only fix branding gaps that you are aware of. The key to brand management is to measure, monitor and modify. You have to survey stakeholders on a regular basis to determine if you are delivering your intended brand. Likewise, it’s critical to be monitoring social media including the parking lot that, in a school, is often the most potent social media channel. Final, you have to be prepared to act based on what you discover.

Branding gaps can undo the most masterful marketing efforts and create enrolment crises. Knowing how to find them – and bridge them – will undoubtedly improve results.

What do you think? What branding gaps have you uncovered in your organization and what are you doing about them?

Walking the Mission Talk

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Is your organization’s mission something you talk about or something you do? I think that was the essence of a recent brilliant blog post by Harvard Business Review blogger and author Dan Pallotta. And I believe the answer to the question is fundamental to the success of your fundraising marketing program.

Through a number of examples and quotes, Dan establishes that organizations must not only have a mission; they have to be on a mission. Organizations much have a deep sense of purpose. While Dan’s post is great guidance for those setting organizational priorities, there is a clear (but unspoken) message for those involved in fundraising.

Commenters to the blog post pointed out the undeniable necessity of mission statements. But any of us that have had to craft a mission statement know that the related negotiation, compromise and intense wordsmithing can lead to that which is meaningless to anyone outside of the innermost circle of the organization. The cartoon above from Tom Fishburne and Marketoonist.com makes the point perfectly. What’s worse is that sometimes fundraising asks and associated collateral get gummed up by these mission-based mantras. We end up talking about what we stand for and not what we do.

Donors on the other hand are increasingly concerned about what results will be achieved with the funds they provide. To be successful, solicitations must speak to those concerns. While this may sound ridiculously obvious, I challenge you to review the copy on your website and in your last direct mail campaign and see whether it meets the “on a mission” test. Does it convey a clear purpose? Do you explicitly and unequivocally tell donors what you will do with their money? Even better, is there a way that you can be accountable to your donors? Is there an objective measure of whether funds raised are achieving the intended goals? Is all of this stated simply and directly? My guess is that the answer to every question will not be yes.

I understand that presenting what an organization does in the absence of what it stands for can be equally ineffective. There clearly has to be some balance. In addition, the reality is that marketing material also has to satisfy the needs (and sometimes demands) of those on the inside of the organization.

It's a fine line but Dan’s thoughts clearly provide a great rubric from which to evaluate our marketing material and to decide whether it walks the talk.