10 Other Reasons Parents Are Choosing Your School

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Independent school marketing is in many ways a cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy. We promote schools based on certain attributes and then we research why parents have chosen our schools and remain satisfied with them based on those same attributes. That, in turn, provides the proof that we need to convince ourselves that we completely understand parents' decision-making. But, maybe it’s time to jump out of our comfort zone and look more deeply at parents’ motivation.

Let’s be more specific. If you were to scan the websites of any number of independent schools, you would find the following attributes that are being used to promote the school: 

• Academic excellence
• Character Development
• Whole Child Education
• Acquisition of skills for learning
• Being part of a community of students 

To measure their success in attracting and retaining families, schools then survey parents. That’s good. But here’s the self-fulfilling part. Survey questions are based on the promotional attributes above or some variation on them. For example, every parent satisfaction survey that I’ve seen asks respondents to rate the school based on something like this series of questions: 

• How satisfied are you with the quality of the academic program/the Math curriculum/the Language Arts program?
• To what extent do you feel your child is developing positive character traits? 

And surveys to new families will most often ask parents to rank the reasons they chose the school based on variations of the attributes above.

Then the survey data is collected and analyzed and guess what? Yup, now we have proof that the features we are using to promote the school are exactly the reasons that parents have chosen our school and the criteria they use in deciding whether to stay. And with great confidence, we can continue to market our schools the way we always have. Phew!

So how do we break the cycle? Two recent Harvard Business Review articles provide some guidance. The first – Creativity in Marketing – is based on discussions with leading marketers and provides some approaches that will definitely lead to new insights.

For example, what if we think about marketing with parents as opposed to marketing to parents? Strategic marketing is targeted. We talk about target audiences or target segments. Implicitly that means that we keep our distance, disseminating marketing messages, like arrows, toward the bulls-eyes we seek to influence. But parents aren’t sitting idly waiting for our cupid-like missives.  In fact, they are creating their own content in the lives they lead as reflected on social media. The imperative for independent school marketers is to remove the distance, have meaningful interactions with parents and make their stories and experiences the centerpiece of marketing efforts.  

The second article advocates a less empirical and more experiential way of interacting with customers – or, in our case, parents. By intuitively analyzing the customer experience, it’s possible to discover previously hidden motivation for buying a product or service. The authors characterize these motivators as “jobs to be done.”

With these two articles in mind, if we were to market with parents and really immerse ourselves in the parent experience, we may discover other attributes upon which parents are selecting independent schools and choosing to remain at them. Here are some of the “jobs to be done” that we might find: 

• Creating a sense of accomplishment or status for parents
• Building community and developing new friendships for parents
• Developing a more homogeneous social circle for children and parents
• Meeting the expectations of grandparents (parents’ parents) or other family members
• Providing a worry-free experience that relieves the stress of having to continuously monitor school progress and advocate for children
• Delivering convenience – in pick up/drop off and in scheduling of meetings, presentations and assemblies
• Providing seamless access to tutoring or other supports
• Communicating in ways that find the balance between providing “must-know” information and the validation of continuing to make the right choice

And, removing barriers to choosing independent schools, such as:

• Assuring parents that they will fit in with other families at the school
• Relieving a sense of guilt about their ability to afford higher tuition fees and separating themselves from peers (as may be the case with any luxury product) 

Implicitly, each school will have its own meaningful promotional attributes which doubles down on the need for marketers – and, I would argue heads of school and other key administrators - to immerse themselves in the parent experience.

Uncovering these real attributes at your school is way more than an exercise in marketing because each of them is an expression of need that must be supported. Being attuned to the parent experience requires action in programming and communication.

Lest anyone thinks I am disparaging the use of data, I offer these points. As is best practice in the use of qualitative and quantitative data, once you uncover new motivational criteria, you can – and should - use broad based surveys to determine the degree to which they are a factor for all parents. But perhaps more importantly, I am reminded of an amazing quote by author and speaker Brené Brown, who said, “stories are data with a soul.”

The bottom line is that as independent school marketers, we may be looking for love in all the wrong places and by being shoulder to shoulder with our parents, we may discover the true path to their hearts.

What do you think?

What are some of the other reasons that parents are choosing your school? What have you done to validate those reasons empirically? More importantly, what programs or communication have you put in place to support them?

7 paths to being a parent-centred school

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To distinguish themselves in a competitive marketplace, schools must become parent-centred.

These days, being a child-centred school doesn’t provide much competitive advantage. Child-centred approaches are clearly linked to educational success and have been woven into the practice of most schools. Frankly, being child-centred is a must-have that parents expect.

On the other hand, being parent-centred represents an opportunity to differentiate and create recruitment and retention success. The data from the business world on the benefits of improving customer experience is incontrovertibly positive. Focusing on the quality and the characteristics of the parent experience in your school has innumerable benefits including fostering more satisfied parents who are more enthusiastic ambassadors. So, how do you do that? Here are seven paths to being a parent-centred school.

1. Think like a customer. This is primarily about empathy. Put your self in the shoes of a parent and use all your senses. For example, when you walk into the office, what do you see and how are you greeted? Are you talking to parents in language that they can understand? Often, there is a tendency to use internal technical terms like, “you need to complete an RTC form.” Sometimes, it’s easy to fall into “edu-speak,” using terms like authentic learning and differentiation while a parent’s eyes glaze over.

No matter how hard you try, it can be difficult to look at your school with fresh eyes. In that case, borrow an idea that retailers use all the time and enlist mystery shoppers – or in this case, mystery parents. Have two or three people contact the school (using various means) and express interest in enrolling their children. Be sure they record details of all their interactions. Review their reports to see if the experience that’s being delivered is what you really want it to be.

2. Collaborate. Parents aren’t really at the centre of your enrolment and marketing efforts unless you seek their opinions and participation in meaningful ways. Considering a change to the daily schedule? You’d be wise to consult parents. Partnering with parents also means encouraging feedback and, of course, being willing to accept criticism.

3. Be Transparent. There is no point in trying to hide information from parents. If you’ve made an error, you have got to own it. Let parents know what happened and how you’re going to fix it. Schools can be notoriously secretive about how decisions are made – often because they don’t want them to be questioned. A great example of this is class placement. A common statement is something like, “we place students using our best judgment in optimizing their academic performance and social environment.” This is vague enough that parents don’t really have a basis for questioning a placement decision. Contrast that to listing the specific criteria on which placement decisions are made and being prepared to entertain discussions with parents based on those criteria. Being transparent doesn’t mean having to accede to every parent request. Many times, parents will tolerate a decision that doesn’t go their way as long as they feel like they’ve been heard.

4. Solve Problems. Effective problem resolution requires many elements. First, you need to encourage openness. If staff members feel that every reported error is just another step toward discipline and dismissal, you won’t know about most of what goes wrong with parents. Second, you need to know the root cause of problems and that, in turn, requires asking incessant whys. Why did the Smiths get the wrong letter? Why were they on the wrong list? Why were they tagged incorrectly in the database? Why did someone edit their profile? You get the picture. Resolving problems is only half the battle. The real prize is problem prevention and that will require lots of internal collaboration with staff members at all levels.

5. Consider First Impressions. This isn’t just about the first-time visitor to your school, although focusing on that is a pretty good idea. But this could also be the first experience that parents have with your school every morning. You know, the dreaded drop off line. (Here’s a hilarious rant about drop-off). This is a great opportunity to greet parents and reduce their anxiety. What about the first impression of parents coming to the school for parent teacher conferences? They are totally stressed at having to quickly navigate the school and find the appropriate rooms so that they can then spend six minutes and 28 seconds with a teacher before being rushed out. Some schools place student docents in front of each room who can tell parents whether the teacher is ahead of or behind schedule and can even disarm parents by having a conversation with them.

6. Prove You’re Listening. It’s not enough to tell parents that you care about their opinions. You have to put your money where your mouth is. Be prepared to make changes based on parent feedback. You can take that to another level by making proactive changes. For example, let’s say a parent reports that her child was dropped off at the wrong spot when taking the bus home. In addition to finding out what happened to that child, you should likely be investigating whether the same thing has happened to other children – even if those parents haven’t said anything. And, make sure you tell parents about the action you are taking in response to their concerns. As consumers we all know how gratifying it is to be told that changes have been made because we spoke up. Be sure to give yourself credit for listening – and acting.

7. Break Down Silos. Making your school more parent-centred can’t be done as a unilateral initiative of the admissions department. Or the marketing department. It’s going to take a multi-disciplinary approach that has the parent experience on the agenda of every department in the school – including faculty and lay leadership. You may want to share articles about parent/customer service or better yet, be sure to communicate parent experience successes. In all likelihood, it will require the active involvement of the head of school to make it happen.

Technology and demography (think millennials) have created conditions where word of mouth is the most powerful channel in marketing success. While educational success is the most potent subject of word of mouth, being a parent-centred school will create the motivation and impetus for positive ambassadorship that will in turn lead to gains in recruitment and retention.

A more detailed look at the Parent Experience is available in the e-book, "Tailoring the Parent Experience."

Why bother branding?

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Let’s face it. Branding projects are a pain in the butt. They’re time consuming, expensive, require intense introspection, demand the finesse of giving stakeholder groups just the right amount of voice, risk exposing deep divisions about foundational principles in your school and when complete, will create an avalanche of work in updating admissions, development and other messaging as well as websites and all kinds of communications and promotional material. And all of that is after the painstaking process of decision making that led to a branding project in the first place.

So, given all of that, why bother branding?

Your knee jerk response might be to point to the potential enrolment benefits of re-branding. And that wouldn’t be wrong. However the benefits of branding extend well beyond the admissions office and into every facet of a school’s operation. Branding can have broad, positive and even transformative impact on a school.

Before going further let’s make sure we have a common understanding of branding. A school’s brand reflects its essence. It communicates the experience of being part of the school community. A brand is a representation of the multi-faceted relationship that parents, students, teachers, staff and other groups groups have with your school. Branding is the process of articulating a school’s essential nature.

Based on that, here are some examples of the profound benefits that come from a successful branding project:

• Admissions efforts. Well understood branding gives focus to conversations with prospective parents. Without the clarity of good branding, admissions staff can grapple with what to say about a school and feel like they are constantly reinventing the wheel. Branding uncomplicates admissions efforts and makes it easier for prospective parents to decide if your school is right for their child and them.

• Ambassadorship. Having a clearer understanding of what makes a school unique will sharpen the conversations that ambassadors have and ensure that the prospective parents they refer are a better fit. 

• Parent experience. Current parents can be equal beneficiaries of clearer branding.  Tailor your parent experience to match the brand and at every interaction your parents will gain a deep understanding of what makes the school unique, have their choice of the school validated and be better ambassadors. 

• Customer service. Because the brand is all about the relationship that parents have with your school, more focused branding should make it easier to anticipate and satisfy the needs of parents. Great customer service is the foundation of positive word of mouth and intensifies the benefits of a strong brand. 

• Community. A brand can be a rallying point for a school, uniting parents, students, administrators, teachers and even trustees around a common quest or cause. When there is clarity about what a school is supposed to be, there can be greater purpose to living up to the brand. 

• Decision-making.  Whether it’s about curriculum, policy, staffing or facilities, branding brings a clearer common basis for decision making.  As Peter Gow says in an essential branding publication from NAIS, “Because it stems directly from experience, a school’s brand can be a reliable touchstone in the assessment of current programs as well as in future planning.”

• Business Operations. A school’s business office acts in support of the brand as much as any other department. Selecting and assessing suppliers, decisions about facilities and payment policies – just to name a few items – are all given greater focus by a strong brand. 

• Advancement. A well-articulated brand will be a boon to fundraising efforts. It sharpens the case for giving and brings clarity to solicitations and fundraising appeals because prospective donors are better able to understand what makes the school unique. Likewise, a strong brand can re-affirm the commitment of alumni, strengthening their ties to the school. 

• Staffing. The brand becomes an effective criterion in staffing decisions.  The degree to which prospective teachers and other staff members reflect the brand and are capable of furthering it are key hiring considerations. Conversely, a strong and clearly articulated brand makes a school more attractive to prospective faculty members and helps them decide whether they want to work there. 

• Classroom content. The head at a school that I worked with would regularly challenge faculty to consider how they would teach material differently if the school’s mission changed. Similarly a school’s brand can inform decisions about the way curriculum is delivered, integrating subject matter and making the brand deeply experiential to students. 

• Inspiration. The best brands are aspirational. They provide a higher purpose to everything that is done within a school. They make the collective goal clearer. They challenge and, in that way, unite a school community. A vibrant brand will inspire a school to reach higher, achieve more and serve its community better.

All of these factors can also provide a meaningful gauge of your current branding. If it’s not delivering enough of the benefits above, it needs your attention. It may just be that the brand is not being communicated well or it could be time to go back to the drawing board.

The next time you are considering whether to “bother” with a branding project make sure it’s as 360 degree decision and take all the factors above – and more – into consideration.

What do you think?

What’s been the breadth of your school’s experience with branding? What other aspects of school life and operation does branding touch? How do you decide whether it’s time to re-brand?

Heads of school are the key to marketing success

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More than ever before, it is critical that heads of school become integrally involved with marketing.

Why now, you ask? Because marketing has morphed from being a fixed set of activities that emanates from a particular office to something that now touches every department in a school.

When parents register their children at your school, they are buying way more than an education. What was once a product has become an experience. And parents – as customers – now see their relationship with a school through the lens of that experience. A whole new imperative for school marketing has been established.

This is what the people at McKinsey have to say in a brilliant article called We’re all Marketers Now.

In today’s marketing environment, companies will be better off if they stop viewing customer engagement as a series of discrete interactions and instead think about it as customers do: a set of related interactions that, added together, make up the customer experience.

So, every interaction a parent has contributes to the quality of her overall experience with your school. The implications of that are far-reaching. As McKinsey puts it, “To engage customers whenever and wherever they interact with a company … marketing must pervade the entire organization.”

Putting that into practice, marketing has to be part of every department’s plans and the way that every staff person conducts himself. Interactions with the front office, teachers, educational leaders, the business office – even custodians – all contribute to the parent experience. Everyone now has some responsibility for marketing.

Now we get to the hard part. How exactly will the marketing department extend its influence and provide direction and support throughout the whole organization? And as the McKinsey article asks, “ … if everyone’s responsible for marketing, who’s accountable?"

Realistically this is not something that school admissions or marketing professionals are going to be able to deal with on their own. Even directors of enrolment management or advancement don’t have the implicit authority to put marketing on every department’s agenda and demand accountability. You don’t have to be a clairvoyant, to see, as McKinsey does, that, “Behind the scenes, that new reality creates a need for coordination and conflict resolution mechanisms within and across functions ...”

Enter heads of school. It is only with their involvement, influence and authority as well as their knowledge, experience and judgment that a positive and pervasive parent experience can be established.

Want to understand why that’s true? Who else can persuasively speak to faculty about the ways in which they can meaningfully contribute to the parent experience? Who is going to have the conversation with the people in the business office about ensuring positive interactions with parents?

How else can we ensure that the people who guide parents into a school – the admissions department - remain part of the parent experience and, in that way, contribute to retention success? And finally, who will speak with trustees and lay people about the ways in which their actions contribute to the parent experience and positive enrolment results?

Only heads of school have the reach and the credibility to raise the prominence of marketing and the parent experience. It is only heads of school that can demand marketing accountability from every department and every staff person.

I understand that the last thing that heads need is more on their management plate. Ultimately, this may be a responsibility that can be jointly assumed by heads and trustees or perhaps the appropriate authority can be conveyed to someone else in the organization. However, it seems inescapable to me that the head will have to maintain some increased involvement in marketing.

In the past year as I have spoken at admissions conferences about independent school marketing, I inevitably have encountered professionals who are confounded by how they are going to affect the necessary formidable change in their schools. As incredibly competent and well meaning as they are, the answer is that marketing’s effect on enrollment (and other) results will only be fully realized with the involvement of heads of school.

What do you think?

Am I wrong? Can this kind of change happen without the increased involvement of heads? Have you had some relevant, noteworthy experiences. I’d love to hear from you.

Let's hear those amazing independent school customer service stories

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I’m betting that there are some independent schools that have “knock your socks off” customer service stories.

Exceptional customer service is increasingly becoming the most effective way for companies and organizations to differentiate themselves from their competition. Even so, there are some customer service stories that stand out as being truly remarkable. As an example, you can read this story of how someone from the Morton’s Steakhouse in Hackensack NJ personally delivered a meal 24 miles away at Newark Airport. Not surprisingly, social media channels lit up with this story being told and retold.

The potential for outstanding customer service to impact on organizational results is the reason that this past fall representatives of a number of colleges and universities attended a three-day conference with representatives of Ritz Carlton, Disney, Kimberly- Clark and Southwest Airlines.

Increasingly delivering outstanding customer service is becoming a necessity for independent schools. That’s why I’m currently working on a number of publications and presentations detailing the benefits to independent schools of focusing on the customer experience.

But I would also bet that there are dozens of great independent school customer service stories – occasions when a teacher, administrator or someone in the business office went absolutely above and beyond to solve a parent’s or a student’s problem. And I’d love to hear about them. If you have an amazing story that you would like to have retold, you can include it as a comment below or email me directly.

I’m looking forward to being blown away by your stories.

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.